The Stonewall Award is “given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience”, and we’re thrilled that they included Pink on the Honor list. For the complete list of winners, check out the ALA’s press release.

In other news, congrats to Maureen Johnson, whose The Name of the Star was nominated for an Edgar Award for Young Adult. Woot!

And finally, Matthew Cody picked a winner for the signed copy of The Dead Gentleman I’m giving away. And the winner is… @theoriginaledi! Edi, send me an email with your mailing address, and I’ll get Matt to sign a copy for you! Add a comment below if you’d like any specific personalized message.

Congrats to ALL the winners!

But it all comes down to one page.

I’m reminding you all of this (though my readers are the least likely folks to actually need this reminder) because of a trend I came across in some recent queries: letters with a very rough, almost generic description of the book being queried, possibly a paragraph on the theme, and a couple more sentence or paragraphs on the writer, and why they had to tell this story, or why their experience makes them the “best possible” author for this book. You know what’s missing? Anything that would intrigue me about the story.

In all seriousness, I read a query for a novel with an intriguing premise, but the letter itself told me absolutely nothing about the characters — no names, no descriptions, nothing. Manuscripts that sell aren’t just about settings — The Hunger Games isn’t an international bestseller and soon-to-be-bluckbuster movie because people are intrigued by Panem. No, they love Katniss, and have divided themselves up into Team Peeta or Team Gale. Without them, it’s just a country. It’s just an arena — empty and void of any reason to tune in, to turn the page.

You may introduce the next Jay Gatsby on page one of your manuscript, but if you don’t give me a reason to scan down, I’ll never meet him. And while that may be my loss, it’s also yours, because I know I’m not the only agent who feels like this.

Hook ‘em (us) with a filler one-page query, and we’ll beg to read more.

One day, I didn’t have any time in the afternoon, so I told myself I’d get to the queries the next day. But the next day there were more. And then it was the weekend, and even more came in. And suddenly, there’s a growing pile waiting to be read.

So readers, learn from my mistake. Don’t let it all get away from you. Don’t let the little things build up and build up until they become an avalanche of a to-do list.

If you’re a writer who’s done NaNoWriMo, you know how this works — do a little bit each day and you’ll finish the month with a novel. No one expects you to write 50,000 words on November 30th. Just as no one expects the Great American Novel or a New York Times bestseller from you the first time you put pen to paper.

It takes time, and constant pecking away at the To-Do list. Constant revision and rewriting and editing, and sometimes, throwing it all out and starting again. But it’s still progress.

And you can do it, one step at a time.

Is there any time you would recommend an author using a pseudonym? I ask because my own name is quite clunky.

And I thought — what a great subject for a blog post! (Mostly because I was in the middle of an early lunch and reading a partial, but also because it was worthy of a more than 140-character answer.)

To my mind, having a weird, unusual, or “clunky” name are the wrong reasons to use a pseudonym. In fact, having an unusual or weird name can totally work in your favor! The more your name stands out, the more unique it is, the less likely a reader or fan is going to confuse you with another author. If it’s clunky, you may have to spend some time teaching readers and fans how to pronounce your name, but you may have to do that with a pen name, too!

In seeking out an image for this post, I came across this article from USA Today, with some authors’ reasons for going with pen names over their own names. For the Brontes, it was about hiding the fact that they were women. For Mark Twain, it was just another joke.

Nowadays, most female authors don’t feel the need to hide their sex behind a masculine mask, but maybe, like Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), you don’t want your fiction impinging on your real life, or your career.

And maybe you’ve already developed a following in one career, or one genre, and don’t wish to confuse matters by using the same name in a vastly different one. E. Lockhart, who writes amazing, award-winning YA novels such as The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, is also the author of a number of picture books, books for young readers, and adult books as Emily Jenkins. I know other authors who use pen names to protect their private life or family, or because they didn’t want their young readers to seek out their bodice rippers. For instance.

If you are going to use a pseudonym, it’s something I recommend you develop early, and be prepared to use far and widely to help build name recognition. If you’ve been blogging for years under one name — or tweeting, or tumblring, or whatever — you already know the amount of work you have to put into building another persona. And trust me, I know what I’m talking about — did you come here to read the blog of Kate Testerman, or Daphne Unfeasible? I’ve actually been Daphne LONGER than I’ve been Kate Testerman, and I regularly get queries addressed to Daphne, not Kate.

When you’re ready to build a second audience, or are just developing your first online persona, make sure you research your possible pen name before you settle on it. Google it, and make sure you’re not already the author of Amazon’s top five erotic romances, or an expert on dog grooming, or a war criminal. (Do you want to spend the rest of your writing career explaining how you’ve never been indicted by the Hague?)

Either way, good luck!

“She is helped in her efforts by a brooding vampire with a soul, a lesbian witch, a former vengeance demon, a British librarian, a platinum blonde vampire with a chip in his head, and a teenage little sister who used to be a mystical key.”

Yes, it’s accurate, but it also feels like you’re throwing everything at the reader in one fell swoop. In this case, wouldn’t it be simpler and just as correct to say “She is helped in her efforts by her own personal Scooby Gang”? Ok, maybe not that exact phrase, but look at how many words you save!

In queries, you don’t have a lot of room to detail the entire plot of a book, and you shouldn’t — you should concentrate on the important plot points that would compel a reader to pick up the whole thing. So you wouldn’t go into the full details of Buffy’s seven seasons of efforts to combat the forces of the Hellmouth, you’d sum it up as “One girl in all the world, with the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness.” That gives you more time to spell out her sense of humor, her quips, her keen fashion sense — to tell the reader more about what makes that character unique.

If you’re feeling like you need to use a list like the example above to get everything in you need to say, consider just leaving it all out. After all, the last thing you want is for an agent to get so turned around by a long series of clauses, they just say no.

In general, I’m open to young adult and middle grade fiction only. Not adult political thrillers, not memoirs, not self-help books, not cozy mysteries, not economic treatises.

However, within MG or YA, I love thrillers, mysteries, romance, science fiction, fantasy — just about anything in terms of genre! What I am tired of seeing, or what would need to be truly, stunningly, absolutely exceptional to catch my eye, is anything with vampires, werewolves, guardian angels, or ghosts. I’ve also talked before about my distaste for books about chosen ones and destiny as the main plot device, and I’ll add to that an unlikeliness to love a traditional high fantasy quest novel — aka, anything I could play out as a D&D campaign. Do your characters all meet up in a tavern on their way to seek a unique item that will help them defeat a big bad? Let me roll up my elven hunter, but please don’t expect me to offer representation. Which is, of course, not to say that great books don’t exist out there that fit those descriptions, but a) they already exist, and b) they’re just not for me at this time.

I don’t want to see queries about absolutely boring or “normal” people that nothing interesting ever happens to, until the one time it does. Make me care about your characters — or hate them — from the first line of your query, but don’t let me be ambivalent.

So what DO I want to see? I remain interested in finding a great YA novel about a teen professional athlete — something like a gymnast or figure skater, not a team player, who has to juggle being a teen with the rigors of their professional life. I’m also intrigued by the idea of book about a teen parent, so try me if you have one of those. But I’m always interested in great characters living interesting lives and doing cool things, written well, so if you have that, send it my way!

I’ve been lucky enough in the past to get some of the books I’ve asked for — like MG boy books, or YA science fiction — so I hope this proves as helpful to you in directing your queries as it may prove beneficial to us at some point in the future!

Hi everyone thanks for having me here!

Today, I’m going to talk through some budget-friendly techniques to get your book out there. Because let’s face it – we are not all Stephenie Meyer and we won’t all get much from a publisher. That means we either don’t have tons of money to spend or our publishers may not give us much.

First of all – you will spend some money. So, this is really about putting your money in the right place. To me, that is in designing any materials to be sure they look good and crisp and professional. But there are many things you can do that are fairly inexpensive.

Here are a few things I think you can do to push your book and save money.

Local avenues – You’d be surprised at the marketing support such activities can bring.

• Local radio shows and television appearances are good but are often forgotten within hours of the broadcast;
• Join local organizations that provide business-networking opportunities, or start your own.
• Do volunteer work for a large charity. Partner with one that aligns with your book.

Reach out to your contacts – it’s about spreading the word

• Any groups you are a part of
• Any alum organization – high school, old jobs, college etc.
• Friends and family
• Rebuild older connections

Library or school visits

• Start tours locally, by state, then move to regional and national. Driving is cheaper than flying.
• Visit places where you know people that can help spread the word. Friends or family.
• Come up with a talk that they might pay for.

Organize before you start – Focusing your energy will help you do the right things for the right people. Don’t waste money doing everything.

• Figure out your top 3 target audiences
• Create a marketing plan for each of those – who are they, what swag do they want.
• Spend 15 min a day building out a detailed plan.
• By starting now and focusing – you will prevent yourself from wasting money on the wrong things.

SWAG – Be sure to do the right thing for the right people.

• Find out what is appropriate for each audience.
• Not everyone will use a book marker or postcard.
• Vistaprint and iprint – do inexpensive printing
• If you pay – pay for the design aspect – not the printing

Email Marketing

• Always be gathering email addresses
• Use chimpmail or constantcontact to create pretty marketing email campaigns
• If you pay for anything – pay for someone to set up the newsletter so you can populate it each month.

Online Marketing

• Blog Tours – look for well-visited blogs that target your audience. Contact them and offer a post. Blog writers are always looking for content.
• ARC tours – have an arc tour and have readers sign up – send an ARC around and require a post about it.
• EZINE – same thing – look for groups that do ezines and offer an article
• Press releases – Don’t underestimate the value of a good press release for making book sales.
• Skype tours – reach more people.

Website

• HAVE one – and make sure it is professional
• Go daddy, blogger, word press – all free
• If you have to, spend the money on the design to get you started.
• Create online press kit – generic press release, bio, professional picture, flyer about book, reviews, etc Also, make sure it is downloadable from site. This will safe on printing costs and mailing costs.

A few Recommended Resources

• Complete Guide to Book Marketing – the basics
• Plug your book – online marketing
• The Frugal Book promoter – Inexpensive ways to sell your book
• Publicize Your book

I hope that gets you started. This ends the marketing series, but you can come visit me at my blog, Market My Words, where I continue to talk about how authors can best get the word out about their book, whether it be traditionally published or indie published.

Shelli Johannes-Wells (AKA S.R. Johannes) lives in Atlanta Georgia with her dog, British-accented husband, and the huge imaginations of their little prince and princess, which she hopes- someday- will change the world. After earning an MBA and working in corporate america, S.R. Johannes traded in her expensive suits, high heels, and corporate lingo for a family, flip-flops, and her love of writing. You can find her hanging out online and visit her at srjohannes.com. Her first book, Untraceable, is a teen wilderness thriller that debuted last week on Amazon’s How New Releases.She has a new tween angel book, On The Bright Side, coming out Jan 31, 2012.

Thanks, Shelli! If there’s any marketing questions that Shelli’s raised that we haven’t answered, please leave them in the comments, and we’ll respond as quickly as possible! I also hope to have some great marketing news of my own to share shortly – stay tuned.

Whether or not they’re writing or publishing resolutions, I think there’s something powerful in sharing them, or talking about them publicly. Maybe it’s just that it’s harder to break them the more people know about them.

For me, I’m hoping to stay on top of my reading in a more timely fashion. It may be something that I promise every year, but that just keeps it in the forefront of my brain for another year — or at least the start of one. I want to better prioritize client reading, partials, and queries, and I think the way to do that might be to take a day every week and set it aside specifically for reading. That’s the plan at least.

What about you?

Alas, I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d hoped — it turns out an 11-month-old is not the most conducive partner for quiet reading time. But today everyone headed back to school/daycare, and I could get back to work.

Maybe you took some time off from work this break as well — time off from writing, or creating, or querying — whatever. And so maybe you need this kick in the pants from author Chuck Wendig, that’s making the rounds on Twitter today. A taste:

Stop Hurrying. The rise of self-publishing has seen a comparative surge forward in quantity. As if we’re all rushing forward to squat out as huge a litter of squalling word-babies as our fragile penmonkey uteruses (uteri?) can handle. Stories are like wine; they need time. So take the time. This isn’t a hot dog eating contest. You’re not being judged on how much you write but rather, how well you do it. Sure, there’s a balance — you have to be generative, have to be swimming forward lest you sink like a stone and find remora fish mating inside your rectum. But generation and creativity should not come at the cost of quality. Give your stories and your career the time and patience it needs. Put differently: don’t have a freak out, man.

Stop Waiting. I said “stop hurrying,” not “stand still and fall asleep.” Life rewards action, not inertia. What the fuck are you waiting for? To reap the rewards of the future, you must take action in the present. Do so now.

Stop Thinking It Should Be Easier. It’s not going to get any easier, and why should it? Anything truly worth doing requires hella hard work. If climbing to the top of Kilimanjaro meant packing a light lunch and hopping in a climate-controlled elevator, it wouldn’t really be that big a fucking deal, would it? You want to do This Writing Thing, then don’t just expect hard work — be happy that it’s a hard row to hoe and that you’re just the, er, hoer to hoe it? I dunno. Don’t look at me like that. AVERT YOUR GAZE, SCRUTINIZER. And get back to work.

It goes on for 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing, and I can’t think of any better way to get the year going.

Happy New Year!