Tag Archives: finding an agent

Find an agent for your book; what to do WAY before & A BOOK GIVEAWAY!

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Giveaway is closed! Congratulations to Christina Lasswell for winning a copy of Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird”!

Do you hope to one day find an agent for your book?

Are you like this?

Do you hope to be like this?

http://www.stockfreeimages.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding an agent for your book can be tricky, heart wrenching, exhilarating, painful, long … The list goes on.

As an agented author, here is my cheat sheet of things to do WAY before you look for representation. You need to be ready.

If you want to find an agent for your book, read.

Readers tend to write well. Read in your genre, but generally too. I write memoir and personal essays, and I’ve read some wonderful memoirs this year, Hope Eldeman’s “The Possibility of Everything”, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” by Gail Caldwell and “An Unquiet Mind” by Kay Redfield Jamison, to name a few.

And don’t forget to read books on craft. For memoir, I love Vivian Gornicks, “The Situation and the Story” and Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.”

If you want to find an agent for your book, write.

Practice writing. Every person on the planet has a compelling story. Life is often stranger than fiction. In order to write a successful memoir, novel, short story, poetry that will become a book, your writing has to be stellar.

Seriously, in order to write a book, you have to spend countless hours WRITING. You better like to write, or at least have enough discipline to do it.

If you want to find an agent for your book, join a writing class.

If you are a part of a class that submits and critique work, then you will be forced to write. I attend a memoir workshop at Story Studio here in Chicago. I love it. The instructor is knowledgeable and kind (check out her blog: Annette Gendler) and the writers are not only gifted, but great at critique. Plus, there’s food and drinks!

If you don’t have a class in your area, start one or look for one on-line.

If you want to find an agent for your book, build a platform.

Start a blog, get active on Facebook, Tweet.

Yeah, do all the social media stuff. Do it well. And do it often. These days, it’s all about PLATFORM. Jane Friedman has a great post on this topic: A Definition of Author Platform. 

Jane says that “what editors and agents typically mean by platform is that they’re looking for someone with visibility and authority who has proven reach to a target audience.”

If you don’t have a blog, start one. Open up a Facebook fan page. Look for opportunities to form relationships with other writers and people in the business. Guest post. Interview people on your new blog.

If you want to find an agent for your book, read, write, and build an author tribe.

And when you are ready to look for an agent, who knows, maybe they’ll be looking for you instead.

Here are some helpful links from people who know and do way more than me:

Advice to First Time Authors from Michael Hyatt

Crafting a Writing Goal from WordServe Water Cooler 

Writing Tips from Jeff Goins

(Go to the Wordserve Water Cooler to find more great posts on finding agents and getting your book published.)

AND NOW, THE GIVEAWAY!

I’m giving away a copy of Anne Lamott’s famous book on writing, “Bird by Bird.”

To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment and tell me where you are in your writing journey.

For a second chance, like my Facebook author page.

The winner will be chosen through random.org next Thursday, August 30th at midnight.

Don’t forget to follow the rest of the parade!

Follow the rest of the WordServe Watercooler Parade for a chance at amazing gifts and stellar writing advice from other published and agented authors:

1. Anita Agers-Brooks: Anita Fresh Faith
Get your free copy of my e-Book, Marketing with Personality, when you comment on my blog, and provide contact information at the link provided in the post.

2. Julie Cantrell: Julie’s Journal
Chance to win a signed copy of the NYT and USA Today bestselling novel, Into the Free.

3. Dianne Christner: …plain girl romanticizing…
Chance to win a free copy of Something Blue.

4. Dena Ratliff Dyer: Mother Inferior
Giveaway is a prize pack of books for women.

5. Jan Dunlap: Jan Dunlap’s Blog
The first chapter of A Murder of Crows: A Bob White Birder Murder Mystery. Book to be released in September!

6. Michelle Griep: Writer Off Leash
Giving away an e-book of Undercurrent.

7. Karen Jordan: BLESSED Legacy Stories
Leave a comment on my blog (before August 31) for your chance to win a copy ofHeavenly Company by Cecil Murphey &Twila Belk (my latest book contribution).

8. Sharon Lavy: Sharon Lavy’s Blogspot.
Giving away a set of mugs and book A Friend in the Storm by Cheryl Ricker.

9. Gillian Marchenko: Gillian Marchenko’s Blog
Giving away a copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird to a commenter.

10. Katy McKenna: Fallible
A chance to win a Mary Engelbreit journal and set of note cards.

11. Melissa K. Norris: Inspiring Your Faith and Pioneer Roots
Chance to Win 10 Page Critique of Your Novel and Query Letter.

12. Jordyn Redwood: Redwood’s Medical Edge
Chance to win a signed copy of Proof.

13. Cheryl Ricker: Fresh Air
Two winners will receive their choice of A Friend in the Storm or Kernels of Hope.

14. Kimberly Vargas: Kimberly Vargas’s Blog
A chance to win one of ten autographed copies of Gumbeaux.

15. Janalyn Voigt: Live Write Breath
Chance to win a free copy of DawnSinger (winner’s choice of format).

16. Lucille Zimmerman: Lucille Zimmerman
Chance to win a Lemongrass Eucalyptus Bath Body Lotion Scrub Spa Set

Hope you enjoyed our parade!

 

Would someone please buy me a douche bag jar?

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OK, so I know that as a pastor’s wife I shouldn’t use the word douche. But it best sums up my actions this week. I would venture to say that even Jesus has been shaking his head at me, saying, stop being such a douche.

Anyone watch Zooey Deschanel’s new show on FOX called New Girl?

Well, I do, and I find it hysterical.

It’s a show about four roommates, one girl, three guys and all the antics that come along with that kind of living combination. In the pilot, we were introduced to the douche bag jar. Whenever someone did something stupid or offensive or creepy, they had to put a dollar in the douche bag jar. Schmidt, the roommate who likens his body to a temple and does magic tricks as a serious hobby, hands down puts the most in the douche bag jar each episode.

After these last few days, I need a douche bag jar. Could someone please buy me one?

At the beginning of the week I received an email from an agent interested in representing me and my book. “I’m a bit concerned about your platform, though. Is there a way to get your author facebook page up to 5,000 likes?”

Her question astounded me at first, and I responded not directly to her but through a facebook status (which, strangely, is where some of my most creative writing is happening these days) with this:

So, an agent just emailed asking if I can get my author fb fan page up to 5,000 likes. I am currently at 1,133. Hmmm, ideas on how to grow my page x5 asap: 1) sell personal hugs from Polly and Evie for likes, 2) offer my husband’s services to marry and bury free of charge for a like (btw, it’s free, anyway), or 3) have the kids help me make one of those cardboard signs you wear in the street, asking people to like my fan page. Yeah, I like #3 … I’m on to something. I can also write something on there end timesy and offensive. Sure way to sell books.

No, I don’t think this facebook status is douchey. I think it’s funny, (OK, now I see the douche coming out, someone who enjoys her own humor a bit too much). But once I posted this, several well-meaning friends came back with, “Go for it! Get the likes! You can do it!”

Enter douche bag.

I went nuts, posting about my author page, reminding people hourly to ‘like’ me. I started the $100 Amazon gift card giveaway to push the effort along, and then in a last, feeble attempt, video-taped a rap my girls came up with about liking me.

Yesterday, I light went on. Someone posted a funny link about how not to get people to like you on facebook. It was everything I was doing.

And a dear friend wrote me a gentle note:

I have to say that going crazy on facebook does not seem to be your style or true to your inner self. I believe you are a great writer with a universal story to tell… somehow, someway.

Busted.

What a douche bag.

And that my friends, is why I am taking a step back from self-promotion. I am just going to try to focus on craft, and interact on social media like a normal person, try to love those around me, and most importantly, love those whom I can hug and laugh with on a daily basis IN REAL LIFE.

I need someone to buy me a douche bag jar. Stat.

Choose this day whom you will serve …

And try not to be a douche bag.

Why it is hard to tell the truth in my memoir

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Most of you know I recently completed a memoir and am now querying agents for representation.

So far no one’s bitten. I have received a handful of polite rejections regarding my project. I suspect I will continue to get rejections for a while. There are just too many aspiring writers trying to get their work in print. Some agents claim over 100 new query letters hit their inbox every day. EVERY DAY! And so I trudge on, do my research, send the queries, and continue to work on my craft.

But I have a confession: sometimes when I get a rejection, I breathe a slight little sigh of relief. It’s not that I love rejection ( I mean, come on, I was in Junior High once). It’s not because I want to tell one more person in my life that I have spent over three years writing a book and it seems that no one, as of yet, wants to read it.

I breathe a slight little sigh of relief because of fear. I made a commitment to the story and to God to tell the whole truth about those first years of Polly’s life. In memoir, (as in life) its a no-no to lie. When I got serious about writing our story, I knew that I would have to be real about everything that happened after Polly was born. As a missionary and pastor’s wife, my response to having a child with Down syndrome was much less than Christian. The bottom of my faith easily fell out. I got depressed. I stopped showering. I drank too much Chardonnay. I struggled to love my baby.

Do I really want people to read all of that?

To tell the truth, the answer is no. I don’t want people to read the whole story because I am afraid of what they will think of me. I would rather hide the hard parts of my life and let them think that I scooped up my child with special needs and said a prayer of thanksgiving for her life and moved on. I would rather them think that I am always a woman of faith, worthy of the call to be a child of God.

But Flannery O’Conner says the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

I would also add that truth loses its power when altered.

Even though I am afraid, I realize that my story isn’t worth telling if not told in its entirety. The very essence of my memoir’s power (if there is any) is brokenness. The fact that God came in and rebuilt me and my faith and my relationship with my baby after I fell apart is the real story. The redemptive story. And I am convinced the very thing people need to hear to truly get a clear, non-superficial, non-judgmental idea of Jesus.

I used to think of redemption as a one time thing. I believed in Jesus when I was sixteen years old. His payment for my sins on the cross equaled a done deal. I still believe this. It is the very core of my beliefs.

But I also believe that we are all a work in progress. There is a continual need for everyday redemption. The kind of redemption that heals a mother’s heart. The kind that sets a person back up on the wagon after he has fallen off, that helps someone apologize to her kids for freaking out over spilled milk, or causes a shoplifter to put the bra in her purse back on the shelf in Target. A redemption that showed me that the child I was afraid to mother was the exact child I needed to reach depths of joy and wonder otherwise unknown in my life.

So I will keep putting myself out there. If my memoir publishes one day, not everyone will like it. There will be criticism (well deserved, I should add). There will probably even be disappointment. But most importantly, there will be the truth of everyday redemption and unexpected beauty, displayed in the birth of a child with slanted eyes and the widest smile on the planet.

And I think, that’s enough.