Every other month I have lunch with my agents’ group. We call ourselves ETA, which stands for editors turned agent. That’s right, all of us, at one time or another, were gainfully employed as editors. And all of us joined the dark side. I look forward to these lunches because we are all like-minded having similar backgrounds in editorial. But the real reason is the superb gossip, character assassination and publisher bashing. It’s a bloodletting with sushi and diet cokes. Sometimes we’ll even debate the meaning of a contract clause or compare discount percentages! Good times. Today, the sushi was exceptionally good.

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It’s okay if you missed the Golden Globes. They’re sort of like the PSAT’s, meaning there’s still time to prepare for the Oscars. People have often been surprised by my fanatic love of Hollywood Award Shows. It’s been this way since my childhood. In part, as an attention starved middle child, I’ve always had an acceptance speech at the ready — even after being summarily dismissed from NYU film school. Publishing has its award nights, its reviews, its share of the public eye, but c’mon. Okay, I confess, I’ve always wanted to be a part of glitterland. I just got sidetracked in the book biz for 25 years. I can’t complain. It’s been very good to me. I’ve worked on amazing books and loved many of my authors, the gossip’s been decent and at the end of the day, those beautiful objects.

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This is probably the most asked question I get at writer’s conferences. And this is my answer: when you have a perfectly polished non-fiction proposal or novel or memoir, subscribe to Publishersmarketplace.com. On this site, you will be able to search whatever category you hope to publish into and find all the recent deals in that category along with the agent of record. That is the best place to begin putting together a list of agents who might be right for your project.

Publishers Weekly on line is another good source. Look at the acknowledgments of books you loved; if an agent is thanked, he or she might be a kindred spirit. Network: go to conferences, readings, workshops, read Poets and Writers where agents are often profiled. Now, with Google, you can easily research any agent.Many agencies have websites and post their submission guidelines. There are good reference books, too, that list agents like Getting Your Book Published for Dummies.

If up to ten agents turn you down and all give the same reason, or send a form letter rejection, then you may want to reassess your project. Is it really ready? Are you marketing it correctly? Have you workshopped your novel? Have you developed your platform? If you get a variety of rejections, keep going until you can either glean some valuable information or can’t take it any more. But don’t waste your time and energy sending your writing to someone who doesn’t represent material in your category. I get tons of queries from people writing sci-fi, historical fiction, thrillers, self-help, etc. when I don’t represent any writers in these categories. Lose-lose.

Manuscripts, of course, are not math problems, and the test for whether they work is highly subjective. It’s all about the right fit. Agents are, contrary to popular belief, human. Well, most. And they would much prefer to discover a superb new writer than turn hundreds down. Remember, a lot of agents have passed on writers who went on to become bestsellers — I believe thirty passed on Grisham’s first novel, A Time To Kill. (I’m not ready to confess, here, who I stupidly didn’t “see” or “get.”)

Most important, try to take your very thin writer’s skin, through which you feel everything and as a result produce searing and pellucid prose, and turn it into rhino skin, tough enough to withstand the inevitable rejections. You shouldn’t send a manuscript to an agent unless you know that nothing that agent says will stop you from writing. It’s about finding the person who does see it, does believe in you.

Stay focussed. Be professional. And like love, remember, it just takes one.

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This is the season of movies based on books, plays or short stories. Doubt. Benjamin Button. Reservation Road. The Reader. Frost/Nixon. The Tale of Despereaux. Marley and Moi. This is good for writers. I know it’s commonplace to trash movie adaptations, but any additional money or exposure you can get as a writer is jam as far as I’m concerned. I’d option my mother if I could.

So far I’ve seen Benjamin Button. When I’m on my death bed, I will wish I had those two hours and forty minutes back. This is one suckface of a movie and it just might win more gold than Michael Phelps.

The Reader: The beginning is so good.

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In today’s New York Times, there’s an article by David Streitfeld, pointing out one more piece of bad news for publishers and writers: the on-line availability of used books for pennies. “What’s undermining the book industry is not the absence of casual readers but the changing habits of devoted readers. In other words, it’s all the fault of people like myself, who increasingly use the Internet both to buy books and later, after their value to us is gone, sell them.”

Maybe.

When exactly is the value of a book gone? Continue reading →

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From time to time, I’m going to try, here, to address the frequently asked questions that I field at writer’s conferences. And if you have questions, please feel free.

Today, nation, it’s the query letter. First, should you send a real letter or an email. While I still love a letter, I think most Continue reading →

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Company christmas party tonight. Spent the day cleaning up, hanging lights, running out in the sleet to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick some…beyond. A good turn out. Due to our younger agents, a younger crowd of writers came this year, many of whom sequestered themselves in a back office to smoke dope and whatever. Felt old, but happy, noticing as I type this red wine spilled on my keyboard. Happy holidays, everyone.

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Some years ago, a big deal publisher type rejected a client’s project I had sent over. Unlike many who email rejections, she called. She prefaced her rejection with the following caveat, “I want to be gentle with you.” The minute I heard that, I knew she was going to rip me a new one. Or worse, that she deemed me fragile in some way and felt I needed to be handled with kid gloves. The whole exchange rankled and, obviously, I’ve never forgotten it. Now, I’m reading the extraordinary letters between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. One letter from Lowell to Bishop reminded me of the gentle publisher and her “favor” of kindness: “Don’t see how you could think Wilbur flattered by Randall’s review; what makes it hurt is R’s leaning over backwards to be friendly — caressed by a tiger.”

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My writers are worried and rightly so. Many publishing heads rolled last week and more to come. Cries of the sky falling, the Titanic plunging, the print world coming to an end. To quiet ourselves we say, it’s cyclical. As a bi-polar person, I know from cyclical. And this, well, this isn’t cyclical. It’s a steady decline that’s been going on for years. But I’m a glass half empty type. That said, if there’s one benefit of being a pessimist, it’s that you expect bad news. Still, I’m not packing it in and here’s why: Enough people still love books, real books, not necessarily authored by felines or Miley Cyrus. And the thing is, the people who love books really love them and are loyal to them. A few chairs have been harshly yanked in publishing’s game of musical chairs. Shelf space for the finest books has diminished as well, and, as we have seen, some of the finest bookstores themselves have disappeared. All the more reason to write your heart out.

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