Christy English

Strategies to Selling A Novel: Freelance Editors

Friday, March 18th, 2011 | Selling Your Work, The Writing Life | 2 Comments

The hardest part of being a writer is still learning to see my work with a modicum of objectivity. It is hard, almost impossible, especially after the first draft is done, and I feel as if my work is a miracle. It IS a miracle to finish a first draft. It is a time to celebrate and dance a jig or have a glass of wine. But soon it is time to start draft two, then draft three. Hard work…it is something every writer, published or not, is very familiar with.

So how on earth do you get from polite notes of rejection to getting an agent not only to read the entire manuscript, but offer to represent your book?

One way is to work with a freelance editor.

Donald Maass spoke to Writer Unboxed. I posted the first segment on Wednesday…here is the second part of that conversation.

http://writerunboxed.com/2007/12/07/interview-donald-maass-part-2/

In it, Mr. Maass mentions his wife’s, Lisa Rector Maass and her Third Draft NYC. I had the pleasure of hearing both Mr. and Mrs. Maass speak at a conference in San Francisco in 2008. What I heard them say helped me look at my work in a new way, and helped me work toward fixing it, and making it better.  I think their classes and the information I garnered from them helped me to finally sell THE QUEEN’S PAWN in November 2008.

Lisa Rector Maass’s website is:

http://www.thirddraftnyc.com/

And if it is too expensive for most to work with Lisa Rector Maass directly, she speaks at conferences often, as does her husband. It is worth the time and money to hear them speak…at least, it was for me.

Another freelance editor who helped my work get better is Alice Osborn, based in Raleigh, NC.

http://aliceosborn.com/

Alice and I met at a writer’s conference in Wilmington, NC  and she helped my work immensely over the years. In my experience, she has a very good eye for story and for making writing better.

Freelance editors can help us see things about our work that we would never otherwise discover. They can open the door to a new way of looking at things, a way to tighten our prose and raise the stakes of our story to make not just agents and editors want to read it, but people buying books as well. And that’s the ultimate goal. Reaching readers with the worlds we have created.

Strategies to Sell a Novel: Getting an Agent

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 | Selling Your Work, The Writing Life | 2 Comments

I have found that the best strategy to selling a novel is hard work…aka making the writing so good that an agent and then an editor says…”I love this. I want to work with this writer.” Even at that point, there are ages of edits to go through, but once you have developed your voice and a storyline that the market can support, agents and editors will be willing to look at your work. Not just willing, eager. They need good stories  just as I, as a reader, need a good  book to read every time I walk into Barnes and Noble.

I will break this blog entry into two parts: How to Get an Agent and Tools to Improve Your Writing. Both are essential to selling your novel.

My first bit of advice on getting an agent is: don’t give up. I sent out three or four query letters a week to handpicked agents who represented my genre, historical fiction. And over time, as my writing and query letter improved, I got positive responses back.

I found my first two agents by querying representatives that I found in Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents.

I bought this book twice … one of the best investments I ever made in tools of my craft, second only to my computer. Here’s the link to see more…

http://www.jeffherman.com/guide/

I learned to write a query letter by going to writer’s conferences and by reading books on the subject. I also heard Donald Maas speak at more than one conference, and his presentations helped me immeasurably to write a strong query letter which immediately began garnering responses. Here is an interview with Mr. Maas on Writer Unboxed. I will say more about Mr. Maas and his wife, editor Lisa Maas’ inspiring work in Part II.

http://writerunboxed.com/2007/11/30/interview-donald-maass-part-1/

Also remember that you are not alone. We have all been there. A lot of people still are. And a lot of people are going to get published. It just takes work, and a will like Eleanor of Aquitaine’s, a tenacity that says I Will Never Give Up.

Here is a link to a lovely blog about a writer just like us…a woman who faces the blank page one day at a time, and who faces the challenge of trying to sell what is on that page, just as each of us have. Thank you, Julieanne, for your honesty and your blog, which reminds us that we are not alone in this.

http://julieannemorley.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/speed-dating-and-fate-one-writers-moment/

So my main advice, for what it’s worth, is keep working to get better, both at marketing your work and in writing the work itself, and never give up. On Friday, I will explore the tools I discovered along the way that helped make my writing better, and ready for an editor.

Tags: The Writing Life

Foreign Sales and The Queen’s Pawn

Monday, September 6th, 2010 | Selling Your Work, The Queen's Pawn, The Writing Life | 2 Comments

I have made two foreign sales so far. As a writer, I don’t get involved past signing the contracts. My agent handles everything.

The process begins with the original contract with the US publishing house. When we sold both The Queen’s Pawn and To Be Queen, my agent managed to retain foreign, non-English rights. This allows her to take the locked manuscript, or the novel itself once it is bound and published, and send it abroad to her co-agents in Europe, Asia, and Latin American. These co-agents then take the novel and pitch it to various publishers in their own country. This happened in Turkey, and we made the sale in Istanbul through this circuitous route, from Margaret to her co-agent to the Turkish publisher.

The German sale was slightly different…we sold the German rights at the Frankfurt Book Fair last year, which I found incredibly exciting. The Frankfurt Fair was the first book fair in Europe over 500 years ago, and selling The Queen’s Pawn there really made me feel connected to history in a new and exciting way. I always feel connected to my characters and their lives, but to have my novel sell at the Frankfurt Book Fair made me feel as if my novel was one more link in a huge chain, stretching all the way back to Johannes Gutenberg, without whom we would be nowhere.

Eleanor and Alais in Germany & Turkey

Friday, September 3rd, 2010 | Eleanor of Aquitaine, Princess Alais, Selling Your Work, The Writing Life | 3 Comments

I am thrilled… The Queen’s Pawn has been picked up not just in Germany, which is amazing enough, but now it will be available in Turkey. I love that both Germans and Turks will soon read a bit about Eleanor. She rode through both the Empire of Germany and through Constantinople (now Istanbul) on her way to the Second Crusade.  Eleanor was not much of a crusader..she and her lords from Aquitaine and Poitou spent most of their time avoiding battle, but she was a huge fan of Turkish baths, as we will see in To Be Queen.

Alais, as far as we know, never got farther from Paris than Windsor and Bath, but no doubt Eleanor will look after her as they travel to beautiful and exotic foreign lands.

In my next blog entry, I will explain how foreign sales happen, and how mine took place. A little information for the curious, and for those of you working to be authors who will someday have this experience yourselves. So tune in Monday…and we will explore how my foreign sales happened, and what you can expect when your agent gets you a foreign deal.

Finding An Agent: A Potential Website for Aspiring Writers

Thursday, August 20th, 2009 | Finding An Agent, Selling Your Work, The Writing Life | No Comments

It occurs to me that I have not posted anything about how to find an agent in ages. I have gotten caught up in my own recent experiences of selling my novel and learning about the publishing world. All that is a lot of fun, as well as a lot of work, but before she can secure a sale to a large house, a writer has to find the right agent. 

With that in mind, I want to mention a fabulous website called AgentQuery.com.  I’ve attached the link below. It looks like an amazing source for advice on everything from writing a query letter to how to deal with agents once they actually want to represent your work.  Have a look and judge for yourself. If you like the site, please comment on this blog so that others can know you found it helpful.

http://agentquery.com/writer_or.aspx