• Will I write both young adult books and adult books during my career? Some agents handle only children’s and YA, and if you know that you might have an adult book in your future you may want to work with an agent that handles both adult and YA.
• Will I need assistance with promoting my work once it’s published? Some agents, while they are not publicists, spend time strategizing with the author on how to get his book out into the public.
• Do I need an agent who has strong editorial skills as well as selling skills? While many agents come from editorial backgrounds, some come from sales, from law, or from other fields totally removed from the editorial process. If that’s the case, they might not be able to dig in and provide a lot of editorial development guidance. That may be okay for you if you are handling that part on your end by working with critique groups or a professional editor.
• Will I want to be able to meet my agent in person? Because so many agents are based in the New York tri-state area, many have not met clients they have worked with for years who live in another part of the country. The relationship is established and maintained via phone and email. Some writers may want a more in-person relationship with their agent, so location may be important.
Researching Agencies
If this is your first time trying to get your work published and you are not familiar with literary agents, please pay close attention to this section. There are numerous literary agents in the business. They are not all created equal.
You should first research the agent’s credentials. You will want to have a sense of how long the agent has been in business. There are advantages and disadvantages to working with new or seasoned agents. Often new agents are hungrier and will work harder to develop you, but they may not have as many connections. Seasoned agents may not have as much time for you and often are more difficult to approach because they take on so few new clients.
NOTE: There are agents out there who are called “for fee” agents. You should not work with these agents. They charge you for reading your manuscript, critiquing, and editorial guidance. Reputable agents consider this practice unethical.
Here’s a checklist of elements you can use as a basis for comparing agents. Think about each aspect and which elements are most important to you.
□ How long in the business
□ Location
□ Referrals
□ Commission structure
□ Size of agency
□ Number of clients
□ Agent history
□ Terms of representation
□ Contacting agents
Once you’ve figured out the agent you plan to approach, you will need to prepare a query letter. There will likely be multiple agents who meet your criteria. It is okay and also advisable that you approach numerous agents. Most agents specify through their submission guidelines how they wish to be contacted—i.e., snail mail or electronically. But they all require a query letter. So let’s take a look at how to write one.
Query Letters
A query letter is the first piece of writing that your agent will see. If done well, it becomes the golden ticket and will open the door to your sending your full manuscript.
Your query letter should be just as stylized as your book itself. It should broadcast to your agent the brilliance of the manuscript to come.
The agent will use this query as a basis for writing her own submission letter, and editors may use it later to create tip sheets, back cover copy, or other means to promote the book. So spend some time honing it. It’s your entrée to the world of publishing.
I should warn you that most agents nowadays prefer electronic submissions. However, if you decide to send a snail mail copy as follow-up to an online submission, here are some overall dos and don’ts for the query letter:
• Never send more than a one-page letter. Prove that you can write concisely.
• Use white or ivory paper.
• Use twelve-point font, single line space, and black ink.
• Do not use fancy script; keep it simple and legible.
• Use professional business-letter format.
• Do not send your query letter bound in a folder, binder, or other fancy wrapper.
• Pitch only one project per letter.
• Use standard business envelopes or mailers. Keep it simple and professional.
• Send your query via first-class mail unless you would like to track delivery (using FedEx or UPS).
Let’s take a look the elements that make up a successful query letter.
Provide an Overview of Your Book
1. Include a one-sentence hook.
2. Include a brief description of the book (one paragraph at most).
3. Be intriguing and persuasive, but avoid hyperbole and cliché.
4. Select a creative, catchy title for your book project.
5. Be sure to make a note of the manuscript’s word count.
6. Identify who you think is the ideal audience for your book. The audience for the YA novel ranges from ages twelve to eighteen. Some manuscripts are ideal for the younger end of that range, and the edgier the novel, the older the audience.
7. Be cautious when comparing your project to well-known published works. Not only the topic, but the writing style should be similar when making a comparison. Never disparage another author’s book.
8. Avoid using rhetorical questions as an introduction to your query letter.
9. Pique the agent’s interest regarding your work immediately. You don’t need to state the fact that you are seeking representation for your book.
The Bio: Describe Yourself as It Pertains to the Book Project
1. Briefly describe your education and writing experience.
2. If you have a well-read blog or have published articles, short stories, and other works, mention them.
3. Include work and personal experiences only if they are relevant to the topic of your book project. If you have credentials that qualify you for writing young adult books, be sure to list them. For example, you work with teens in a group home, or you are affiliated with a nonprofit organization that targets young people.
4. Do not explain the process by which you have written the book or your previous (and unsuccessful) attempts to find an agent or get your book published.
Contact Information
1. Always include a self-addressed stamped envelope.
2. Include your email address. This is usually the first way an editor or agent will respond to you.
3. In addition, include your physical address and phone number within your query letter.
4. As a courtesy, indicate whether you are submitting to multiple agents.
Other Materials (Depending on the Agent Guidelines)
1. Synopsis: Briefly describe the book’s subject and provide a sense of its structure. Keep it brief—one page.
2. Sample pages or chapter: Unless this is specifically discouraged within the submission requirements, include a couple of pages or a whole chapter.
3. Avoid sending CD-ROMs or requesting that the agent download your project from a website. Agents typically do not want to download and print your materials. Also many editors are now using e-readers for their submissions and prefer to review materials as a Microsoft Word document.
FORMATTING A DOCUMENT FOR SUBMISSION IN MICROSOFT WORD
If you succeed in getting past the query stage, it’s time to prepare your manuscript submission. Be sure to follow the guidelines provided by your agent or editor. If they do not provide guidelines, the following are acceptable specifications.
• Header: 0.5 inch with the title of the novel and your name on the left side and the number of pages on the right side.
• Margins: 1 inch all around
• Line spacing: Double or multiple for body text, single in long quotes
• Lines per page: 24 or 25
• Font: Times New Roman or Courier (do not mix)
• Use a differen
t font only if it is essential to the story (rare).
• Font size: 12
• Right margin: Ragged
• Left margin: Justified
• Insert a page break instead of a series of returns at the end of a chapter or section.
• Pagination: Start chapter headings at the top of a new page.
• Don’t start a new chapter partway down the page.
• Paragraph indent: 5 spaces, auto (don’t type five blank spaces)
• Exclamation points: Use sparingly, if at all, and try not to use more than one at a time.
• Don’t use em dashes, and use colons and semicolons only in rare cases.
• Space only once after a sentence.
• Don’t write in ALL CAPS, not even to SHOUT.
• Rarely underline.
• Italic is used for internal dialogue or emphasis, but don’t mix the uses.
- ADVICE FROM PUBLISHERS ROW -
Kat Brzozowski, associate editor at Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press:
“Publisher fatigue can be different from reader fatigue. You should never abandon your concept because people are telling there’s no market for it. I’m sure there could be a great paranormal fantasy. Instead, polish your manuscript to ensure that it’s phenomenally good when the market comes your way.”
GETTING TO YES
While you’re waiting for a response from an agent, start building your profile as an author. Resources for promotion and publicity in the publishing world are very limited, so an agent will want a sense of how you plan to sell your book. Create a social media presence and build an audience for yourself on blogs dedicated to YA. In fact, write your own YA blog. If you self-published your book, publishers will want to know how aggressively you sold it. If you don’t have a publicity campaign ready, being creating one. The reality is that you are going to have to sell your book to the public. Being able to write is good, but being able to write and sell your book is better. The more you are able to demonstrate that you are willing to put in extra effort to attract sales, the more attractive your book will look to an agent.
CHAPTER 13
YA NONFICTION
AND NEW ADULT
The publishing market is always changing, and new genres are constantly emerging. Suppose you’d like to write for the YA market, but the story you’re compelled to tell really happened. Or, suppose you have a story that will appeal to youth, but feel your audience may be a little too old for the YA market. Fortunately, there are markets for those stories as well. This chapter will show you how to reach out to them through the genres of YA Nonfiction and New Adult.
YA NONFICTION: WHAT IS NONFICTION?
The standard definition for nonfiction is factual material that incorporates real people or actual events, or provides practical suggestions on a topic.
In general, publishers generally divide nonfiction into two categories. The first is narrative nonfiction, which tells a story based on factual events. Narrative nonfiction is designed to expand the reader’s knowledge of a time period. Some recent YA examples are The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb; Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During World War II by Martin W. Sandler; and The President Has Been Shot! The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James L. Swanson. Like fiction, these books have rising action and tension, build to a climax, and resolve to a conclusion. Think of narrative nonfiction as information interwoven with story. Readers should come away from narrative nonfiction having learned something about a significant topic, person, period, or event.
The other category is prescriptive nonfiction, where information is presented to the reader in a step-by-step approach designed to teach how to do something. It is practical advice about a skill or concept that can be applied to your life; think of it as a how-to guide that elucidates a topic. It may offer strategies, resources, or advice on a given subject. Recent examples include The 6 Most Important Decisions You’ll Ever Make by Sean Covey; The Teen’s Guide to World Domination: Advice on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Awesomeness by Josh Shipp; and How to Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents by Zac Bissonnette. Prescriptive nonfiction may include occasional examples, but it centers on teaching the reader something different.
Publishers have taken a renewed interest in YA nonfiction, recognizing that there is a hungry audience for it. In addition, as schools are now adopting the Common Core standards—educational benchmarks designed to ensure all students in the nation have a comprehensive set of skills—great opportunities have opened up for editors to publish and sell books that incorporate core topics. The fact that, as of March 2014, forty-three of fifty states have implemented the Common Core means the school and library market has assumed greater importance in the publishing world. Editors are actively looking for YA nonfiction (as well as YA fiction that can be used in an educational setting). This explains the increase in the number of nonfiction titles being purchased.
- ADVICE FROM PUBLISHERS ROW -
Daniel Ehrenhaft, editorial director at Soho Teen:
“We have educator’s guides and a Common Core-aligned curriculum with material that teachers can use to teach the book. We’re really excited about that, and develop our educator’s guides internally with the author’s help.”
The existence of the Common Core points to an essential difference between adult nonfiction and YA nonfiction. While nonfiction can be—and ideally is—entertaining, there is an additional educational component to YA nonfiction. The ideal YA nonfiction is informational, practical, and has curricular connections. This means YA editors are more likely to look for writing that can also be used in the classroom. Since books tied to topics learned in school can be intimidating in subject and presentation, the challenge is to write fascinating, well-written books on educational topics. If your book can promote and stimulate conversation both in and out of the classroom environment, so much the better.
Since nonfiction with strong educational leanings is something editors are looking for, let me provide a few tips for writing YA nonfiction. Writing YA nonfiction books requires expertise in a given subject, the ability to do intense research, and the skill to practically and creatively shape a broad base of information into an entertaining and engaging narrative that teens can relate to.
NARRATIVE NONFICTION
With narrative nonfiction, you want a richly detailed account of a time in history; your work should transport the reader to another place. Novelist L. P. Hartley said, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” Exceptional YA nonfiction should expose youth to that foreign country, forcing them to juxtapose historical ideas, cultural norms, and interactions with today’s world. The lives of people can shed light on the unexplored. Writing narrative nonfiction in particular requires a disciplined presentation rooted with historical facts. Your book should inspire young people to learn more about the time period or other relevant tie-ins to the topic.
What kinds of topics make for superb YA narrative nonfiction, besides those that are designed for educational utility? Unsurprisingly, they’re the same topics that make any book—YA or not, narrative nonfiction or not—worth reading: readable history wed to an entertaining story. It’s always worthwhile to explore what no one else has, as agents and editors are always looking for solid treatments that will introduce young readers to a fascinating subject. Put a fresh spin on a well-known incident; there’s usually a mesmerizing story behind the story somewhere. After all, people plucked from obscurity have shaped history and there are many unheard of, improbable yet true stories that merit attention. So let’s look at some narrative nonfiction categories.
Our History, Ourselves
History is a difficult subject to interest teenagers in, as many feel that these subjects are too closely knit to things they have to learn in school. But with such a wide breadth of topics, there’s always room for a book with a refreshing new spi
n on an aspect of history that can capture the imagination of youth. One recent successful YA history book is The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin. Appealing a little bit more to the younger end of the YA audience, this book depicts an incident where fifty black naval sailors went on strike over unsafe working conditions, were charged with mutiny, and faced possible execution.
Subjects ripe for exploration are events and topics that are close to a century old or more—subjects teenagers can hardly imagine in their world today. For example, The Great American Dust Bowl by Don Brown introduces teens to the crippling drought that wreaked havoc during the 1930s. Young people may be dimly aware that the Dust Bowl was the setting of The Grapes of Wrath. However, Brown’s use of visual media brings to life this time in history and vividly portrays the harrowing stories of heartache and grief beyond the realm of Steinbeck’s famous novel. Another instance is Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin. This book reveals the plotting, the risk, the deception, and the genius that created what is still the world’s most formidable weapon.
In An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy, an epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia is portrayed in a fascinating true story of a city under siege, spotlighting timely parallels to modern-day epidemics. Given that the worst of the AIDS pandemic is rapidly becoming a memory, this book illustrates how an outbreak of a disease can impact politics. In this case, a constitutional crisis arose when President Washington was forced to leave the Philadelphia due to the spread of yellow fever.
Historically marginalized populations are a terrific avenue for YA nonfiction, simply because they provide an avenue to introduce fresh stories to readers. One recent example is Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone. This book, which won multiple awards—including the NAACP Image Award—examines the history of the brave soldiers who fought in an obscure attack on the American West by the Japanese. Stories like these unearth the hidden histories that have molded America.
Writing Great Books for Young Adults Page 15
