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.
There is more to this career than writing, marketing, and reading. Travel is part of it. Which anyone who reads this blog knows I love to do. I spend more time in a plane than I do in my apartment. But in addition there is the presentation of my experience, knowledge and advice I'm invited to share at conferences.
Halloween weekend I was privileged to head back to that secret haven of literary genius Boise ID. I spoke on the industry, balancing life, the future of publishing and my career in general. My publicist Bri got some photos for the Vox. Unfortunately she was never around when I wanted a picture of one of the good looking women, usually married, that passed by. Wonder if she planned it. Anyways below are what she captured.
IBE was held in downtown Boise
Here I spoke from Backlist to Bestseller
On a round table with Don Jacobson, Tim Vandehey, and Maryanna Young discussing the future of publishing
Later there was an author mixture but most of those pictures we won't show. However, here is a few.
My bro (and Abe Lincoln lookalike) and the brains behind Stone House Ink Aaron Patterson.
Donna Fletcher Crow has been writing books for 30 years.
And that's Bri. Aaron celebrated by taking all Stone House's people out for dinner. Mmmm Lasagna
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 RebeccaUnderhill 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.
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).
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.
It's been ten years since the publication of my first major thriller, As Catch Can. Back then it was called, The Innocent, but the publisher decided to change the title at the last minute since a sister publisher had an author with the same title, and the editor was very afraid the Bertlesman boys might leave a severed horse head in his bed one night if he were to put out a novel with the same title. So it was changed to As Catch Can.
Now, I'm not complaining. I actually like the title, for a jazz standard. But for a book, it's a tough one to remember. That is, unless you add the "Catch" to it, as in "Catch As Catch Can," which is most definitely not the title. When asked the title of my new novel and I'd respond, "As Catch Can, most people would peer at me quizically, and with upturned brows respond, "Say what?"
So now here we are ten years later. As Catch Can which received awesome reviews from the New York Post, The Boston Herold, etc. and authors like Harlan Coben (see below) and was translated into several languages, was quickly pulled off the B&N front shelves after 6 weeks to make room for something else. That's how the big monster bookstores work (what a joy it will be to see them crash and burn!) It also was remaindered within a years and half of its original pub date. In other words, dear reader, it was never given a chance (and here the pub was cutting checks for a quarter of a million bucks for me. You explain the logic!)
Now, with the advent of the new indy publishing, EBooks, Kindle and the new digital age and my new awesome publishers, StoneHouse Ink and StoneGate Ink, As Catch Can or, The Innocent, is alive and well again, and destined to become a bestseller. Some fans still think of it as my best book. Even DreamWorks thought so when they gave it three reads in anticipation of purchasing the movie rights. Too bad my agent at the time was on crack and busy writing his own novel and negotiating his own deals with Holywood.
Ok, time to let go of the past and embrace the now and the present. I hope you dig The Innocent as much as I dug writing it!!!!
It's been a year since Jack Marconi's wife was killed. Ever since, he's been slipping up at his job as warden at an upstate New York prison. It makes him the perfect patsy when a cop-killer breaks out--with the help of someone on the inside. Throwing himself into the hunt for the fleeing con, Jack doesn't see what's coming.
Suddenly the walls are closing in. And in the next twenty-four hours, Jack will defy direct orders, tamper with evidence, kidnap the con's girlfriend--and run from the law with a .45 hidden beneath his sports coat. Because Jack Marconi, keeper of laws, men, secrets, and memories, has been set up--by a conspiracy that has turned everyone he ever trusted into an enemy. And everything he ever believed in into the worst kind of lie.
Reviews for "The Innocent" (formally, As Catch Can)
"If you want a novel that runs wild like a caged beast let loose, Zandri is the man." --(Albany)
"Sensational...masterful...brilliant." --New York Post
"Probably the most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season." --Boston Herald
"A thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion." --The Times-Union (Albany)
"Vincent Zandri explodes onto the scene with the debut thriller of the year. As Catch Can is gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting. Don't miss it." --Harlan Coben, author of The Final Detail
"A Satisfying Yarn." --Chicago Tribune "Compelling...As Catch Can pulls you in with rat-a-tat prose, kinetic pacing...characters are authentic, and the punchy dialogue rings true. Zandri's staccato prose moves As Catch Can at a steady, suspenseful pace." --Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
"Exciting...An Engrossing Thriller...the descriptions of life behind bars will stand your hair on end." --Rocky Mountain News
"Readers will be held captive by prose that pounds as steadily as an elevated pulse... Vincent Zandri nails readers' attention." --Boston Herald
"A smoking gun of a debut novel. The rough and tumble pages turn quicker than men turn on each other." --Albany Times-Union
Please turn the page for more extraordinary acclaim...
"The story line is non-stop action and the flashback to Attica is eerily brilliant. If this debut is any indication of his work, readers will demand a lifetime sentence of novels by Vincent Zandri." --I Love a Mystery
"A tough-minded, involving novel...Zandri writes strong prose that rarely strains for effect, and some of his scenes...achieve a powerful hallucinatory horror." --Publishers Weekly
"A classic detective tale." --The Record (Troy, NY)
"[Zandri] demonstrates an uncanny knack for exposition, introducing new characters and narrative possibilities with the confidence of an old pro....Zandri does a superb job creating interlocking puzzle pieces." --San Diego Union-Tribune
"This is a tough, stylish, heartbreaking car accident of a book: You don't want to look but you can't look away. Zandri's a terrific writer and he tells a terrific story." --Don Winslow, author of The Death and Life of Bobby Z
