Why agents matter--yet another reason

Michael Stearns at Upstart Crow has posted on everyone's favorite topic: subsidiary rights! You might have worn your jaw out talking about these over breakfast with your family (kidding!), but here's another reminder why having an agent is a good idea in the increasingly complicated, fast-changing publishing business:

It is springtime here in New York, and as happens every spring, young hearts turn to thoughts of the Bologna Book Fair.

Or my old heart does, anyway. Every year, children’s books publishers and agents from all over the world gather in Bologna to buy and sell the rights to published and forthcoming books, to catch up with each other about trends, and to eat some truly excellent food. It is four days of constant meetings from nine to nine (some over drinks and dinner plates, true, but meetings nonetheless). From these meetings, many sales of properties are made to far-flung territories.

This can be a great benefit for a writer, the sale of individual rights to different countries. It means that the writer receives separate advances for each territory, and that each of those advances earns out on its own schedule. So even if the publisher in the US stumbles and the book does poorly here, it may still sell well elsewhere and the writer will still earn royalties. These separate income streams make it easier for a writer to actually make a living from writing.

Which is why we hold on to foreign and other subsidiary rights when we sell a project to a publisher.

Read the rest.

Boost your productivity

Michael Stearns at Upstart Crow blogged about software called Freedom. It shuts off your crack supply Internet connection for however many minutes you specify, leaving you free to develop new distractions, like grooming your arm hair write.

Read more here.

And get the software (Mac-only) here.

On the challenges of picture books

Today on the Upstart Crow Literary blog Michael Stearns has an excellent, thoughtful post on the art and business of picture book writing.

I think it's a must-read for anyone attempting PBs (and not just because he name-checks the great and wonderful Deb Lund a couple of times and happens to be one of the smartest, most generous people in the business).

Michael talks about something that rarely gets mentioned--many people start with picture books because they seem easier and more manageable than longer works. I don't think there's anything wrong with this; we all have to figure out what stories suit us best, and who doesn't have happy memories of reading picture books as a child or to our own children?

Part of the work of getting established in this business, though, is figuring out the formats that best suit your voice, your point of view, and your storytelling style. You might spend years working on picture books when really, the middle grade novel is a better fit.

Anyway, Michael's post is long and I don't want to sap your steam before you read it:

1. About Picture Books and Picture Book Writing

I should start by stating unequivocally that I love picture books. Love them. Of the four agents at Upstart Crow, I am the only one who even considers picture book manuscripts. I squander my spare cash buying picture books I love despite not having children. I read them over and over again to see how they’re structured. I spend hours grazing at local bookstores while parents give me the hairy eye wondering what’s up with the strange single male who is reading picture books to himself and chortling.

But even though I love picture books, I represent and acquire very few.

Why? Well, I don’t always love working with picture book authors, for reasons that can be difficult to articulate without coming off as uncharitable. Here’s the thing: A really great picture book is a difficult art to pull off. I’m deadly serious when I use the word “art” here. That’s how I view a great picture book. It is about grace and the right words in the right place—much more akin to poetry than mere storytelling. The picture books I love are “language driven”—that is, are more about sound and rhythm and call-and-response than about, say, the devices of regular fiction—those things familiar from novels, such as extended scene and dialogue exchange and long descriptive passages. Picture book writing must be woefully dependent on the illustrations, else the manuscript is trying to do far too much, is the bore at the table who won’t let anyone else speak, won’t let the conversation come to life, and flattens the spirit of the evening.

Read the rest.

What makes a good kids' book

Michael Stearns at Upstart Crow has shared Little, Brown's list of what makes an excellent children's book:

If you work in publishing in any capacity whatsoever, then you likely have a deep affection for Little, Brown. And not just because they are riding so high these days. Sure, they the publishers of a kind-of-sort-of-somewhat-successful series you may have heard of, but they also have one of the sharpest, most insistently singular lists around. Not just the thrill-a-minute money machines of James Patterson, but also cheerily commercial fare such as Vampirates, literary bestsellers that smart kids love such as The Mysterious Benedict Society, compelling and complex teen fiction about dark stuff in life such as The Hate List and North of Beautiful [CHINOOK UPDATE: WOOT WOOT, JUSTINA!], and more more more. It’s just a great house with great books, and the people who edit there are pretty fabulous, too.

But this isn’t a love letter to Little, Brown—honest, it’s not. (My love is much too fickle and unpleasant to be captured in a mere blog post.) Instead, it’s a reproduction of a useful handout their editors distribute at conferences and which every writer should tack to his or her wall.The list of eminent attributes below may not all be required of a good book, but I’d wager most are true of the best books. How do these strike all of you? As things that need not be said? As constraints? Or as the distilled wisdom of the soldiers in the trenches of children’s books publishing?

Read the whole list.

Good news for Martha Brockenbrough

She is very happy to announce the sale of her picture book, The Dinosaur Tooth Fairy, to Arthur A. Levine Books. Michael Stearns of Upstart Crow Literary is her agent.

Martha feels sort of silly talking about herself in the third person, but she makes everyone else do it so it seems only fair. She's also grateful beyond words to everyone at the SCBWI, because this never would have happened without the support and serendipitous opportunities the organization provides.

A big myth

The agent Colleen Lindsay has an excellent post on The Swivet about a misperception that bigger is better when it comes to books. Usually, this isn't the case--and it can sometimes be a marker that you're not yet a good enough writer to pare your story down to its essence.

This is a must-read post, especially for people revising manuscripts. And yes, it does contain some length guidelines--not rules, she says, because there are always exceptions.

Check it out.

In a slightly related topic, Michael Stearns at the Upstart Crow Literary blog wrote yesterday about Raymond Carver and his editor, Gordon Lish. Some serious paring down went on in Lish's office. It's interesting! (And Jane Yolen and Michael debate a bit in the comments section, which is worth the price of admission. Ahem.)

Good beginnings: two agents discuss

Chris Richman and Michael Stearns of Upstart Crow Literary have started a series of podcasts on the craft of writing. This is what they have to say about books with strong beginnings.

Word-of-mouth marketing

Darcy Pattison had such a great post on word-of-mouth marketing that I'm reprinting a good chunk of it below. Do check out her blog, FictionNotes, for the whole thing (and a lot more excellent stuff about writing and revising).

But first, a bit of my own soapbox. Word-of-mouth marketing is something we can--and should--do for each other. Go to our colleagues' signings. Read their books. Talk about them with other people. This is not only a great way to further your education in the craft and current market, it will also introduce you to people who will do the same for you when your day comes.

The brilliant editor-turned-agent Michael Stearns mentioned at the SCBWI-LA conference in '08 that a picture book could hit the bottom of NYT bestseller list by selling a few hundred copies in a week. In other words, our chapter could put members on the bestseller list if we all bought copies in the same week from reporting stores. (Secret Garden Books in Ballard is working on becoming one; Elliott Bay is--do people know others?)

Think about this for a moment. We are a large and powerful chapter--one of the largest in the world. We can make each other bestsellers. That's sort of exciting to think about, and even more exciting to bring about. It's not the only measure of success, but I don't think there's anyone who'd sneeze at it, either.

Without further ado, Darcy's post:

A great source of information about kids and reading is the Consider this Scholastic study, the 2008 Kids and Family Reading Study (Download the entire pdf or watch a video clip. )

Word of Mouth: Talk to kids!
The Scholastic study on Kids and Reading says:

• Kids overwhelmingly (89%) say “My favorite books are the ones I picked out myself.”
  
• Sixty-eight percent of kids say they love or like reading books for fun a lot (72% of girls/ 63% of boys).
  
• Half of all kids say there aren’t enough really good books for boys/girls their age.

What? Not enough really good books? Surely that’s partly because no one has told them about a special book – and you’re just the one to do that.

Word of Mouth: Talk to parents!
The Scholastic study also says that, “Parents are a key source of book suggestions for their children, but nearly half of all parents say they have a hard time finding information about books their child would enjoy reading, and especially parents of teens age 15-17 (62%).”
Wow! What an opportunity!

Word of Mouth: Talk to booksellers, librarians, teachers, or other professionals!
It’s called industry buzz. The more professionals talk about a book, the more it gets talked about and has a chance to break out into the general public.

How to write a query letter

The folks at Upstart Crow have a swell little writer's toolbox. If you're struggling to write a query letter, do check out this annotated version. It tells you how you should format, what you should put where, and what you should look out for. (It's a PDF, so you'll need a reader.)

For the rest of the toolbox, click here.

How to query Upstart Crow

The new agency, founded by Michael Stearns, is now taking submissions. You'll find their guidelines--along with each agent's tastes--on the new Upstart Crow site.

Michael Stearns starts new literary agency

Alice Pope reports this morning that Michael Stearns, who spoke at our spring conference, has left Firebrand to start a new agency, Upstart Crow Literary. The agency opens its doors the first week of August.

Read her post here. (Chris Richman and Danielle Chiotti are going with Michael.)