AFN # 142 So Runs The Year Away

This year's penultimate A Faster No is gonna be a long one folks

I cannot for the life of me believe that it is December already. The weather in New York is finally properly cold, though not as cold as it ought to be this time of year. We’ve all pretty much given up on getting any new projects out before the end of the year. Instead we’re closing out old submissions and wrapping up projects and cleaning out our inboxes and settling in for the holiday season. I personally feel as though my brain has liquefied, turned to goo, and leaked out my ears, so that should give you a sense of Where I’m At for this newsletter.

Complicating my headspace is that over the weekend I finally (after five years) cleaned out the storage unit I’d rented to house my agent copies of my old clients’ books when I left BGL. It was bittersweet to be faced with boxes enough to fill the back of a 2010 Ford Explorer—I’d somehow forgotten, or allowed myself to forget, that I had sold so many, that so many books had been translated or made into separate audiobooks or or or. It was an oddly incomplete collection, too. I had copies of Ren Warom’s Virology, for example, but not Escapology, the first in the series. I had approximately a hundred copies of Emma Newman’s Planetfall books (all four in the series) but am missing at least two of the Split Worlds books, both the Angry Robot and Diversion versions. Still, to see them all piled up in my new office warmed my heart. It was nice to see old friends, ready to be nestled in among the new.

This has been such a hard and challenging year, but also worthwhile and exciting—people keep asking me how it feels to be back as an agent and my answer has always been “it feels great.” It does feel great, but it’s a complicated kind of greatness—there’s always going to be that sense of wondering what might have been, mingled with happiness and invigorating excitement at getting a second chance to do this work.

Last week I attended the meeting of a new-to-me book club, where we’re reading Joyful Militancy: Building Resistance in Toxic Times. This book is heavily engaged with the Spinozan idea of joy: “…not an emotion at all, but an increase in one’s power to affect and be affected. It is the capacity to do and feel more…it is connected to creativity and the embrace of uncertainty.” This is the kind of joy I feel these days—like it’s a muscle I’m learning to flex, badly, a mindset with which to approach what I’m doing.

We live in uncertain times. I work in an uncertain industry. There is no endeavor with a smaller chance of a return than writing a book and sending it out in the hopes it will find its place in the world. My hope for this newsletter has always been that it should be informative and a little entertaining, and make it a little easier to be wherever you are in the publishing journey. I hope I can continue to do that in the year and years to come, and that this space remains a space of joy for you in all your endeavors.

PUBLISHING QUESTION(s) OF THE WEEK

I had a few hanging around the ol’ Google forms that didn’t merit long enough answers to be their own newsletters, so here’s a trifecta:

I have just completed a novel, now out to beta readers, and it's time (it just can't ever be avoided, arrgh--thanks for listening) to, you guessed it, write a query. I used Janet Reid to edit my last two queries. I learned so much from her. (Sigh. Big deep breath.) She was awesome.

Here's my question: Are you aware of anyone out there, obviously an agent, who critiques queries like Janet did? Janet charged a reasonable amount and, to her lasting credit, she would stick to the query past two looks until we both agreed it was ready. I don't mind paying for the service as long as it's a reasonable amount.

I know QueryManager offers the service to have people critique a query, but that's too public for me. As a screenwriter I've got personal stories and heard of others of stolen material, not getting credit due, etc., all when you're taking every precaution, following the rules, etc. It just seems so easy to have content stolen these days that I need to know the person is the real deal.

The place you are looking for is Reedsy! Reedsy is a marketplace with a lot of current and former publishing professionals who offer their expertise. Back when I freelanced I used to offer submission package or query critiques as a service. Many editors on there still offer that or something similar. It will probably look different depending on who you go to, but ideally you’d want to have at least a couple of rounds of feedback—so that you can send the initial query, they can tell you what they think works/doesn’t, and then you can get a chance to make changes and get feedback again. I think I used to charge $75 for the submissions package critique. That included in-line and global feedback on the first 25-50 (I can’t remember) pages of the book, feedback if needed on the synopsis, and three rounds of detailed query critiques. (A bargain, IMO.) Good luck!

Does the gender of a young YA protagonist (aged 14 or 15) mean a book is mostly going to be readers of the same gender? Or can you say the book is meant for anyone ages 12+?

Broadly speaking, yes: The gender of the protagonist is generally considered to be the gender of the target audience. Saying that the book is meant for anyone ages 12+ is so broad as to be unhelpful—though the idea of binary gender is reductive and outdated, it is still the go-to marketing axis that a publisher will take into account. You don’t have to say “for girls” or “for boys” in your query, though—this is probably where comp titles and comp authors will be far more helpful. Good luck!

Any tips for querying a verse novel with agents who use QueryTracker? I just had a rejection from someone who said their reason was that 44,000 words was too short for a YA book. It’s actually kind of long for a verse novel, but it seems like they didn’t get past the Word Count field on the QT form to know it’s in verse. 🤦 Now I’m wondering whether some of the other agents who passed might also have autorejected due to word count. Of course, many agents don’t want to work with verse novels at all, but all of my requests for fulls (and one really lovely personalized rejection) have come from agents I queried via email, where word count is better contextualized. What can I do? “Verse Novel” isn’t a drop-down-menu genre category, so it’s hard to signal it in QT. Should I use “A Verse Novel” as a subtitle after the title? Should I just always query agents via alternate methods if available? (That would help with formatting too. The QT form is terrible for verse formatting.) Any suggestions?

Possibly the most niche question I’ve received to date! Well done! First of all, I’d definitely add “A Novel in Verse” or something like that to the title field because, as you say there’s no way to indicate “verse novel” on a dropdown menu. (And I’d like to acknowledge that even though I use and love QueryManager for my own queries, I know that it can make an already difficult and fraught process feel reductive, so, sorry about that.) If an agent allows queries both through QueryTracker and through email, and you’ve had a better track record with email, definitely go that route—but don’t send it to them via email if they request queries through QT. That’s a quick route to getting the email deleted without being read.

I have the feeling that the relative rarity of verse novels in general is what’s working against you here, but definitely add the detail about it being a verse novel into the title form and see if that moves the needle. Good luck!

WHAT I’M READING

I’ve been on a real binge—feels as though it’s feast or famine these days, reading-wise. Since Thanksgiving I’ve finished eight books and am nearly done with one more. Bismarck’s War was fabulous, if you like that sort of thing (which I do.) On an editor’s recommendation I picked up Praise by Sarah Cate, who writes darker romance with “forbidden” tropes (that all seem to end with the female MC getting pregnant, which I don’t love.) Still, after Praise I read four more (Give Me More, Highest Bidder, The Anti-Hero, and The Homewrecker.) Cate’s writing is compulsively readable, and even if I wasn’t 100% into the tropes, the characters were so engaging that I didn’t mind.

Somewhere in the middle of that smut binge I re-read The White Album by Joan Didion, because the way she writes about the national id in the sixties feels like an analogue to the way being alive in America feels today. On the recommendation of a different editor I picked up The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Read, recently re-issued with a foreword from Jo Walton. It’s a late-breaking cyberpunk novel originally published in 2010, about a woman who works as a “camera”: a journalist who has been digitally implanted and enhanced to allow the audience to plug directly into her mind and emotions. She becomes emotionally entangled with her “scanner,” the person who serves as her digital manager, and over the course a tangled romance develops as Maya (the protagonist) tries to uncover the truth behind a long-over genocide. It’s a tremendous novel, about the limits of personhood and the ability (or not) to love and connect with someone else. How do you love when the person you love is literally inside your mind? The writing is also just beautiful, clever, and moving. Highly, highly recommend.

Finally, I’m nearly done with my second Hanif Abdurraqib collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us. Where There’s Always Next Year focused on basketball, Abdurraqib’s arena here is music, which he writes about just as evocatively. From Ice Cube to My Chemical Romance to Nina Simone, he nimbly connects musical styles, race, class, and place in an accessible way (even if you’re not a fan or even a knower of the artist in question.) My phone is full of pictures taken of passages that moved me or made me feel as though I’d been struck by lightning, but this newsletter is already long enough. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. (Actually, do that, and then send some to me so I can buy more books.)

THIS WEEK IN HOCKEY

capitals

A post shared by @capitals

You thought I’d leave this part out, didn’t you! Haha, suckers, this is my newsletter, and I am the captain now! Alex Ovechkin is two to three weeks away from returning to the lineup, according to Capitals owner Ted Leonsis. Truly, the Russian Machine never breaks. In a shocking development, the team has continued to play well in his absence. Truly trying to make Mom proud. The Capitals are currently in a three way tie with the Minessota Wild and the Winnipeg Jets for most points in the league! And in a bid to outdo Ovi for grit in the (heh) face of injury, Tom Wilson was back in the lineup almost immediately after taking a full-strength puck to the cheek courtesy of teammate Jakob Chychrun. (What do you send as an apology gift in this situation, I wonder?)

HOUSEKEEPING

Next week will be the final issue of AFN for the year, as I take the last two weeks off for the holidays. Thank you all for your continued interest!

Do you have any questions about the publishing industry? Requests for advice? Thoughts on your recent reads? You can leave them as comments, replies to this email, or fill out this Google form to ask anonymously!

For my sins, I have reopened to queries.

My first novel, Marrying In, is available for purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and is coming soon to iBooks. If you’ve read it, consider leaving a review—that helps me and the book in the long run!

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This newsletter is a personal project, and the sentiments and opinions expressed here are my own and not those of my employer.