Getting the Call

As we get ready to mentor our Nightmare on Query Street contestants, we thought we’d post a little bit about our journey to representation, in case it helps inspire a few writers to Keep Calm and Query On.

One Halloween, while on a ghost tour of Greenwich Village, we came up with an idea for a YA Paranormal novel. We passed chapters back and forth, just for fun, over the next two plus years. Once we had written about 40,000 words, we decided it was time to get serious about finishing the book and enrolled in a MediaBistro class with writer Micol Ostow, which started in January 2013. The class pushed us to finish and revise the manuscript. Plus, we met fellow writers and learned a lot about the business of children’s lit. It also showed us just how much more work we had to do.

After a few more re-writes, we began to contact agents. We even made it into last year’s Nightmare on Query Street contest. In total, we probably queried 30 people and received 10 requests. Most of the agents were pretty positive in their rejection emails, but one theme stuck out over and over. Paranormal was a hard sell at that time. A couple of very nice agents told us to write something else and to be in touch.

We could have kept querying or quit altogether, but deep down, we knew they were right. It was time to move on, but instead of getting depressed, we got excited about taking what we learned and writing something even better.

After a crazy brainstorming session in August 2013, we came up with a wacky idea, to write a YA contemporary romance about Bigfoot hunters. This time, the whole process was much easier. We drafted, revised, and worked with our critique partner and a couple of beta readers, until we felt it was ready.

That’s when we heard about Query Kombat and jumped at the chance to get some valuable feedback and make some new writer friends. That was the extent of our expectations. Fast forward a few months and not only did we get into the contest, but we kept winning. Before we knew it, we were the grand champions and had received 10 agent requests!

During the contest, we also sent a handful of queries to other agents who were on our short list. Within a few days of the contest we had an offer of representation on the table from Agent A who loved the manuscript. We quickly went back to everyone who had a full, partial, or query, because you never know (and it’s the polite thing to do). Most requested the full and said they would read our manuscript before our deadline. Only a couple bowed out right away, and a few said they really liked it, but weren’t quite in love. Then two more offers came in from Agents B and C!

We had a long phone conversation with each agent who offered. All of these agents were great in different ways, but we were undecided. Then, two days before we were going to make a decision, we got a fourth offer. We quickly set up a call with the Agent D, knowing our decision deadline was around the corner. However, before we even ended the call, we just knew, “the way you know about a good melon,” to quote When Harry Met Sally. This was our agent, the one we wanted to represent us.  She really seemed to get what we were trying to do and had great ideas to make our manuscript even better.  We knew we would enjoy working with her and that she would be a rock star champion for our novel.

So now, we are thrilled to say we are represented by Christa Heschke at McIntosh & Otis, who was one of the agents who requested our manuscript during Query Kombat.

If we had to offer some advice, based on our story, we would say to keep writing. You never know if the manuscript you are writing now is the one that is going to get you an agent, or the one that is going to teach you how to write the one that gets you an agent.

Thanks as always to contest gurus Michelle, Mike, and SC for playing literary matchmakers and for creating such a wonderful community!

Nightmare on Query Street: Tips on Getting Contest Ready

Carrie and I are thrilled to have been asked to be mentors for the upcoming  Nightmare on Query Street contest.  We really love all contests, but Nightmare on Query Street has a special place in our hearts. 

Last year our YA Paranormal was chosen to be among Michelle’s Minions. We received a few awesome agent requests and met some wonderful people before we decided to…. shelve that manuscript and completely start over. It turns out paranormal is a very hard sell. Who knew? (um, everyone else in publishing). 

However, it’s all about the journey. It’s now less than a year later, and we have written a whole new manuscript, won Query Kombat, and landed a dream agent. So yeah, we know a little bit about the ups and downs of contests. 

Here are our tips for polishing your query and getting it contest ready, based on a whole heck of a lot of drafts of our own.

1.       Come up with a great hook.  Grab us with your first line. Fill it with voice and conflict and character. Easy, right? I didn’t think so. It may take 10 drafts or more to get it right. 
 

2.       Read winning queries from other contests to get an idea of what goes into a great query. Also take a look at the way your favorite books are described.
 

3.       Keep it short and streamlined. 250-300 words is about right, but aim for closer to 250. We like to think the first paragraph is the set up: what has just happened to set the story in motion and who your character is and what they want. Then focus on the conflict. What is stopping them from achieving their goals? The third paragraph is the choice. What do they need to do? What are the stakes?
 

4.       Focus on the specifics. Avoid general stakes or conflicts. i.e. “is in mortal danger” is far less interesting than “will be dropped into the middle of a shark tank.”
 

5.       Highlight the character’s motivation, flaws, and strengths. It’s hard to do in such a small amount of space, but show us who your character is and what they need.
 

6.       Don’t tell us the ending. We want to know the choice the character must make and what’s at stake, but you don’t want to give it all away in a query.
 

7.       Voice, voice, voice. It’s hard because you are writing in third person present while your book may be first person past tense, but try to insert some of your character’s voice to give us a sense of what they are like. 
 

8.       Make sure the tone of the query matches your manuscript. If you’ve written a funny middle grade manuscript, your query shouldn’t sound like a piece of historical fiction and vice versa.
 

9.       Don’t blow off the Halloween themed question.  Treat it with the same care as the query. It’s another chance to show off your character’s voice.


10.    Relax. The worst that can happen is that you don’t get into the contest. It’s very subjective, but hopefully your query is now ready for the next contest or for whatever agent you’ve been politely staking on Twitter.  

      Good luck! We look forward to helping our mentees polish their work. For contest details, click here.

 

Drop Everything and Read This: Breathe, Annie, Breathe

I recently counted how many books I’ve read so far this year. The answer is 62. If you add Carrie’s list as well, I’m sure we’re over 100. Most of the books we read are Young Adult or New Adult, although there has been a smattering of adult books as well. Most of them have been great, so much so that we realized we need to post reviews more often. 

Since we’re clearly behind on our reviews, we decided to narrow our focus to only include books that aren’t on the NY Times bestseller lists, because yes, we read a lot of best sellers that are beautiful and magical (We Were Liars, Isla and the Happily Ever After, Silver Shadows etc.), but you already know about those. 

So here is a wonderful YA Contemporary novel for your reading pleasure.

Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally

Sourcebooks (7/15/2014)

In this beautiful book about love, loss, and starting over, the title character, who has never run before, trains for a marathon in memory of her boyfriend. Annie spends the novel training her body, but finds that it is her heart that needs the most work, especially when she meets Jeremiah, her trainer’s brother.  

This book is notable for how poignantly it deals with death, but also for the realistic and well-drawn relationships between Annie and her family and friends. Annie’s romance with Jeremiah builds very nicely from attraction to friendship, then to love, which I also appreciated.  I highly recommend this book, especially to readers just delving into YA Contemporary after reading The Fault in Our Stars. This may be a quieter book, but it is no less heartfelt.

It even inspired me to consider doing the Couch to 5K training program. I figure I’m halfway there. I’m great on the couch.  

Read an excerpt of Breathe, Annie, Breathe here. 

 

On the Road with Bigfoot

A couple of weeks ago, Carrie and I took a very special, Squatchy road trip to see the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton, California.

We thought it would be an adventure and maybe enhance some of research. Plus, I really had to buy a t-shirt for my husband that featured Bigfoot carrying a surfboard. Who could resist such a thing?

What we found was a couple of rooms full of Bigfoot related swag, some cool and some misguided. For instance, Alf, that lovable television alien, was not a Sasquatch. Not even close.

They also had some foot prints, photos, and a couple of statues of our hairy friend, not to mention a very enthusiastic museum docent.

Below are a few of our photos.

Carrie in front of the museum. "Um, pretty sure this is how most horror stories start."

Betsy with a new friend. "He said he was taller than this when we chatted online..."

A museum display. Look, we found Bigfoot! Oh, no, it's just his old teddy bear.

Either these are foot prints or Bigfoot's mom kept his Play-doh projects from kindergarten.

The Indie Author Journey: Guest Post by Author Sherry Soule

In the middle of a whole lot of debate about traditional vs. indie publishing, we thought we would check in with one of our favorite indie authors, Sherry Soule, and ask her to share her thoughts. Timing-wise, it couldn't be better because she has a fabulous new book out, Lost In Starlight, which we highly recommend.

The Indie Author Journey

by  author Sherry Soule

When I was growing up, the only thing I ever dreamed about was being a professional writer. Today Amazon sent me an email inviting me to create an author page. This probably sounds lame to some people, but it’s an exciting step to me. My own official author page! I realize for self-published and indie authors that it’s an on-going struggle to get your books out into the world, and hopefully make some money in the process.

Like every writer, I am incredibly passionate about my work. The main reason I write is because I love to do it. Not for the money. No, because I love creating characters. I love crafting suspense. And I love telling stories—my kind of stories.

Writing has always been my true passion. This was what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to publish novels. I dreamed of being a professional author since I was seven years old, and I enjoy writing both adult and young adult tales.

Best-selling author, Tracy Hickman was quoted as saying, “Don’t seek to be published, seek to be read.”

Simple words. Great advice. It made so much sense. Write for your readers. Write what you love. Write every day and don’t give up.

Our dreams should give us wings. Let us fly. Soar above the clouds. And we should never, ever have to look down. Right?

Being a voracious reader all of my life, I believe my writing style differs from the other young adult paranormals being published; because my stories tend to have elements of chilling suspense weaved into the plot. Nor are my stories always focused primarily on “love.” But there is a lot of kissing!

Yet I do write about people who fall in love under unusual circumstances. Not because I like a conventional happy ending—no, I write about love because I believe it’s the strongest human emotion we possess. And sometimes my character’s choices don’t get them a happy ending. Sometimes the endings are surprising. Sometimes bittersweet. Sometimes they end with a cliffhanger. But I hope they are never boring or too predictable.

How did I start?

Well, like I said, I’ve been writing since I was seven. I’ve written a lot of books over the years. Yeah, a lot of bad books, too. I went to college, but mostly took creative writing and English classes. I couldn’t go full-time because I had a family to look after, but I did take various writing courses for the past ten years.

To be honest, I’ve tried three times in my life to find a literary agent, aka the gatekeepers to the publishing world, without success. I’ve even had a few prominent agencies request my work. Looking back, I know what I did wrong. I didn’t have any critique partners. The manuscript wasn’t tightened up and polished. I didn’t hire a freelance editor. I thought it was good. Well, it sucked. Hence, the multiple rejections. Which also sucked.

I’d like to think I’ve learned a lot since then. I hope I have.

The turning point in my life came when, like so many people across the United States, I lost my job. I feel into a deep, dark depression. To escape my utter hopelessness and to be productive, I decided to try writing again. I rewrote an old story that I still believed in, but knew it still needed some major revision. Maybe this was a sign from God to try to get published after all these years. I wrote every day for months, then started query agents and editors again. No luck. More rejections.

I worked part-time and kept writing. I started editing a manuscript that I wrote about nine years ago called, “IMMORTAL ECLIPSE.” I did some freelance developmental editing to pay the rent. Then I was laid off again and after a few months, my unemployment ended. I was scared. No job. No money in my checking account and my savings account had been closed by my bank. Zero funds.

Time to freak out. I was a single mother with two young children to support. But no way to support them. Then I discovered that my seven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a severe and very rare disease. The medical bills began to mount up. I needed money.

In my heart, I still didn’t want to give up on my dream. It was all I had left to encourage me…

Once I gave up the idea of a book deal with a New York publishing house and finding an über agent that loved my work, I decided to look into indie publishers. Then I read about Amanda Hocking’s success story on her blog. I was impressed and awed. She had taken a chance, so I decided to self-publish one of my early novels. Why not? I talked it over with my family—who agreed. I had nothing to lose. And since I was out of a job, I had time to promote my work.

Then some of my family members announced that they wanted to start an online publishing company. And guess what? I was the first to sign with them. Sure, they’re small but everyone has to start somewhere. So, they didn’t mind when I wanted to hire my own cover artist. (Do not be naïve—book covers sell books. Well, that and good writing.)

Going Indie is a scary endeavor. On occasion things don’t work out. Books don’t sell. The genre dead ends. Bad timing. Worse luck.

But indie authors can find a small amount of success due to the book blogging community, which is so incredibly supportive. And I sincerely thank the book reviewers who have embraced and heartily praised my novels.

Although, I may never reach the success of other self-published or indie authors, I won’t look back at my life someday with regret. At least I’ll know I tried, and that’s something, right? You only fail if you never try…

“If you’re waiting for the universe to provide for you, I’ve got a feeling you’re going to wait a long time. If you know what you want, then my advice is to confidently take the necessary steps and go get it.” – Bryan Hutchinson

So, now I need to get back to editing and writing new stories. No reason to let these manuscripts sit on my hard-drive. Maybe someone will enjoy reading them. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll keep dreaming and hoping, and someday those hopes and dreams will come true. Maybe not.

But what good are dreams if you don’t try? What good is trying to follow your heart if it can’t be turned into reality?

Never let someone else put limits on your goals or hinder your own personal dreams. I know, I won’t…

ABOUT SHERRY

Award-winning author, Sherry Soule currently lives with her family and one very spoiled black cat in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. She writes thrilling tales of romance and suspense, often mingled with a dash of the mystical and a splash of trendy fashion. Her published novels do not include any graphic sex, explicit violence, or excessive profanity, so that all of her novels can be read and enjoyed by both teens and adults. 

Her new book is Lost in Starlight.

 

Places you can cyberstalk Sherry Soule:

Check out Sherry’s books:  http://amazon.com/Sherry-Soule/e/B00596ANCA

Official Author site:  http://sherrysoule.blogspot.com/

Twitter - @SherrySoule:  http://twitter.com/sherrysoule

Fiction Editing Services:  http://fictionwritingtools.blogspot.com/

Goodreads:  http://goodreads.com/author/show/4925996.Sherry_Soule

Spellbound Series: http://thespellboundseries.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSherrySoule