kt literary

These are haute couture shoes priced at over 9,000 GBP — or were when they were released last year. Even such a devotee of fine footwear as myself must draw the line somewhere. So we’ll just look at them, shall we, as we read this week’s About My Query post. As always, please be constructive in your criticism. From C.D.:

Dear Ms. Unfeasible,

As the human daughter of a warlock merchant and a shape-shifter, Lillian has plenty of experience with magic – but that doesn’t mean she has to like it. A childhood hellhound attack that left a nasty scar is just one of many reasons not to. Now twenty-six, Lillian lives halfway across the world, working as a help cook in an Amsterdam pancake restaurant. She’s determined to enjoy a blissfully magic-free life, but even the Atlantic Ocean isn’t enough to separate her from her much-hated roots when her estranged mother shows up at her doorstep. As it turns out, Lillian’s father is in danger: some tricky fae took his house as payment for an old debt – and his soul is next.

Her job, relationship and apartment get put on the line as Lillian’s conscience drags her kicking and screaming back into the life she’s
tried to escape from, armed with nothing but a clunky iron bracelet and some mad improvisation skills. When she finds out the fae have much more ambitious plans than simply dealing in human souls, her safe Dutch haven isn’t quite so safe anymore… Rogue fae try to kill her, spriggans chase her through the Amsterdam streets, and to top it all off, a couple of mentally unstable Germanic gods get dragged into the fray.

Like she needed more reasons to hate this world.

At 91000 words, ALWAYS READ THE FAE PRINT is a humoristic urban fantasy with a dash of cynophobia. Although the story stands entirely on its own, it has strong series potential.

I live in Amsterdam where I work as a portrait artist and Dutch-to-English translator. I’ve previously had short stories published at Underground Voices and Sniplits.

Thank you for your time,
C.D.

Thanks for sharing, C.D.! I think there’s a lot here that’s intriguing, but a few bits that could be clarified for a better result. Lillian is the “human daughter” of two people , either of which could be non-human. I’m guessing the shape-shifting mother is decidedly not human, but you may want to clarify somewhere that dad is. The story starts with Lillian living “halfway across the world” — but you don’t say from where. Can you place the childhood hellhound attack somewhere specific, so we know just how far she’s run?

The instigating action of the story is described rather roughly, I think: “As it turns out, Lillian’s father is in danger: some tricky fae took his house as payment for an old debt – and his soul is next.” It just feels broken — like we’re looking at four different clauses that don’t flow together as they could. Can you find another way to share this information? What about something like “Lillian’s father made a bad trade, and now a trickster fae wants her parents’ house as payment for down payment on the debt. The full amount due is nothing less than her father’s soul.”

Maybe. That’s rough, but you get the idea.

Moving on, you say that Lillian’s job, relationship, and apartment are put on the line. Those are stakes, certainly, but are they high enough? Is her life in danger? Her soul?

The phrase “her safe Dutch haven isn’t quite so safe anymore…” reads as repetitive to me. I think “Dutch haven” covers the safe part, and the fact that it’s not so safe anymore is stronger if we aren’t hearing it immediately after being told it IS safe. (Also, am I the only person who tried to make a correlation between “Dutch haven”, “Dutch oven”, and Lillian’s job as a cook?) Also, I would cut the ellipses at the end of the sentence. Adding a period makes it a much stronger phrase.

I’m also toying with the idea of suggesting you revise the sentence “Rogue fae try to kill her, spriggans chase her through the Amsterdam streets, and to top it all off, a couple of mentally unstable Germanic gods get dragged into the fray” to read in the present tense. “Now, the fae are trying to kill her, nasty spriggans keep chasing her through the Amsterdam streets, and a couple of mentally unstable Germanic gods have been dragged into the battle for her father’s soul.” It feels a little more action-y to me.

Finally, I don’t love the word “humoristic”. Unless Lillian is a stand-up comedienne on the side, it’s the wrong word — you mean humorous. And I had to look up “cynophobia” — I won’t give it away for people who don’t know what it means, but I think if you want to use it, you need to include another instance of Lillian being affected by it in the query.

So those are my thoughts. Readers, what do you think?

I’m in love with these shoes, which, according to this article from The New York Times, are the product of a shoe-making workshop you can take. With a shoe guru! If only my upcoming trip to NYC wasn’t fully booked already! Anyway, moving on, today I wanted to share a question from Callie, who asks:

I’ve been following your blog for quite a while and have found it to be extremely useful and a lot of fun. My question is, how did you get the word out about your website? Was it just a natural consequence of people submitting to you? Or were there specific steps you took in order to establish your web presence? I know this isn’t the usual advice you give, but I have read quite a bit on the importance or building a platform and, since this pertains to that, I thought you might be able to give me a few ideas to work with.

First of all, thanks for the kind words! The business of building a website — or any online presence, honestly — is a lot of hard work, but can still be fun.

How did people first find out about this site, when kt literary was just a fledging little agency, lo these two years ago now? (btw, Happy Birthday, kt literary!) Well, I used to have a personal blogspot page, where I would semi-anonymously share occasional “Advice From An Agent”. When the kt lit site first went live, even before I officially opened my doors, I posted a link on my blog where people could check it out. News of the link got around (this was before Twitter, even, so I couldn’t tell you HOW), and I had over 300 queries in my inbox before I even officially was open to them!

Since then, I have my information posted around the web — on the Publishers Marketplace site, where I have a page, but also every time I make a sale and post it; on sites like AgentQuery, Preditors & Editors, Absolute Write, and the Verla Kay boards; in the lists of agents compiled by the SCBWI, Writers’ Market, and the AAR; on my clients’ sites; and now, on other Twitter users’ lists of Agents Who Tweet. (Note: some of the above links require memberships to access.)

But it’s not just about being listed. It’s about driving traffic to your site. If all I did was throw my name and address and submission guidelines up and the web, sure, people would find me, but would they keep coming back for more? Doubtful. So I blog daily (on weekdays), tweet often, and comment on posts by other agents and bloggers.

What about the rest of you? I would imagine almost all of you have websites that you’ve worked to promote. What tricks or tool did you use? Let us know in the comments!

Another great review of Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson, this one from Horn Book. To wit:

Scarlett Martin’s zany life gets, if possible, zanier in this second installment of the series. Her family’s struggling Manhattan hotel got a boost from the production of Hamlet it staged in Suite Scarlett (rev. 7/08), but now business is back to normal, leaving Scarlett to deal with the angst of a failed summer relationship and the insanity of her new boss, theatrical agent Amy Amberson. Her older brother, an aspiring actor, gets his first big break (but at what cost?); her older sister Lola has an identity crisis; and her younger sister, diabolically bad-tempered cancer survivor Marlene, is being worryingly…nice. Add Mrs. Amberson’s new client, a victim of stage-mothering, and said client’s irascible-yet-intriguing brother to the mix, and the hijinks reach a new high. Johnson skillfully balances the camp with warm family drama. In immediate, deadpan, to-the-point prose, she takes aim at the dark side of show business while continuing to develop the larger-than-life characters that are the heart of this series. The ending provides little actual resolution, especially to Scarlett’s romantic travails, but the process of getting there is so much fun that readers will likely just look forward even more to book three.

Gee, it certainly seems as if everyone is eagerly awaiting Book Three, huh?

Speaking of eagerly awaiting, I know I promised winners for my Pub Day contest today, but I decided to extend the contest by a WHOLE WEEK, to give you even more time to enter. Winner will be chosen next Wednesday, February 10th. Feel free to enter more than once!

One of the popular responses to my blog post asking you guys what you’d like to see more of here was more posts by my clients. With this exciting new feature “Behind The Book”, starting today, I’m excited to oblige. I may be stealing a bit from John Scalzi’s excellent “The Big Idea” posts, but I’m asking my authors to tell you a little bit more about their books. Today, I’m featuring Josie Bloss, author of Band Geek Love, Band Geeked Out, and her latest contemporary YA, Albatross, of which Meg Cabot said:

Taut and emotionally wrenching… I couldn’t put it down. Josie Bloss is an author to watch.

Josie, take it away!

I was inspired to write Albatross after realizing something important from personal experience – the obsession that sometimes accompanies infatuation can be a terrible thing.

There are plenty of YA books that depict the intensity of first love as sweet and wonderful. I wrote about it in Band Geek Love, in which the main character, Ellie Snow, was drawn out of her defensive shell by devoted Conner. Even if Ellie and Conner weren’t meant to be together forever, it was a formative and positive relationship for Ellie and helped her become a better and more mature person.

But sometimes the object of our affection is not…deserving. Sometimes a crush is manipulative, knows the power he or she has and uses it to take advantage. If it involves the wrong person, sometimes an infatuation doesn’t fill us with light and happiness but instead drags us down into the worst parts of ourselves. Into jealousy and darkness and self-destruction where we molder away until we find the strength to climb out again.

That’s what happens to Tess, the main character of Albatross, when she moves to a new town after escaping her controlling and emotionally abusive dad. In the midst of that turmoil, Tess meets and becomes entranced by Micah, an intense and (literally) biting boy who knows exactly how to manipulate and push all of her buttons. Her intense pseudo-relationship with Micah progresses as he gives her just enough to keep her hanging on. Tess becomes obsessed with the girl she considers her competition for Micah’s affection, lies to her mom, and neglects all her other friendships. Because of her infatuation, Tess slowly turns into a version of herself that she despises. It’s only when she finds the strength to confront her dad that Tess is able to really face what her screwed-up relationship with Micah has become.

I sometimes joke with friends that writing this book-of-my-heart almost ended me, that I felt like I was going through every wretched minute of confusion and despair with Tess as she fought her way through her obsession with Micah and out the other side. But the payoff feels worth it. My favorite stories are about a girl casting off her demons and finding her inner-badass, which Tess most certainly does. And I still tear up (happily) whenever I read the last page. Tess is my hero.

Remember, you can win a copy of Albatross by commenting on yesterday’s post with a story about a high school experience that involved music. Or you can order your own copy at Amazon, B&N, or your favorite independent bookseller.

Congrats to Josie Bloss and Maureen Johnson, whose latest novels — Albatross and Scarlett Fever, respectively — were released today. To celebrate, I’m having another contest!

As you may have read in Josie’s interview on the Flux website, music plays a part in Albatross, just as it did in Band Geek Love and Band Geeked Out. In order to enter the contest, tell me in the comments how music played a part in your high school life. Intern Jenny and I will pick the best, most entertaining story to win a copy of Albatross on Wednesday!

But let’s not leave out fans of Maureen Johnson, and the eagerly anticipated sequel to Suite Scarlett. The Kirkus review I linked to the other day gives a little hint about a plot point — Spencer gets a role on an insanely popular tv show. To win a copy of Scarlett Fever, imagine you’ve got a high powered talent agent like Mrs. Amberson, and tell me what show YOU’D want a role on, and what that role would be. Again, Jenny and I will look through the comments on Wednesday and decide which special guest star performance we’d most want to watch.

So have some fun in the comments, and good luck! And if you just can’t wait to win, may I suggest IndieBound to find a local independent bookstore where you can buy your very own copy of Albatross or Scarlett Fever — or both?

UPDATE: The contest is now extended to next Wednesday, February 10th. Good luck!

I’ve got About My Query posts scheduled into March, but when I looked in my drafts folder this morning, today’s post was empty! One entreaty posted to Twitter later, and here’s today’s query for your review. I like changing things up every so often, so rather than posting my thoughts and having a bunch of comments agreeing (or disagreeing) with me, I’m going to let my readers chime in with their thoughts first — I’ll post mine sometime this weekend. As for the shoes, they’re just pretty, from Dior’s recent Haute Couture show in Paris. Ready?

Dear Ms. Unfeasible,

I am hoping you will find Diary of a Womanizer, my manuscript, of interest and am enclosing the requested materials. The genre would be Young Adult/Adult/Debut Fiction. The word count is: 15, 848.

Isn’t it about time that we see and hear how a guy deals with some current issues, such as family problems, drugs, alcohol, sex, step-parents, and girls? These are some of the issues the protagonist, Seth Rollings, deals with throughout Diary. The book starts off on a bad note for him with a huge fight with his mother, Debra and step-father, Peter, over his party-centric lifestyle. A huge falling out leads this 22 year-old wealthy kid to his only option, living with his best friend Logan’s house, which is where the trouble really starts. Unfortunately, Seth thinks that being and getting into trouble is fun.

First, Seth meets Chloe, another wealthy girl. Seth thinks she is “the one”, however he doesn’t do anything about it. Seth then gets all down on himself about that, so Logan suggest something that make Seth’s life so much better. Logan suggests that he not just stick to one girl, but to have many at one time. Although he’s nervous at first, Seth takes that suggestion into action. After the first girl, he realizes that he likes it and continues for about 7 more. On his continous trail of women, Seth is thrown into a new world, full of stalking, drugs, sex, alcohol, jealousy, and much more. After the 7th one-night-stand, who through a crazy twist is actually Logan’s girlfriend, Seth has hit rock bottom. He is out on his own with nowhere to go, but home. When he goes back home, the issues with his mother get worse. Then his real father, Vincent, decides to show up after 22 years. Once that happens, he finds out that his mother has been lying his whole life about so much. With all this information and drama, Seth leaves home for good. He ends up at a hotel when he finally realizes what a mess he made of his life and goes to find Chloe, which he thinks will make his life complete and back to normal, because she is the one.

Diary of a Womanizer is told in the first person in diary style. The story is told from Seth’s point of view.

I can relate to Seth in many ways which is why I think I am qualified to write about all of this. I have dealt with step-parents, real fathers never being there, and many of the other things he goes through. I currently am taking English and Journalism classes at Community College of Allegheny County and currently working at local news station writing news stories. I am currently working on the second book on the series I hope to complete.

Diary of a Womanizer is my first novella. My research has led me to your agency. I’m happy to share it with you.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Chris P.

As always, please be constructive, and let Chris P. know what you think of his query. I look forward to reading the comments.

I was going to do a recap of last night’s #askAgent session on Twitter, but there’s already a transcript posted here, so I will just tell you to go check it out!

In other news, though, Kirkus reviewed Maureen Johnson’s Scarlett Fever, and they loved it! I quote:

The sequel measures well above its predecessor in this hilarious follow-up to Suite Scarlett (2008), which first introduced the eccentric, New York-dwelling Martin family. Picking up just a few weeks later, Scarlett is still convincingly nursing a broken heart and being run ragged by her employer, Mrs. Amberson, who has ambitions of becoming an agent. [...] Readers will have to read the first to understand this one, and the decidedly cliffhanger conclusion will ensure they are left in fevered anticipation of the next.

Woot!

So the publishing world is all abuzz today with news of Apple’s iPad, although — period jokes aside — I’m not yet seeing that this is THE THING that will change publishing as we know it. I’m certainly not ready to give up my Kindle, and since I’m not on AT&T, nor do I wish to be, I’m not chucking my Blackberry any time soon either. I wouldn’t have minded an announcement that the iPhone was going to be available to Verizon customers, but I guess that’s a rant for another day.

In any case, I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve talked tech here on the Daphne blog, so I thought I’d throw out a few questions to you. What devices can’t you live without: Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, iPod, netbook, laptop, Kindle, Sony Reader, camera, rotary phone, typewriter… What’s your toy? And what do you think about the iPad?

Also, late breaking news — I’m going to be participating in fellow agent Colleen Lindsay’s AskAgent tweet chat TONIGHT at 10pm Eastern, 8pm Mountain. Follow us on #askagent.

I finished reading Daniel Silva’s latest Gabriel Allon thriller The Defector last night, and I wanted to talk about it. If you’re reading this blog, you probably know I don’t represent thrillers, but I do enjoy reading them, and Silva is one of those authors I like to keep up with.

With a multi-book series like this, though, I think the author can run the risk of boring readers with long, detailed descriptions of characters they’ve met before, in previous books. I’m not saying I was bored, exactly (and that may be because in Silva’s books, I don’t have a hard time keeping track of the important characters — Gabriel, Chiara, Shamron — and I don’t mind forgetting about the others), but I felt like if I had the previous book in front of me at the same time as The Defector, I could easily flip to similar descriptions the last time these characters were introduced.

Don’t get me wrong — it needs to be done somehow. As a writer, you can’t assume that every reader will work their way through your entire oeuvre. Some may come to you midway through a series, and you have to make some new introductions, even while your faithful readers are standing nearby at the cocktail party that is your book, saying to themselves, “Yes, I know who that is, we’ve met before, get back to your story!”

I’m remembering another author’s series where I read two books in close succession, and I noticed word-for-word repeats of character description. You have to find the middle ground that works for you — that keeps your longtime readers engaged, and doesn’t leave your newer readers clueless.

Those of you that are writing series certainly need to be aware of this, but it’s useful information for all writers. Even if you don’t NEED to find different ways to introduce your characters, can you? And (nod to this off-color but dead-on review of The Phantom Menace) can you do it without describing what they look like, what they’re wearing, or what their job or “role” is?

Try it with some of your favorite characters! I’ll give you one to start with: Spencer Martin. Ok, go!

One of my authors just got a revision letter from her editor, and I was looking over it, and noticed the following comment:

Please avoid use/overuse of the word “smirk.” This is a description I see in the work of many new writers and I firmly believe that smirking is less common in the world than it appears to be from reading manuscripts. This is one of those expressions that should be used rarely and only when it fits perfectly, such as in describing Bruce Willis’s face.

I have to admit, I hadn’t noticed an overabundance of smirking when reading the novel myself, but that’s why I’m an agent and not an awesome, detail-oriented editor.

But “smirk” is just one of those words that gets used a lot, along with “shrugged” and “nodded”, at least as far as I’ve noticed. What other words have you found yourself overusing? They’re harder to find, I think — or at least not as obvious as bigger cliches that new writers often fall prey to, like starting a manuscript with a character waking up or looking in a mirror to describe him- or herself.

Let me know your favorite overused words in the comments!