Lit Agents and Car Salesmen!

"Boy, have I got a deal for you!"

Be the Big Fish!

It's true, it's better to be the big fish in the small pond when it comes to agents and publishers.

Ray Bradbury and Agents!

One wonders if a mega prolific pulp writer like Ray Bradbury would need an agent today. Or would he embrace indie publishing since it would get his work into his fan's hands far faster than traditional means.

Publishing Advances aren't Real Money

 Publishing Advances aren't Real Money...

I realize this is a hard concept for non-industry insiders to grasp. Some publishing outfit like Delacorte gives you $235K for two books. You get the check, after the agent takes his 15%, and you put it in the bank, and you proceed to spend the crap out of it. You do this because you automatically assume there will be more checks like that one coming.

And why not?

You're the toast of NYC, everyone is buying you drinks and steaks, you're partying like a rock star at the Gramercy Park Hotel with other hot authors and agents, you're messing around with your publicist because you're going through your first divorce so why the hell not. You even find yourself chatting it up with Monica Lewinsky on the Amtrak. Clooney and Dreamworks are calling for the movie rights and so are foreign rights cats, and you just put a significant down payment on a new house in the burbs. Life's pretty freakin' good.

You've made it baby!

But in all reality, you've screwed yourself.

Why? Because a year down the road you'll learn the sad truth. You didn't earn out your advance, meaning book sales weren't enough to cover those big fat checks they've been sending you. It means, technically speaking, you owe them that money. Since they're not going to ask for it back, they do this instead: "Hit the road Jack, and don't let the door slap you on the ass on the way out." Other publishers won't touch you either because they have the numbers in front of them to prove what a loser you are. Numbers, by the way, that you somehow aren't privy to.

I'm writing about this today, as is Chuck Wendig, thanks to a really good piece published in Medium by Heather Demetrios: “How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Even Trying.” Both articles were brought to my attention by author and pal, Belinda Frisch. Chuck's article in particular really lays out the F'd up math associated with advances and sales of eBook, paper, and audio.   

In a nut shell, Heather's story is so much like my own, it's scary. Even the part where she admits to coming close to a total mental breakdown after making the big time, baby! Authors work so hard, become so emotionally invested in their work, that we don't crave validation for our efforts, we lust validation. We're willing to sacrifice anything to get it. So when a publisher offers us huge advances, we jump at them like a starving dog will leap off the floor for just a taste of raw meat. We lose sight of the big picture and the more than likely scenario of not earning out our advances. What happens is, future advances get smaller and smaller, and we find ourselves writing more and more, in desperate attempt the jump at whatever paltry advance we can get our hands on, just to keep up with the Internet bills.

So much for the big time.

What Heather doesn't write about however, is making a shift from traditional publishing to indie publishing whereby suddenly the author is in control of the product, the marketing, and inevitably the sales. One of the best decisions I made as an author was to go indie with some of my series and titles, and it has guaranteed me a steady income that's only increasing annually. Some books have sold so well that I've been offered new traditional book deals with decent advances (not even close to $235K however).

But there's a major difference between my inking a new deal today as opposed to years past: I no longer depend on the advances for my fiduciary well being. I no longer depend on stellar sales with these publishers. I no longer depend on anything that's out of my freaking control. The indie publishing half of me has freed me up so much, that I rarely email my agent, other than the occasional, "Hey what's up?" In year's past, I would pester him with daily emails. "Hey man, any word from the publisher? I desperately need money. The new wife has packed her bags and she's walking out the door..."

I wrote about my experiences in a nifty little book, The Hybrid Author Mindset: The totally honest, myth-busting, realistic, non-politically correct guide to succeeding at publishing traditionally and independently

It's only 2.99 on Amazon if you wanna check it out. Unlike other how-to books, I reveal my personal story about my publishing journey, warts, divorces, red bank accounts, and all. But it also contains the good stuff, like when I sold over 100K copies of The Innocent (formerly As Catch Can) in a little more than a month and how that one pivotal event led to a new cycle of brand new book deals.

Heather is committed to teaching newbie authors about the perils of modern publishing, and there are many of them. For writers, publishing books is an art. For publishers, publishing is a business and it's a cut throat one at that. Sorry to be the bearer of this little reality bite, but talent doesn't mean shit. You're just a number to them, an invoice, a spreadsheet, an email that can easily be ghosted when you're not selling up to expectations or they're just pain sick of you as a person.

In short. Write your books and put your heart and soul into them. Make them the best they can be. But be warned, if you're going for the traditional deal, the journey will be met with great peril, even if you nail the big time advance. Take the money, but at the same time, take matters into your own hands and free yourself from the gate keeper's and the money lender's chains. Invest in yourself and your own list of titles. Publish both traditionally and independently. Go Hybrid. It's the only path forward in the 21st century.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

    

Bri Reporting for the Vox: Screamcatcher

Howdy Voxers,

If you don't know from social media I am Vince's new full time publicist. Some of you might know me from Facebook or as a guest blogger here at the Vox. Anyways I'll be popping in with updates, invitations and news from time to time for Vince. With me on board that leaves time for our favorite author to write. So I hope you'll tolerate me. I promise to keep it fun and exciting.

To make good on that promise my first post will be the Scream Catcher blog tour and reveal of the new trailer.

What so different about this Zandri trailer compared to previous ones?

This one has Zandri written all over it from footage, editing, design and creation.

How is that possible? Did Vince invest in a sharpie and write Zandri on everything?

No his son's Jack and The Bear produced and filmed it. The whole idea was Vince's as well.

So sit back, not alone hopefully this is a Zandri trialer, and enjoy. Then check out the blog tour calendar of events below.

December 1:Review@ livetoread-krystal.blogspot.com

December 5:Guest Post@ sithereandread.com

December 7: Interview@ double-crossing.com

December 9: Review@ joelmandre.info

December 14: Review@ readingreadingandlife.blogspot.com
December 18: Review @ http://www.curlingupbythefire.blogspot.com/

December 19:Review @ http://lifeinreviewblog.wordpress.com/,       http://blesstheirheartsmom.blogspot.com/
December 20: Review@ reviewsbymolly.com

December 21: Review,GuestPost&Giveaway@ mamaknowsbooks.blogspot.com

December 22:Review@ the-top-shelf.com

December 23:Guest Post@ the-top-shelf.com

December 23: Review@ booksrusonline.com

December 24:Guest Post&Giveaway@ thebookconnection.blogspot.com

December 25: Spotlight&Giveaway@ cmashlovestoread.blogspot.com

December 26: Review&Giveaway@ tweezlereads.blogspot.com
December 28: Review @http://booksake.blogspot.com/

December 29: Review@ celticladyreviews.blogspot.com

December 30: Review@ jhsiess.com

December 31: Review@ readerssuite.blogspot.com

December 31:Review@ kristincanread.blogspot.com

Writing the "Great" Fiction Query Letter!

"That mountain of paper ain't no exaggeration!"

I no longer have to write query letters to agents.
That part of my life is over. I have a great agent now and plan on spending the rest of my life with him. I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

I wasn't always good at writing agent query letters. It took a lot of practice honing the essential information I needed to include in the letter and to be able to present said information on a single page. Agents hate to read more than one page and often will read no further than your first sentence. So make it a good one.

But I've spent literally hours upon hours working up query letters and getting them out to agents. Originally I did this via snail mail and the cost was astronomical. For the past decade I've been able to pretty much go through the process of query submission and agent response via email and while that has diminished the cost element, it still takes up a huge chunk of time.

Time that could be used for writing.

That said, I thought it might be a good time to give you an idea of what makes a great query letter. Notice I don't say a “good” query because in this climate of radical publishing shifts in which the Big 6 publishers in New York are slowly downsizing, giving way to a huge influx of indie presses like StoneHouse Ink and StoneGate Ink, and/or self-published authors, agents must be more choosy than ever in which clients they decide to take on and which they decide to reject.

Here are the basics (I'm probably gonna forget some things here so bear with me):

-Have a great opening sentence that states the title of your project, the genre (mystery, literary, romantic suspense, paranormal, etc), word count, and series or stand alone info.

-Follow up with a brief paragraph that summarizes the book. This isn't a book jacket blurb to entice readers. It's a short summary that will entice agents as to the novel’s salability.

-Follow this up with a short paragraph or two describing your credentials, especially your credentials in the genre, and if you've been published before. The agents don't care if your work was included in the "Mom & Pop Review," but they will take an interest in hearing about The Paris Review or The Maryland Review, etc. You can finish this paragraph with what you do for a living.

-Finalize your letter with a statement about your marketing savvy: your social networking connections, your blog, your virtual tour info (if you’re already a published author), your contact information and urls, your official website, etc.

-If the agent requests to see the first page of your manuscript, attach it as a word document or, if required, include it in the body of the letter. DO NOT SEND MORE PAGES THAN THE AGENT ASKS FOR. If you choose to ignore this rule and send five pages instead, you will be rejected outright.

Ok, if all this sounds a little hazy to you I'm including a typical agent query that worked well enough for me to have attracted the attention of some pretty big agents in the business, including Suzanne Gluck at William Morris. Feel free to copy and paste it, and edit in your own information:

Dear Mr./Ms. Agent Orange.

This is to tell you about my new, 72,650 word, stand-alone hard-boiled/romantic suspense thriller, The Remains.

Thirty years ago, teenager Rebecca Underhill and her twin sister Molly were abducted by a man who lived in a house in the woods behind their upstate New York farm. They were held inside that house for three terrifying hours, until making their escape. Vowing to keep their terrifying experience a secret in order to protect their mother and father, the girls tried to put the past behind them. And when their attacker was hunted down by police and sent to prison, they believed he was as good as dead. Now, it’s 30 years later, and with Molly having passed away from cancer, Rebecca, a painter and art teacher, is left alone to bear the burden of a secret that has only gotten heavier and more painful with each passing year. But when Rebecca begins receiving some strange anonymous text messages, she starts to realize that the monster who attacked her all those years ago is not dead after all. He’s back, and this time, he wants to do more than just haunt her. He wants her dead.

My first novel, As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called "Brilliant" upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” My second novel Godchild (Bantam/Dell) was published to excellent reviews and sales. My novels have been translated into the Dutch, Japanese and soon French. My novella Permanence (based on my most anthologized short story) was touted as “Reads like Raymond Carver with a long breath,” by Douglas Glover, winner of Canada’s Governor’s General award for Elle. My new noir thriller, Moonlight Falls, will be published by the emerging indie press, RJBuckley in the winter of 2009/10. At present, Heyday Productions has expressed interest in film rights.

I’m engaged in both traditional and virtual tours for Moonlight Falls.

A full-time photo-journalist and freelance writer, I earned my MFA in Writing from Vermont College. I freelanced for The Albany Times Union, The Source, Home and Style Magazine, Builder/Architect Magazine, Appalachian Journal and others. I was a frequent contributor to Hudson Valley Magazine, Orange Coast Magazine, Buffalo Spree Magazine, Game & Fish Magazine, Globalia (Berlin), Robert Pelton’s The Black Flag Café, inosmi.ru, New York Newsday and many more. Much of my recent work has been reprinted and/or syndicated in other publications.

I’ve published short fiction in the Maryland Review, Orange Coast Magazine, Italian/Americana, The Maryland Review, Fugue, Lost Creek Letters, Negative Capability, Buffalo Spree, and others. My work has also appeared in Rosebud and was recently included in The Best of Rosebud.

Presently I edit three award-winning building and design and tech-related BtoB newsletters and blogs for www.Globalspec.com, the web’s largest online engineering resource with over one million subscribers worldwide. I’m also a hard news stringer, features writer and the author of the blog, Dangerous Dispatches, for RT (Russia Today TV) (http://rt.com/About_Us/Blogs/dangerous-dispatches/2009-12-9.html). This blog has proven such as success, it’s been serialized at several different news networks. (NOTE: this popular blog will become available due to recent budget concerns at RT).

My 7-part “alternative” travel blog, Embedded in Africa, proved a great success for RT (Russia Today) upon its publication in both June and July of 2009. (http://www.russiatoday.com/About_Us/Blogs/Embedded_in_Africa/2009-06-05.html).

An active member of the International Thriller Writers Association, I am an Awards Panel Judge for 2010.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Vincent Zandri

00-1-518-225-7777

www.vincentzandri.com

Ok, admittedly, this letter is a little bit longer than what you need, but it contains all the essential information an agent operating a successful agency in 2011 will need to see. I’m a fulltime pro and it makes their heart’s pound to see that I wear my work on my sleeve.

But on the other than, they also know that I’m a professional who won’t make their life a living hell if they decide to take me on. Agents are bombarded with queries these days (How many MFA programs exist in the US alone???) and the last ting they want is an author they suspect will be calling or emailing five times a day. It doesn’t work like that. Even the most successful authors only call their agents if it’s absolutely necessary (like where to meet for drinks! Ha!). The same for email. Agents contact you with info on a need to know basis. Think of it like this: the time an agent wastes with your insecurities could be better spent by his selling your work to editors who are also slammed these days.

I hope this helps. Agents still play a crucial role in supporting the writer. They sell your books, move your foreign rights, and will negotiate television and movie rights. They remain an integral part of the business, even if you do decide to self publish one day. I haven’t gone that route yet, but I have secured several deals with my new publisher, “unagented.” But that doesn’t mean my agent won’t be shopping that same project for other media opportunities.

Good luck!