Bloggy bits: June 2008 Archives
It's a short week, and many of you may be lucky enough to be heading to the beach. What better book to stash in your beach bag than Cruel Summer? If you hop on over to Alyson Noel's blog, you can find out how you can win an entire bag full of summer reads, including Cruel Summer.
And, well, if you're me, you're spending the week hoping to get a lot of reading done, finalizing a contracts (fingers crossed!), and negotiating a new deal for one of my clients. My dreams of heading to the beach will have to wait until later this month, when I relocate to the New York office for a week and can actually get to the ocean. Woot! Until then, since summer's the theme and all that, tell me: What are your favorite Summer books? Whether that's a book you read in the summer, a book you read every summer, a book that's about summer, or a book that somehow, for some reason, just screams "Summer!" to you.
For me, summer makes me think of big, juicy reads, like the ones the Brits have termed "bonkbusters." (Yes, it means what you think it means.) I love Louise Bagshawe's books, and know there's several of them stashed on various shelves in the Unfeasible Beach House, with sand in the spine and slight water damage. Now, apparently Louise has gone a bit mainstream and entered politics or something, but there's also her sister Tilly. Both write books I consider delicious summer reads.
Your turn!
It's been a busy few days around kt literary headquarters, and I have loads of news and links to share with you. So let's get to it!
- Seventeen's Summer Book Club is featuring Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
- Teen and tween librarian Green Bean Teen Queen reviewed Alyson Noel's Cruel Summer
- The Bermudez Triangle by MJ is available as an audio download from Audible. Hear the book that was banned in Oklahoma!
- On July 13th in Hollywood, Alyson Noel will be participating in the first ever Rock n' Read Festival. More details on the website or on Alyson's blog.
- On a sad note, Tasha Tudor passed away on Wednesday. I loved her illustrations of The Secret Garden.
- The famed and fabulous dancer Cyd Charisse also passed away last week. If you're not a musical geek like me, you may know the name as the movie star the main character of Rachel Cohn's Gingerbread is named for. (Not a kt literary client, but still an awesome book.)
For the moment, at least. I have read and responded to any and all queries I've received as of 3:20 Mountain Time today. If you sent me something and haven't received a response, please check your spam filter before following up, and be sure your email address accepts messages sent via gmail. Now onto my partials, where I'm working my way through -- let's see -- 37 partials and 4 fulls.
If your manuscript is among the ones I have, huge thanks for your patience while I get to it.
Like many agents, I regularly get email links to sites that mention my authors, my agency, or myself. Today I found this nice mention of SAVING ZOE by Alyson Noel, from author Amanda Ashby, and this review of DEVILISH by Maureen Johnson from Trashionista. But I also love to follow the references and see where they lead, hoping to find something great to post about. (Because if you think coming up with a daily post is easy, you're a wee bit insane!) So today I was thrilled to follow another mention of Maureen Johnson to this wonderful list of Reasons to Write YA, from aspiring author Mary Danielson. I'm not necessarily sure I agree with every reason she lists, but it's definite food for thought.
What about you? What are YOUR reasons to write YA? Or for any other age range or genre? The comments are open!
I gave you guys an extra day to post your results of the 48-Hour Reading Challenge, and in going by the strictest sense of the rules, the winner is Dust! However, I happen to know she ALREADY has a copy of The Unnameables, so I've decided to give the prize to Jean. Jean, send me an email with your mailing address, and a galley of Ellen's book will be on its way to you!
Otherwise, I'm neck deep in building a database (with help, of course) to keep track of my clients, their books, my editor contacts, submissions, contracts, and royalties. I'm asking a lot of my database, so it's keeping me busy. I hope to put the final touches on it this weekend. In the meantime, I'm adding more names and numbers every chance I get, and trying not to get too far behind on my reading.
As an avid reader, I have quite the collection of bookmarks, including a beautiful Charles Rennie Macintosh metal one, like this. But I usually just use whatever piece of paper I have handy, like a drink receipt from a poolside cocktail in Mexico, or a train ticket. I think the only thing I consistently do in terms of bookmarks is with my travel guides, where I try to keep all my paper mementos from a vacation within the pages of my guidebook. I have books bursting on Prague, Ireland, New Orleans, and more.
I've never used money, but that's just me. Turns out some people have, or used other valuable items. What's your favorite bookmark, or the best bookmark you ever found in a used book?
Well, if you're not me, with a still growing pile of manuscripts to read, perhaps you're up for the 48 Hour Book Challenge proposed by Mother Reader! I love the idea of this -- take an single, continuous 48-hour period this weekend, as long as you're done by 7am on Monday, and read as much as you can. Woot! That's the basic version -- you can also blog all about it, and share your stats (pages read, books read, sodas consumed, etc.) with the other participants. Post reviews too, and tell others what you thought of the books you tear through.
I'll even make it MORE fun for you -- add a comment on Monday with a link to your list of books read (following Mother Reader's rules), and I will send the person who read the most books an ARC of my client (and Class of 2k8 author) Ellen Booraem's forthcoming novel THE UNNAMEABLES, which Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is publishing in October. Be sure to post your comment with your email address, so I can get your mailing address and send the ARC to the winner!
News from out of the UK that you may have heard already, but it's worth repeating. A long distinguished list of children's authors including Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson, Terry Pratchett and many more have founded the site No To Age Banding to protest publishers' decisions to start labeling their children's books with age ranges. There's been loads of coverage, and I encourage you to check out No To Age Banding and read for yourself their reasons for rebelling against the idea. My favorite?
Everything about a book is already rich with clues about the sort of reader it hopes to find -- jacket design, typography, cover copy, prose style, illustrations. These are genuine connections with potential readers, because they appeal to individual preference. An age-guidance figure is a false one, because it implies that all children of that age are the same.I'm adding my name to the list of supporters. Please consider doing the same, or, along the same lines, drop by your local library or bookstore and thank a children's librarian or bookseller for knowing their books, and helping to direct children to the right title, regardless of age.
P.S. One more link, with an author disagreeing about the protest in the comments.
When I was a kid, for four wonderful summers I went to sleepaway camp in Westchester County -- only two weeks at a time, but that's all I remember of those four summers. Canoeing, hiking, horrible "bug juice" in the mess tent, bonfires, cabins, and the girls I became friends with. And, well, there's a certain kind of chill in the air this morning that makes me think of summer camp -- all you have are shorts and t-shirts, which you pile on under the only sweatshirt you packed, then huddle with your bunkmates and watch the rain outside, sharing treats sent from home in brown-paper-wrapped care packages, passing around the few books you brought with you.
All this to say -- yes, it's another reading day here at kt literary. Yesterday was pretty successful (I got through two full manuscripts), so I hope for more of the same today. While I'm reading, tell me -- did any of you go to camp? Did you love it? Hate it? Still feel like it's an authentic childhood experience to share in your novels, or is it as dated as sock hops and roller skating?
BEA was hectic, of course, and after getting through the most pressing follow-up I needed to do, I'm left with a giant (metaphorical) pile of reading to do. Here's the problem, though -- the more material I have on a project, the longer it takes me to read. Well, sure, that only makes sense. But follow along with me here for a sec -- a query which contains a letter and about three pages of text takes about five minutes to read, roughly. At the moment, I have about 80 unread queries after clearing them all out just last week. Then I've got the partials I requested -- the first five chapters of books that intrigue me, which each take about 45 minutes to an hour to read, sometimes less. Say about 45 of those. Then there's the full manuscripts -- either the first time I'm seeing a full, or a revision of a full that I requested that I need to give my full attention. I've got about ten of those waiting patiently for my eyes.
Now, it's much easier and feels like I've done a lot more if I read through a pile of queries. But I'm getting behind on my more in-depth reading, which takes more time, and is less suited to the "I've only got ten minutes" kind of reading that I can fit in between other work.
So today -- and possibly tomorrow -- and CERTAINLY this weekend, I'm going to be concentrating on reading fulls and partials and getting back to people with my reaction. On the plus side, I feel like I'm close to signing a new client or two. Maybe more. Stay tuned!
And please, folks, keep those questions about agents and the publishing industry coming. I can't possibly have already answered every last burning question you have, have I? Am I THAT good? Wow.
