The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing the Modern Whodunit (21 page)

A: Different agents have different preferences for how they like to receive material. The general practice is to send a query letter with a self-addressed stamped envelope asking the agent if he would be willing to read the manuscript. The query letter should distill your premise into a tantalizing, to-the-point, and easy-to-read single page. Avoid being cute at all costs. If someone can make an introduction for you, all the better. Some writers send email queries. Different agents respond differently. But with the deluge in email nowadays, making the initial contact by email invites instant dismissal.

No agent likes to be cold-called by a writer. You can telephone to confirm an address, in which case you’ll very likely be speaking to an assistant. Once you’ve sent in your manuscript, it’s reasonable to call and check on its status from time to time.

After you’ve sent your manuscript to an agent who has said he’d like to read it, give him a month from the time he receives it, and then check in by mail, email, or phone. The time lag can be considerable, and it might try your patience. It’s up to you how much of it you can tolerate. If there’s a special reason you’d like to work with a particular agent, you may want to give it more time.

Most agents expect an exclusive opportunity to consider a manuscript. Certainly they need to know if other agents have expressed interest in the material or are considering it. If you should be in the enviable position of having two agents interested in working with you, try to meet them both and get a sense who you would prefer to work with.

Q:
What are agents looking for in mystery novels these days? How do they decide whether to take on an unknown author?

A: There’s no simple answer to this question. Everyone will tell you that publishing is a very difficult business these days. The mystery market is crowded, and new mystery series are hard to launch. But there’s always room for something fresh and intriguing. There’s always a market for smooth writing, intriguing characters, and original plots. Different agents respond to different material, and different publishers are looking to develop different areas of their list. It’s as much about standing out from the rest as it is about fitting in with them. An agent may describe a client as the next Patricia Cornwell, but the fact remains that we already have a Patricia Cornwell. What agents and publishers both want is a client who can sell like Cornwell, not write copycat mysteries.

All agents want serious writers as clients, writers who will keep writing good books. An agent may be impressed with an author’s first effort and want to keep working with that author in the future even if her current book goes unsold. So take note of who expresses interest in you.

Q:
If an agent decides NOT to take me on, does that mean my book is unpublishable?

A: In the face of the mounds of rejection letters you might receive from agents, let me give you a little encouragement.
You only need one agent.
And remember, different agents have different tastes and different time constraints and different methods for identifying new clients. You simply have to keep working through the process of finding an agent, all the while trying to refine your approach to selling yourself. It’s very sad to think of someone who has approached every agent known to mankind with the same lackluster, formulaic, bad query letter only to receive the same form letter saying thanks, but no thanks. Give it time. Get advice where you can find it. Try to distinguish yourself from the rest, and keep writing. When you’re ready to quit trying to place your book, start focusing on the next one. And when you look for representation for that second book, focus on that book and that book alone. Don’t go to an agent with a laundry list of completed manuscripts. It’s overwhelming and self-defeating. Unless you have very impressive credentials that will cause someone to take notice of you, all of your books will steal the focus from each other. The agent will take the easiest path out and just say no to all of them.

Q:
Is it acceptable to submit my book to several agents at the same time?

A: You can submit multiple query letters. Don’t get ahead of yourself, though. This isn’t a pyramid scheme. Keep your approach personal and specific to that agent. Once an agent is interested, make sure he knows if anyone else has the manuscript. Many agents hesitate to invest time in reading a manuscript if there’s a possibility that the material will be snatched away from them at the last moment. Others will accept multiple submissions with the understanding that the author won’t make any decisions about representation without checking with them first.

Q:
Do agents do anything besides finding publishers for books?

A: Agents are your connection to the business end of your book. They use their accumulated business savvy and instincts to develop and pitch your manuscript to publishers for the initial sale. And more importantly, they enable the publisher to do business with you. Editors and people in publishing are reluctant to involve themselves with writers, even ones who they want to publish, if they’re not hooked up with an agent. It’s the agent’s job to explain the ins and outs of publishing to you, to help you make good business decisions, and to advocate for you to the publisher. Having the agent involved takes loads of pressure off the editor, who, as we have discussed, is already grossly overworked.

Beyond negotiating and shepherding the initial deal for a book, agents also have the connections and know-how to explore selling your book to foreign publishers in translation. They have connections to Hollywood if there’s the possibility of selling movie rights. They can help you in developing your next book and help you decide when and if it’s time to change publishers. Part of knowing which editor and which house match up with a manuscript is knowing who’s buying, which publishing houses are stable, and which houses are cutting back. And when your editor unexpectedly quits or gets fired, or any one of a myriad of unexpected setbacks that can happen, it’s your agent who holds your hand and picks up the pieces.

Q:
Do all agents charge fees? Should I work with an agent who asks me for money?

A: Agents generally charge 15% commission on all domestic sales, including film rights, and 20% on most foreign sales. Agents become, quite literally, partners in the business of selling the rights to your material. If you encounter agents who are brusque, or dismissive, or downright nonresponsive, keep in mind that one of their main resources is their time. They don’t get paid by the hour, and if a project can’t be sold, they make no money. It’s partially the nature of this commitment that makes the agent such an effective advocate for a writer. Underlying the relationship is the tacit understanding that the agent is working in his own best interest as well as that of the author.

Editors, for their part, give agented submissions more consideration simply because the material has already impressed someone enough to invest time and energy in its representation.

Do not trust an agent who charges a reading fee. The only fees agents should be charging, besides their commissions, are photocopying and postage expenses for the actual submission.

Many agents have a representation agreement which lays out how expenses will be handled, specifies what commission will be charged, and obliges the author to exclusive representation for the book in question. There should be provisions which spell out how and why the agent-author association may be terminated. It is absolutely unnecessary for an author to agree to any exclusive representation that extends to future work.

Chapter 16

Editing and Publishing
Mysteries

An interview with Barbara Peters

Q:
You went into publishing after great success as a bookseller. What motivated this move?

A: I would never have attempted any form of publishing if my husband, Robert L. Rosenwald, Jr., hadn’t been willing to experiment with new forms of technology and with designing yet another new business.

Rob and I originally intended to reprint books we liked that had disappeared. We were intrigued by new technologies for small presses such as Print On Demand. It wasn’t long, however, before we discovered that the economics of POD meant at best break-even for a press, and more often a loss, given the costs of editorial (sometimes older books needed either revision, correction, or new introductions and updated bibliographies and biographies), acquisition, typesetting and design, set-up with the POD printer, marketing, and distribution. So we shifted into conventional printing using POD for titles that had either small anticipated sales or titles that we had printed conventionally and then needed to reprint in small quantities after they had paid for themselves. Printing costs all relate to scale; with POD, each unit is unique and thus costs exactly the same as every other unit, so nothing is gained by a raging sales success.

Initially, we wanted to get out-of-print first books in a series back into print plus publish the occasional reference work.

We soon learned that a small press hasn’t got the marketing muscle or the distribution to print and sell mass markets, so we rethought our position and elected to move into trade paperbacks with higher price points.

Our next realization was that Big Publishing was focusing more and more on Big Books and ignoring the smaller mystery, which includes the traditional detective story. And as soon as we had some titles in print we started getting query letters from authors asking if we would consider original manuscripts.

In time, original publishing took over our program. We formed an Editorial Review Committee composed of some twenty volunteer readers. We require that all submissions be in electronic format. First the query letter, then, upon invitation, the first thirty pages, which go to members of the ER Committee. Those submissions that survive the first screening go in full manuscript to a second round of readers, and those that survive that process go to me; I make nearly all the final publishing decisions. We are thus well set up to work with unagented authors. An author should ask a press for its submission guidelines, not just fire off a manuscript.

We filled a hole, given the practices of the publishing conglomerates that dominate the industry these days. The success of “small” houses such as ours has spawned a booming small-press industry. Most specialize in a single genre, but some embrace a wide range.

We can define a trade publisher, which is what we are mostly talking about here, as having, at a minimum, these characteristics:

1. Provides editorial services by a professional staff.

2. Does not accept money from authors for publishing their books or engage in copublishing ventures.

3. Has a published discount schedule/terms to the trade.

4. Sells at least 90% of its books as fully returnable or makes its inventory available through a wholesaler or distributor.

5. Has at least two authors on its list, and is not related to a majority of its authors.

6. Provides some kind of marketing/sales services.

Q:
What are book editors and publishers looking for nowadays?

A: There are several parts to the acquisitions process. It isn’t just about what editors like, it’s about what sells and how to sell it, plus costs for acquisition, design, production, and marketing. Some books are just too expensive to publish. Some may be too risky, legally or financially. Some may just have to enter an overcrowded field.

Editors get most excited by books they love, but sometimes they are forced to honor contracts made by someone else, or accept a book from an author whose body of work they publish even if they don’t care for the current entry, or buy a book to fill a slot. In an ideal world, you fall in love with a book for its voice. It’s just like meeting someone at a party and starting a conversation—it’s how you react to the person’s style and what he has to say.

I have a five-point scale: setting, characterizations, plot, concept or content, and the quality of the writing. Of these, plot is the least important as it’s the most easily fixed. You cannot teach writers to be interesting, but you can teach them story structure. Actually, you can’t always do that. I’ve bitten on a few books where I loved the way the author wrote or the concept of the book but could not get a story delivered. Is that the editor’s fault or the author’s? Hard to say. If the second book proves as difficult to extract as the first, if the author doesn’t grow, then no matter how painful, I move on. No writer should assume that selling that first book guarantees a career.

Tips on submission: Master your tools. Spellcheck like mad (and don’t confuse
discrete
with
discreet
or fall for other homonyms). Check your grammar (there is a difference between lie and lay, between less and few, between between and among, as well a need for the proper use of pronouns and verb tenses). Ascertain the house style or use
The
Chicago Manual of Style
, and be consistent throughout the book. Do not use the dash as a substitute for proper punctuation. It clutters up the page, and it doesn’t suit a lot of books such as historicals. Do not give your characters names that sound alike and thus can be confused. In short, don’t waste my time with remedial stuff. Editors are there to read your story, not teach you writing.