Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 2/27/13

Your random song of the week: "The A Team," by Ed Sheeran. Added this song to my soundtrack for the upcoming WOODS sequel (none of it's written, but the bits and pieces are starting to come together.

Sad video, isn't it? The music reminds me a little of James Blunt.

1) "Is Your Agent an Asset?" By Lynne Price of Behler Blog. This is actually really scary. Apparently there are a lot of agents who send out query letters that misspell words, leave out wordcounts, and fail to include a book's target audience? Price's takeaway point here is that if you work through an agent, you should always ask to see the letter that's being sent out to editors.

2) This interview with Chuck Sambuchino at Literary Rambles raises a couple of good points. My favorite is in question five, where he describes three different ways to focus your blog. I've been using a blend of #1 and #3 for this one--that's a combination of "related subject matter" and "writer's journey"--but I think I'd like to steer more towards #1. That will probably mean a bit more focus on fairy tales and ghost stories--and, as a result, more reviews of fantasy movies. I hope that's okay with y'all. : P

3) "The Series Death Spiral, and other unfortunate realities of publishing." Kevin J. Anderson explains how the sales of book 2 can actually make or break a series. If book 2 doesn't sell well enough, the publisher might decide not to publish book 3 at all.

4) "Perpetual WIPs: Literary Agents." By The Daily Dahlia. This is another "Gospel According To Agents"-type post, but the questions are good and the answers are interesting. Probably a must-read for those considering traditional publishing.

5) "Interview with Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan, YA Authors," at Racebending.com. Talks about the importance of writing a diverse cast of characters, and the difficulty of getting those characters represented in movies and on book covers.

6) "Romance novelist 'Jessica Blair' is an 89-year-old man." By Today News. You often hear about this happening the other way--lots of female authors use male or gender-neutral pseudonyms--but this is the first specific case I've heard of where a male author used a female one. I'm kind of interested in reading his books, now!

7) "Serials, or, How to Make Your Readers Hate You." According to Angela Benedetti, there are people out there marketing serials by pretending they're selling complete stories and surprising their readers with cliffhangers. Um... maybe don't do that?

8) "An Ode to the Series, Contemporary YA Style." By Kelly of Stacked. I actually never got into contemporary--by the time I hit middle school, I'd discovered fantasy, and never really looked back. If one were interested in seeing what's cooking now, though, this would be a pretty good place to start (her list is short, but there are lots more suggestions in the comments).

9) "Beta Outside Your Genre: Opposites Attract." Sarah Enni of YA Highway points out that fresh eyes (stylistically speaking) can be an advantage during the editing process.

Dangerous confidence

I went to a book signing tonight. Marissa Meyer was at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, promoting her novel Cinder.  I unfortunately missed the reading, due partly to my propensity for tardiness and partly to a wrong turn at Albuquerque, but it seemed to have been a very nice reading, and the bookstore was lovely. The author herself was sweet and charming and well-spoken, and her signature message is adorable: "May the glass slipper always fit." (The book is now on my shelf, trying to cut in front of the other books on my to-read list. I think it's about to get into a fistfight with my copy of Anna Dressed In Blood.)

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Seeing people promote their books-- hearing authors talk about their careers-- inevitably makes me desperate to be one of them. I feel like telling people, I'm like you! I'm an author, too! You can't see it, but I'm almost done, and soon my book will be published and it will be on the shelf like yours! Even though it's not finished yet. But it's almost there, and it makes me crazy with anticipation sometimes. And ambition, as well. 

The thing about writing is that until you are published-- until you have an actual, physical, beautifully-bound book with your name on the cover-- authorial ambitions are generally seen as empty daydreams. "Yes, dear, you want to write a book, just like everybody else. Maybe you'd better do something else in the meantime-- you can always write in your spare time!" 

And I want to say, No! Not me. I can do this. Other people might give up, but I'm going to make a career as a writer. Someday I'll have a whole row of books on the shelf, each more beautiful than the last, and people will see them in the bookstores and point them out to their friends. And then their friends will pick up one or two of them and take them to the register, and maybe read them and fall in love with them and point them out to their friends, later. And all the while I'll be writing more.

And on that note: