Attended the Writer’s Coffeehouse at Mysterious Galaxy yesterday. As always, I came away with lots of great advice :)
Many thanks to Jonathan Maberry for running these, and to Mysterious Galaxy for hosting!
My Notes from the Coffeehouse
Dangerous to be a one-trick pony; if you put something out that doesn't succeed, don't take it personally, instead ask what you can do that will sell
Sometimes you have to pick one idea over another because it’ll be easier to sell
Negativity never helps. Da Vinci Code got slammed by so many people, and yet it was responsible for thrillers becoming the dominant genre on the bestseller lists (which they still are)
Lot of business discussions happen at comic-con, behind the scenes; he had meetings with agents, game devs, editors, etc.
If you have a published work in a genre, post on fb page and ask around about getting on a panel at one of these cons
Science people can be a big draw at these events
Got to get involved in these things, put yourself out there, to have these opportunities happen
Henry: started out with small cons, like ComicFest and ConDor, volunteered to put together panels, those smaller cons always need help, another author gave contact info for comiccon organizers, he did the same thing there, volunteered to put together panels, etc
One thing about moderating: try to come up with questions they haven’t had asked before, avoid the “where do you get your ideas?”, try to ask things that get into the personality of the panelists
Other writer noticed Henry asks questions that gets debate flowing among the panelists; respectful, but not all agreeing with each other
Henry: can write in a closet, but might not ever become popular, takes energy and work to get the connections and opportunities for a career in publishing
Suggestion: if you’re in a writing group, hold fake panels; have one person moderate, two or more be fake panelists, others watch and rotate; it’s great practice for later
Some writers will ask questions of the audience to get comfortable at signings
Handle interviews by focusing on what’s fun about it for you; the fun will show and the audience will love it
More practice: get group together, have one person go up and answer the same question over and over again in different ways
If you get on a panel, bring something to share out at the end
La jolla writer’s conference coming up
Southern california writer’s conference coming up
Good advice: a pitch is telling someone how to sell your book
Maberry: writer’s conferences made him fall in live with writing again, would not be a fiction writer without them
Queries: never make absurd claims (this will be as big as harry potter!), or slam other books (this is so much better than harry potter!)
Don’t take pot shots at other books or series
Round the word count to the nearest 5,000. No need to give the exact word count
Most novels, they don’t want more than 100,000 words, because of the extra printing costs for a book of that size
Important to know the right length for your genre; epic fantasy tilts long (150K), westerns tilt short (65K)
DON’T QUERY UNTIL THE NOVEL IS COMPLETE AND POLISHED
Henry: timing of query and font doesn’t matter so much
Maberry: disagree; when you’re querying, getting this stuff right separates you out from amateurs
Maberry: prefers verbal queries; lots of writers' conferences, find which ones your target agents are going to
Don’t listen to the myth that agents who have sold X numbers of Y genre are no longer looking for more; it’s bunk; you want the agents that are known for selling your genre
Intern here from march fourth publishing house, she confirms everything (and suggests checking them out!)
Pitching in person: the agents there might not be right for you, but it’s good practice, hones your skills, and the agents that are there often come prepared with other agents they can recommend; if nothing else you can get feedback on the pitch
Keep in mind: the agents are just as nervous about this as you are
Jim Butcher: queried jennifer jackson and rejected by her, then met her at a conference, and she agreed to pick him up
Verbal pitches: don’t necessarily have to be pitching a finished book
#mswishlist twitter tag where editors and agents tweet about what they’re looking for
ALWAYS HAVE BUSINESS CARDS WITH YOU AND PUT YOUR FACE ON IT SO THEY CAN REMEMBER YOU
When doing verbal pitch, do not read your pitch, or stick to a script; pitch to the agent, change how you talk about it based on how they react to what you say
Elements of a good pitch: hook them, give them a sense of characters and the stakes, link it to other books and explain why people will want to read it (best to connect it to what you like as a reader, and show how other readers also like that thing)
Another good exercise: take a book you know, and pitch it to your writing group, see if you can get to the essential points
Don’t land too hard on the market piece, becomes too much of a sales pitch; connect it to readers who are real people, and yourself as a writer and someone you want them to want to work with for years
Pitch practice: genre, subgenre, demographic, main character’s name, and a crisis
Don’t think in terms of good or bad for your own writing. Think of “publishable” and “not yet publishable.” Take the latter parts and change what needs to be changed in order to make it publishable.