Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book

by Ally Carter

  DEAR JACKIE HORNBERGER, THE COPY EDITOR OF THIS BOOK,

  Would you like to add something about how you see your role?

  As the copy editor, I read the manuscript only in its near-final state, so I may find inconsistencies “held over” from previous drafts and edits. I look out for typos and grammar issues, and a whole bunch of other things: I check to make sure the timeline of the story works (within the story, as well as with any real-life events mentioned), details about characters are consistent, and details within the series are consistent. I also confirm the spellings of the names of real-life people and places, and fact-check specific details mentioned. (And I’m the kind of person who thinks that’s a lot of fun!) I also look out for any sensitivity issues. I see myself as a “neutral third party” who should ask any questions remaining to be asked.

  DEAR DAVID LEVITHAN,

  So, from a publisher’s point of view, how long does it take to make a book?

  If we’re talking a novel (and not a picture book or a graphic novel), an editor likes to get a book about a year and a half before publication date. This gives about four months for editing and polishing the first draft. The book is usually due into copyediting roughly fourteen months before the publication date. Copyediting takes a month, then the page proofs and various proofreads will take another two to three months, which is also when the cover comes together. If all goes according to schedule, the author’s work will be done about seven months before the book is actually published.

  Why does it take so long?!

  The reason we have to get everything ready so early is that the sales reps—the people who sell our books to bookstores, who in turn sell them to you—have to present the books to the stores about six months ahead of time (sometimes as much as nine months ahead of time, for big books). We will create advance reader’s copies of books for booksellers, for conventions, for librarians, and for the media, to build the buzz and convince people to bring the book into their stores and libraries. Which is why we need the book to be done so far in advance of when we actually print the book. A book is actually printed and bound about two months before its pub date; if we didn’t want so many people to read it ahead of time, we could print them much faster!

  Assuming you would like to traditionally publish your book and have it in bookstores across the country, then, yes, you’re going to need an agent. With very few exceptions, most major publishers don’t read unsolicited manuscripts (or the “slush pile”). But they will read things sent to them by agents. So you’re going to need one for this (and so, so, so, so, so much more)!

  In addition to helping your book find a publishing home, agents really are an author’s champion. They’re the ones who go to bat for you when a cover just isn’t working or when you don’t think your publication date should be moved. They negotiate your contracts so that you don’t unintentionally end up selling the rights to your soul as well as your book. They’ll keep track of the money that your publisher(s) owe you, and if a check’s late, they’ll get on the phone and make that problem disappear.

  Simply put, your agent is your advocate. And bad cop.

  They work on commission (typically 15% for US publishing rights. Foreign rights and film rights will be slightly different), so if you don’t get paid, neither do they.

  A lot of people might look at that 15% and ask why you should give some stranger 15% of your hard-earned money. Well, I’d rather have 85% of a big pie than 100% of a small one. But it’s more than that: My agent makes my career better. Which, in turn, makes my life better. And easier. And more sustainable in the long haul.

  Trust me, when you get an agent, that 15% commission will be the best money you ever spent.

  DEAR JULIE MURPHY,

  Did you find your agent right away?

  The first book I queried received over one hundred rejections. My second book (and the first one I published) only received three or four, I think, but I was much more strategic and thoughtful about who I queried.

  The first agent I ever spoke to was my agent when she called one day to offer me representation. And I am very much not alone. In fact, most people don’t know any agents when starting out in this business. And the good news is that agents know that, and so most of them (the ones who are looking for new clients) have a system in place that lets them hear from aspiring authors every day.

  Here’s what you do:

  1. RESEARCH.

  Seriously. The most important part of this might be research. Because you want to query agents who are:

  a. looking for new clients.

  b. looking for clients like you.

  This is so incredibly key. You can have the best book in the world, but if you query an agent who hasn’t signed a new client in five years and never intends to sign one again … well, you’re probably going to get rejected. If you’ve written an amazing mystery but you send it to an agent who represents only romance, you’re probably going to get rejected.

  So how do you know which agents to query? Here are a few ideas. You may very well need all of them:

  —Look at the authors who are writing books like the one you’ve written. Go to their websites, look at the acknowledgment pages of their books. You can probably find out who their agents are somewhere if you try hard enough. Then go to those agents’ websites and find out if they’re accepting queries.

  —Every year, there are thousands upon thousands of people trying to find an agent. (My agent, Kristin Nelson, gets at least thirty thousand queries every year.) Which is a bad thing because it means you can get lost in the crowd. (Last year, out of those thirty thousand queries, Kristin signed three new clients.)

  But it’s also a good thing because there are a ton of resources available online to help you do your research.

  PublishersMarketplace.com has a free weekly newsletter that gives a rundown of the big publishing deals that were announced that week, so you can keep track of which agents are selling what types of books.

  QueryTracker.net is a free website you can join that lets you search agents and see where other aspiring authors are submitting (and what kind of luck they’re having).

  ManuscriptWishList.com has lots of information about what agents wish they had in their inboxes, as well as a searchable agent database.

  SCBWI.org is the homepage for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, an organization centered around helping authors and illustrators improve their craft and better navigate their industry.

  —Look up agents and follow them on social media. Now, I’m not saying query them on social media. I’m saying follow them. You can get a sense of who they’re representing and what they’re selling, what their personalities are like and if you think you’d get along.

  Plus, nobody knows more about pitching to agents than agents themselves. Some agents don’t have much of an online presence at all, but some really enjoy the networking and educational aspects of their jobs, so they have a ton of blog posts and articles, newsletters and tweets that help inform potential clients about their likes and dislikes.

  2. LOOK OUT FOR SCAMS.

  Sadly, any time you have a huge number of people trying to follow their dreams, there will be people who want to take advantage of them. The publishing world is no different.

  So the bad news is that there are a lot of “scam” agents.

  The good news is that they’re pretty easy to spot.

  Here’s the thing: NO REPUTABLE AGENT WILL EVER ASK YOU FOR MONEY.

  No. Not ever. Never. Not once.

  Agents work on commission, so they only get paid when you get paid. If they’re asking for a fee—even if it’s a “reading fee” or a “consulting charge” or any type of money at all—that’s a huge red flag. Run, don’t walk, in the other direction.

  You’ll also want to go to any possible agent’s website and look to make sure they’re selling real books to real publishers. If you can’t find their clients’ books in any bookstore, then that’s another re
d flag.

  If you can’t find mention of any deals that they’ve done, then that’s a red flag, too.

  There are also some websites that track these “scam” agents, and I’d recommend you check out places like WriterBeware.com or the “Beware” section of AbsoluteWrite.com.

  Do your due diligence because this is your book. Your life. Your future. It’s up to you to make sure you’re in business with the best people possible.

  3. WRITE AN AMAZING QUERY LETTER.

  Most agents are going to require some kind of letter (or email) from you. Which only makes sense. They need to know who you are and what you’ve written.

  They’re also going to need to know your book’s genre, its word count, and why you chose that agent to query out of the hundreds of agents out there. And most importantly, they’re going to need to know a little bit about your book.

  “Why do I need to tell them about my book? Why can’t they just read it?”

  “If I could tell my story in a paragraph, I wouldn’t have written a whole book!”

  “I can’t wait to get an agent so that I never have to summarize my book in three sentences ever again!”

  Those are just some of the things that aspiring authors say about this portion of a query letter. I probably said them myself.

  But not a day goes by that I don’t have to summarize my books in a sentence or two. Trust me, this is a skill you’re going to need for the rest of your career, so I’d highly recommend you work on getting good at it.

  Query letters are very important. They need to be professional (but not pretentious), clear (but not boring), clever (but not “cute”). They are the first thing of yours that an agent will read, so show them that you’re ready and you’ve done your homework and you’re someone they should consider going into business with.

  But don’t take my word for it. There are about a billion articles on this topic online. The problem won’t be finding information. The problem will be finding too much information. Seriously. People have been posting and blogging and talking about this for decades. So do even more research and try to put your best foot forward!

  4. QUERY

  So you have your list of reputable agents? You know who you’d love to work with? You know that they’re taking clients and what their query procedures are?

  Good!

  You’ve got a clear, concise, and interesting query letter?

  Yay! You’re ready!

  Now you’ve got to go through your list of potential agents and follow their query instructions exactly! And I do mean exactly.

  If they ask you to email them a one-page cover letter about your background and a ten-page synopsis of your book, then that’s what you do.

  If they ask for a cover letter and the first twenty-five pages of your manuscript, you send them that.

  If they say they will accept only electronic or online submissions, then do not FedEx them your entire manuscript printed out on hot-pink paper so it will stand out.

  Don’t hire a singing telegram person to rap your prologue while standing in the foyer of their office.

  Don’t send cookies with your manuscript because they’re just going to throw those cookies in the trash because you’re someone who can’t follow directions (and might want to poison them).

  Again, my agent gets thirty thousand queries every year.

  Last year, she signed three new clients.

  The first cut will always be people who can’t (or just refused to) follow directions. Don’t be in the first cut.

  5. REJECT. REVISE. REPEAT.

  In a way, querying agents is like going on blind dates. They’re not all going to be love at first sight.

  So keep at it and don’t give up. If you’re not getting any nibbles at all, maybe revise your cover letter or your synopsis or your pitch? Maybe look at querying different agents?

  But most of all, you should be working on a new book! I’ve met a lot of aspiring authors who have literally been revising the same novel for twenty years, thinking this will be the year an agent wants it.

  That always makes me sad. Don’t put all your eggs in one manuscript. Not when the vast majority of writers get better with every thing they write!

  DEAR KRISTIN NELSON,

  Do you really find authors in the slush pile?

  Yes, I do find terrific authors in my slush pile—including you, Ms. Ally! If memory serves (we’ve been working together for so long), you originally sent me a query letter, and I signed you based on the strength of your writing. That’s also how I connected with Scott Reintgen, Stacey Lee, and quite a few other authors on my roster.

  What is the biggest tip you’d give teens who might want to query an agent?

  Do not mention your age until an agent offers representation. This is a business, and you are a professional writer looking for an agent, so initially your age doesn’t matter. But once an agent has expressed interest, you must disclose if you are under eighteen because a parent or legal guardian must be on the phone with you. Also, never use your teen status as an excuse for lack of experience, either in writing or industry savvy. I shouldn’t be able to tell by reading your query letter that you are a teen writer! However, when a young writer does mention in their query that they are a teen, if the query is well written and professional and the story hook is interesting and unique, then we treat that query like any other.

  What is the biggest mistake people make when they query?

  The biggest query mistake is not nailing your story pitch. Your ability to write an excellent query letter (75 to 80 percent of which is your story pitch) is your opportunity to show a literary agent that you are ready to be taken seriously as an author. Good writers write awesome query letters. By the way, good writers often get help, feedback, and critiques for their query letters before sending them to an agent. This is all legit. No one says you have to do it all on your own.

  I’ve met many teen writers at writers’ conferences, and the savvy ones approach their writing as a profession. They dress in business-casual clothing, they approach agents with professionalism, and they network with other writers. It’s so awesome to see. Often a parent or guardian also attends the conference, but they don’t participate in agent pitch meetings. These teens fly solo, and they never fail to impress me.

  DEAR JAY COLES,

  How did you find (and get) your agent? Were there any resources that were particularly useful in the search?

  I got my agent the old-fashioned way. Querying. I followed my agent on Twitter for a while and really had an interest in working with her because (a) she was at a really distinguished literary agency and (b) her client list was very impressive. I sent my agent a manuscript and she liked it. Before she had the chance to offer, I had sent her another manuscript that would become my debut (Tyler Johnson Was Here). She liked that one even more and saw potential in me, so she offered really quickly. Throughout the whole process, QueryTracker was a resource I kept going back to.

  Good question!

  You definitely don’t want to query every agent in the world your first time out. I think I started with twenty.

  And then I got twenty rejections.

  And then I sent number twenty-one to Kristin, who has now been my agent for fifteen years.

  Twenty-one queries might sound like a lot, but it isn’t. I was really lucky. I know authors who queried hundreds of agents over the course of several years (and with several different books), so keep at it! Keep writing! And never give up!

  Do you know how much formal writing training I’d had when I signed with my agent? None. I had literally never taken a writing class.

  Do you know how many awards I’d won? One. It was the Best First Pages of a Novel award given by the Kansas Writers Association. It cost about fifteen dollars to enter, and it was open to anyone in the state.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure a lot of agents would really perk up if they got a query from a writer who has graduated from a fancy master’s of fine arts degr
ee program and has won lots of awards.

  But those things aren’t necessary.

  Not even a little bit.

  Especially if you’re writing genre (as opposed to literary) fiction.

  What you have to have is a great book, a polished and professional cover letter, and a list of agents who are actively acquiring books like the one you’ve written.

  Oh, and patience.

  You’re going to need a lot of patience.

  Pseudonyms (or “pen names”) are not all that common. But they’re definitely not uncommon either! And there are definitely good reasons why they’re used from time to time.

  First of all, it’s important to understand that, for writers, our name is our brand.

  For example, if you pick up a book by Holly Black, you’re going to expect a book with some sort of fantasy or magical element. A Jenny Han is going to have romance. And an Ally Carter book will have teenagers involved in some kind of international intrigue and hijinks.

  But what if I decided to write an adult horror novel someday? If my fans picked that up, would they be disappointed? Yeah. Probably. Because that’s not what they’ve come to expect from me.

  It’s like buying a Coke and having it taste like Sprite. It’s not that Sprite is bad. It’s just that when you buy one brand, you expect that brand, not something else.

  So authors will frequently (but not always) use a pseudonym if writing something new or off-brand.

  A new name is also a way of having a fresh start in this business. I’ve had the privilege of meeting some amazing authors who have been doing this for decades, and a lot of them have written under different names at various points in time. As soon as one market or “brand” cooled down, they’d switch to something else and keep going. And then they’d do it again. And again. And through it all, they kept writing!