Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies

by Deborah Halverson

  Now that you’re trembling, I’ll tell you about an exception called fair use. Fair use allows people to print portions of someone else’s work in certain instances, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is as much about the quality of what you use as the quantity. Some people mistakenly believe that the fair-use doctrine lets you use a set percentage of someone else’s work without getting permission, but The Copyright Act of 1976 (which took effect on January 1, 1978) doesn’t actually set a specific number of words or lines that may be safely used without permission.

  Legal precedents and other factors help people judge whether your use is fair. In Sections 107 through 118 of Title 17, U.S. Code, copyright law specifies four factors that should be considered in determining whether use is fair:

  “The purpose or character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit purposes”

  “The nature of the copyright work”

  “The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright work as a whole”

  “The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work”

  The catch here is that these four considerations can be applied with great discretion case by case. All four are explored and then the results are weighed together in light of copyright purposes and the facts of each particular case. Fiction doesn’t readily fall under the fair use’s “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research” umbrella, so your best bet is to contact the publisher of the original work. As long as you’re not using the material in a derogatory manner, permission will probably be granted.

  The United States Copyright Office (www.copyright.gov) has extensive information on its website to help you know what is copyrightable, what isn’t, and what’s fair use. When in doubt, play it safe by asking formal permission anyway, or seek the advice of your publisher’s in-house legal counsel or an attorney specializing in publishing or copyright law.

  Asking for the okay

  The act of asking permission is generally an easy one; locating the copyright holder is the tricky part. In this section, I tell you how to find the copyright owner and request permission to use material from both printed works and other media, such as song and film.

  Getting permission for printed work

  If you want to reprint a portion of someone else’s printed work, contact the publisher’s Rights and Permissions Department, which has contractual permission to negotiate rights and permissions on behalf of the author. Contact information for Rights and Permissions Departments is prominently featured on most publishers’ websites. In cases where the author has retained his rights, the publisher puts you in contact with the agent, the estate, or the author directly.

  When you contact someone for permission, explain exactly what you’d like to reprint, how it will be used, the name of your publication and your publisher, the publication date, the number of books you intend to produce, and what you’ll charge for the book. You may be charged a permission fee for your use, and the permission terms will be either limited to a set time or number of printings or unlimited, meaning you can use that material in as many printings of your book as you want and for as long as your book is in print.

  Based on a true story . . . sort of

  Fact is stranger than fiction, which is why real life is so darned inspiring to fiction writers. Building a story around an intriguing real person is great fun, and readers sure like the real-life angle. But that calls up a big legal question: Can you write about a real person in a real situation? Or perhaps more to the point, can you get sued for writing about a real person in a real situation?

  The answer isn’t clear-cut. (What legal answer is?) Libel is the term used for making a false statement about someone in either print or broadcast that damages that person’s reputation. That whole notion of damage to one’s reputation is a gray area that provides a good living to attorneys who specialize in libel. You do have wiggle room when it comes to public figures: You can legally write about them, and as long as what you say about them is true, then it’s not libel — but you’d better be able to prove it.

  Writing about nonpublic figures, though, such as your next-door neighbor or your old high school flame, carries more risk: You can very well be telling the truth about them, but you may fall into the invasion of privacy realm by publishing it. Your risk doesn’t lessen if that old flame has passed on from this world, because his or her living relatives can sue you for invasion of their privacy. The safest way to write about people is to pick deceased public ones, because dead public figures cannot be libeled and don’t have the same privacy issues.

  So the answer to whether you can write about real people in real situations is a qualified “yes” . . . but it’s mighty tricky to do so with legal impunity. And even if you are legally protected in what you write about a person, they can still try to sue you, which is no fun even when you do prevail. Only you can decide whether that risk is a worthwhile one.

  Make sure all your correspondence with the copyright owner is memorialized in writing. Publishing houses and literary agencies usually have permission forms containing all the publication details, which everyone signs.

  Getting permission for other media

  In an ideal world, the copyright information would be explicitly stated with the material, such as in the liner notes of a music CD. But the world doesn’t always work that way. Be warned that music and film rights are often parceled out (distribution, performance, and so on) and resold, making permissions more complicated.

  If you want to reprint something that isn’t a published piece of writing but rather a song lyric or musical score or film dialogue or photograph, you may have to do some research to make permissions contact. Here’s where to look:

  The creator or publisher: In most cases, the owner of the copyright is the creator of the material, so you can start with that name. If you want to use song lyrics, contact the song publisher’s permissions department.

  The agent: Artists’ agents are also good contact sources. Artists’ websites often list their reps — go from there. If you contact someone who’s not authorized to give permission, he’ll say so and generally point you to a person who is.

  The U.S. Copyright Office: Research the U.S. Copyright Office’s online database of copyright registrations (www.copyright.gov).

  Note that song titles, like book titles, are not copyrightable. Exceptions to that are those song titles that have become popular identifiers of a music group, as with the most popular Beatles or Rolling Stones songs.

  Keep track of your efforts as you attempt to locate the copyright owner. That way, if you can’t locate the owner and decide to use the material anyway, you’ll be able to show that you made sincere efforts to do the right thing. Your publisher may print some wording on your copyright page that declares you’ve made every effort to trace the ownership in order to secure the necessary permission and make full acknowledgment for its use. This statement also says that should a question arise, you regret the inadvertent error and will make the necessary corrections in future printings.

  Crediting your sources

  When using someone else’s material, your final consideration is the credit citation. Fee or not, you credit the original source on your copyright page, listing the copyright owner’s name, the original source title, the year of copyright, and the copyright symbol, as follows:

  Book: Excerpt on page X from [Book Title] by [author’s name], copyright © [year]. Used with permission.

  Poem: Epigraph by [author’s name] from “[Poem Title],” from [Book Title] by [book author], copyright © [year]; reprinted with permission of [publisher, city, state].

  Scripture translation: Scripture quotations taken from the [title and version of the Bible]. Copyright �
� [year] by [copyright holder]. Used by permission of [publisher].

  Song: [Song Title] words and music by [artist/musician/lyricist’s name(s)] © [year]. (Renewed) by [new copyright holder’s name]. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  As you can see, citation wording can vary. Copyright owners generally provide their preferred wording. If you’re using material that you’ve determined is in the public domain, you’re not legally bound by U.S. copyright law to include this formal attribution, but professionalism dictates that you give credit where credit is due.

  Which comes first, the permission or the contract?

  If you decide that your use of someone else’s work requires permission, you must figure out the best time to contact the copyright owner. Most of the time, you have to hold off on contacting the owner until you have a publisher committed because you need to name a publication date and a print quantity. That means you don’t usually secure your permissions before submitting your manuscript to agents and editors.

  You do, however, need to know whether you have material that needs permission should you land that book deal, so be prepared to talk about permissions before you sign your final contract. Depending on the nature of the content that needs formal permission, your publisher may require you to get that permission before the contract is finalized. If you’re using a previously published poem as your novel’s epigraph, for example, your book contract won’t likely be held up for such a detail. You can get that later, while the book is in production. But if your entire story is, say, based on someone else’s novel, as in a contemporary sequel to an older bestseller, your project won’t be able to move forward without the permissions issues being resolved. Your potential editor can discuss the options with her in-house legal staff should that be the case.

  Part IV

  Getting Published

  In this part . . .

  Now that the creative work is done, it’s time to take care of business: selling your manuscript to a children’s book publisher. The mere thought of opening yourself up to rejection by professionals can be unnerving, I know, but it doesn’t have to be. To help you submit with confidence, I tell you how to submit, what to submit, and whom to submit to. And if all this submission hullabaloo isn’t your thing, I give you the skinny on self-publishing so you can decide whether it’s the publication path for you. Either way, you need to do some serious marketing when your book gets published, and this part has extensive guidance for publicizing, networking, and building a platform in the virtual age.

  Chapter 13

  Strategizing and Packaging Your Submissions

  In This Chapter

  Assembling your publishing dream team

  Crafting and formatting your query letter

  Summarizing your story in a synopsis

  Packaging your submission

  Spotting revision opportunities in rejection letters

  You’ve done it. You’ve imagined, brainstormed, read, researched, written, and revised, and now you’re ready to show your completed YA manuscript to the world. Freeze! You’ve just accomplished something countless people dream about but only a fraction actually do: You’ve written a book, from “Once upon a time” all the way to “The End.” That’s a big deal. Something deeply chocolate is in order — or perhaps you have a less G-rated indulgence. Whatever form your pat on the back takes, allow yourself this moment, because when the celebrating’s done, you have to buckle down for a whole new phase of your YA fiction adventure: submitting your manuscript for publication.

  Submitting is more than just mailing your manuscript to people who have “editor” in their job titles. Children’s book editors often specialize in genres and are driven by personal taste, experience, and vision. The same goes for agents. A successful submission offers agents and editors the same four things:

  A book that will connect with young readers

  A book that will sell in the current marketplace

  A book that the agents and editors are passionate about personally, want to work on for several years, and are willing to stake their careers on

  A writer who will deliver many such books in the future

  Agents and editors really distinguish themselves with the third point, personal passion. Submitting without knowing preferences merely guarantees you a stack of rejection letters. Who needs that? Focused, informed submission efforts are quicker, more effective, and certainly more emotionally prudent. Work smarter, not harder.

  This chapter is about getting the most out of your time and effort to find the perfect home for your manuscript. I guide you in compiling your submission list, telling you where to look for agents and editors and then how to hone the list based on their areas of interest. Then I take you through the actual submission process, which involves crafting and formatting query letters, packaging the manuscript, and following up. And because, alas, rejection is often part of this match-making game, I tell you how to extract revision possibilities from rejection letters and hopefully inspire you to remain steadfast in pursuing your goal: a contract for your YA fiction.

  Creating Your Submission Strategy

  Determination and enthusiasm will only get you so far when submitting your YA manuscript for publication. You need a plan of attack that will put your manuscript in the hands of the right editor to make your vision a printed-and-bound reality. In this section, I tell you where to look for prospective publishing houses and editors and then how to pinpoint your best bets. I also help you decide what kind of agent you want — if you even want one at all.

  Don’t begin contacting editors or agents until you believe you’ve done all you can with that manuscript. Too many people submit knowing that there’s work to be done, thinking that the role of the editor is to help them whip it into shape. That’s not how you get a book deal. If the material’s not ready, stay your hand. Your time will come.

  Compiling your submission list

  Begin your search for the perfect editor and/or agent by identifying houses and/or literary agencies that handle YA fiction, and then narrow that list down to those with successful track records in your genre and story type. After that, you select an editor or agent within that company who appears to be a likely candidate for loving your work (I go into that more in the following sections).

  Consider setting aside a submission research week. Obviously, research takes time, but it pays off in the long run by shortening the submission process, by making sure you don’t waste your one-time submission with a publishing house on a no-chance editor, and by avoiding needless rejection letters.

  Getting published — or getting credentials — through writing contests

  Sometimes there’s a back door to a publishing deal: a contest. Publishers occasionally hold writing contests that offer book contracts as grand prizes. New Voices–type contests, such as the long-running Delacorte Press Contest for a First Young Adult Novel, are the most common novel publication contests. These contests are posted on publishers’ websites and are announced in the SCBWI Bulletin newsletter and in other writers’ groups and forums. You can also look for publisher-run contests through an Internet search for “young adult fiction writing contest.” Read each contest’s rules carefully, though. Some require entrants to hold off on submitting to anyone else while the entries are being considered — which can be a considerable period of time.

  Writers’ groups and local organizations also offer writing contests, although book contracts aren’t the prizes, of course. But that’s okay — these contests can be a way to earn a few bucks because some award cash prizes. Another bonus: Some of these contests are for works-in-progress, which means you can start amassing your prize titles even before you’ve finished that first draft. (Similarly, many writers’ groups offer grants for works-in-progress, as with SCBWI’s WIP Grants. For info on SCBWI’s annual grants, go to the “Awa
rds & Grants” section of the group’s website, www.scbwi.org.)

  Unfortunately, there are contest scams out there. Hucksters want to collect free money through entry fees, or vanity presses may attempt to entice authors to pay for publication (more on vanity presses in Chapter 14). Here are some guidelines for telling which contests are legitimate:

  Known names: Stick with established contests held by reputable, well-known entities. Editors and agents will recognize the prize name in your query letter and give you credit where credit is due. Contests posted in general newspapers, on classified sites such as Craigslist, or in the ads in the back of writing magazines won’t gain you any credibility with editors or agents, get you any closer to publication, or keep you, your money, and your reputation safe.

  If you don’t readily recognize the contest holder’s name or organization, research it. Don’t stop at the organization’s own website; do an Internet search of the name to get independent verification and consult industry watchdog sites like Writer Beware (www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/) and Preditors & Editors (http://pred-ed.com).

  Fees: Entry fees, if required, should be nominal, between $5 and $25. That said, large contests may require larger entry fees (although not much larger), and some scammers are happy to take little bits of money from a lot of people, so fee alone is not a credibility indicator. Consider the entry fee with the other elements listed here.

  Contests offering opportunities for further paid services such as “coaching” should raise red flags. Don’t pay for extra perks or services.

  Categories: Legitimate contests usually specialize in a single category or genre. Scammers cast wide nets to bring in the most entry fees possible. Enter contests that focus on young adult fiction or children’s books.