This Week in Publishing

This week in March Madn... I mean publishing.

The big news this week in publishing has, as usual, to do with Amazon and Apple and that whole iPad thing. Scrambling before the April 3rd release of the iCan'tWaitToGetOnePad, the so-called Agency Four major publishers (so-called because they've agreed to "agency model" deals with Apple) are hoping to adjust their deal with Amazon, who, according to reports, is making noise about removing buy buttons for both digital and print if the Agency don't cave to a three year term and favored nation status. Let's all just hope the Agency Four end up in better shape than the Oceanic Six.

In other big news, HarperStudio publisher Bob Miller will be leaving Harper to become the group publisher at Workman. Amid questions about the future of the experimental imprint, web marketing maven and HarperStudo Associate Publisher Debbie Stier showed they aren't done experimenting yet, as she was extremely transparent about the future of the imprint via questions on Formspring.

The Rejectionist had a truly fantastic contest last week: query rejections in the form of re-written heavy metal songs. The grand prize winner, as announced by Wayne and Garth, was Pitch in an Elevator (sample: Pitch in an elevator/"It's like Moby Dick meets My Two Dads"/Pitch in an elevator/"Like Sixth Sense crossed with the Iliad") and the runners up were actual real live performances by Rick Daley and Tom, which are well worth a listen. Le R, all I have to say is: We're not worthy!! We're not worthy!!!

Mary Ulrich passed along a post by Seth Godin about a possible bookstore of the future: experience-driven over selection-driven.

Lapham's Quarterly has a truly awesome chart: the day jobs of famous writers. The next time you lament not being a full-time writer it's worth remembering that Charlotte Bronte made $1,838 a year as a governess..... and that's in today's dollars. (via JacketCopy)

In agent advice news, Jenny Bent, who is celebrating the first birthday of the Bent Agency, has a very helpful post on some very common rookie mistakes when querying. Well worth a look.

This week in the Forums, ljkuhnley started a great post on the difference between books with strong voices and invisible voices, bohemienne discusses the pros and cons of chasing the market, and Neil Vogler noticed an interesting article in the Guardian about an author being sued by a Parisian fabric store for the way the store is portrayed in a mystery novel, including being the site for the murder.

It's been wayyyy too long since we started a new blog feature, and this one is long overdue. Comment of the week!!! This week's comment of the week (on Tuesday's post) goes to Ulysses:

"Angelina learns that her cats aren't ordinary cats: they are actually hyper-intelligent feline assassins who can kill their enemies with a flick of a paw."

... Um... but that IS an ordinary cat.

And I'll take Ninja Cats by 5 points. Their point guard is a rebound genius, and I heard that the starting center for the Space Monkeys is out for five days with Hairballs-by-proxy (consequence of an all-feline diet).

And finally, reader Susan Quinn pointed me to a really cool video by DK about the future of publishing, which riffs off that one video by that student that my mom sent me that one time.



Have a great weekend!

How To Format a Query Letter

Dear Blog Readers,

This is how you format an e-mailed query letter. Note that I did not begin with the recipient's address or my address or the date, as that is not customary for an e-mail. I also am not indenting because indenting and e-mails do not mix.

I am using block formatting. I double space between paragraphs but otherwise the query is single-spaced. It is written in a default font, it is left-justified, and the font is a normal size. If I have copied from a word processing program or past e-mail I am careful to make sure the fonts and sizes match. I haven't added pictures or tried to get fancy with anything because I want the agent to see that I'm confident in my words and don't need any gimmicks to make my query stand out.

Believe it or not, less than 25% of the e-queries I receive are properly formatted. While you won't get rejected if your query is incorrectly formatted, if you accomplish this simple task correctly you will convey an indispensable aura of professionalism. And remember: the amount of time you spend formatting, coloring, bolding, italicizing, and adding pictures to your query is inversely proportional to how professional it looks when you're finished.

Sincerely,
Nathan Bransford (note that I didn't leave space for a signature since it's an e-mail)

My address
My phone number
My e-mail address
(optional: my website/blog)

---

First 5 pages of the manuscript - don't worry about how these are formatted just do the best you can

You Tell Me: What is Your Desert Island Book?

Love the desert island question!!!

It has to be the right kind of book, right? Something you wouldn't mind reading thousands of times. Do you opt for weighty or fun? Something that's challenging and needs unpacking or something that will lift your spirits when the rescue boat fails to arrive? Which type of book best rewards repeat reading?

So.

If you could have one book as you're stuck on a desert island, which one would it be?

I'm going with MOBY-DICK. Not only is it long and rewards repeat reading, but it might be useful for whale sightings. (Thanks to Kerri-Ann for pointing out that the title is hyphenated. Sorry Herman!)

What are you taking with you?

The Secret Strength of Killer Queries: Specificity

People often say to me: "Listen, agent person (they don't actually call me this). You agent blogging people always talk about what not to do in a query, why not talk about what people should do in a query!"

The people have spoken. They want things they should do.

And here's what I think is one of the very most important thing to do in a query: be as specific as possible. Allow me to be even more specific: be as specific as possible about the right things.

When I say "be specific" I don't mean that we need to know every character's name and the name of every city and place in the Realm of Unpronounceable Cities and Places. In other words, I don't think it's a good idea for your query to read along the lines of, "Morfor travels to the Uwn'uim Square in the town of Zxcimist in order to meet his brother Phoidum."

When I say be specific I also don't mean that we need to get bogged down in tangential details either, like ages and hair colors and other things characters are doing if they don't play a major role in the story.

Instead I mean this: be as specific as possible about the plot.

I get so many queries that read (literally, though this is made up for the purposes of this post) like this:

Character Name is living peacefully in Hometown. But then a life-changing event occurs that changes everything. Secrets are revealed that turn her life upside down. Character Name faces grave danger as she embarks on a quest to save her people. This novel is filled with humor and passion and suspense and romance, and there's a shocking twist that leaves the reader breathless.

Being vague leaves an agent with so many questions: What are the secrets? What is the life-changing event? What is the danger she's facing? What happens that is funny and suspenseful and romantic?

When all of these key details are kept hidden the query ends up sounding like... well, pretty much every novel ever written. And chances are an agent is going to move on to the next query.

Replace that vagueness with key details and suddenly the query comes alive. Let's try that query about Character Name again, hmm?

Angelina lives with her cats in Moonville, an outer space colony known more for its knitting festivals than anything resembling excitement. But when Moonville is invaded by cat-eating space monkeys, Angelina learns that her cats aren't ordinary cats: they are actually hyper-intelligent feline assassins who can kill their enemies with a flick of a paw. And they need a leader. Angelina has to leave her knitting behind to defeat the space monkeys, and an intrepid and handsome space explorer named Brad may hold the key.

I think when writers face the daunting task of condensing their work down to a few sentences it's tempting to simply say "shocking secrets are revealed" rather than trying to sum up in just a line or two what are, in the novel, complicated and nuanced events. I know it's tricky to do this.

Also, there's a balance between being specific and being concise. You don't want to be so specific that you're boring down to what the character ate for lunch on the way to slay the space monkeys. But it's utterly, utterly necessary to give the agent some glimpse into what actually happens.

As always, specificity wins.

The 2nd Annual Blog Bracket Challenge!

The greatest sporting event in the history of mankind except for maybe the World Cup or what have you is just about upon us!

It's NCAA Tournament time, and just like last year we shall determine who among us is the literary bracket picking champion OF THEM ALL.

Last year, Jody-Feldman was a UConn victory away from winning the ENTIRE multi-million person ESPN challenge, but ultimately it was Jared who came away victorious.

Who will win this time?

(Probably not me)

Here's how it works: You'll fill out your NCAA bracket online by picking the winners of all the games. And I'm offering a better prize this year: The winner with the most points at the end of the NCAA tournament will win their choice of a free partial critique or a book from one of my clients.

Here's how to enter:

1. Go to the front page of the ESPN tournament challenge: http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/frontpage

2. Make your picks.

3. If you have an ESPN username and password you can log in when you submit your picks, otherwise you may need to create a new user ID and password. But don't worry, it's not onerous and you can decline to receive updates in case you're spam conscious.

4. Hover over the link that says "My Groups" and then click "Create or Join a Group"

5. Search for "Bransford Blog Challenge." Enter the password, which is "rhetorical" and then click Join Group.

Then you're all set! You can make changes to your bracket by clicking on it until it locks on Thursday.

Please limit yourself to one entry

This year all updates and trash talking and "I don't believe what I just saw!!"s will be conducted in this dedicated March Madness thread in the Forums.

Oh, and you don't have to know anything about basketball to participate. In fact, it's probably an asset.

Good luck, Chalengees!!

Photo by Rick Dikeman via a Creative Commons license

This Week in Publishing

This! Week! Publishing!

Here comes the iPad! Yes, the iPad is ready for pre-order and Apple has given a deeper look into the iBook experience. And for those who had hoped that iBooks would be incorporated directly into iTunes like movies and TV shows were, or at least that it would come pre-installed: doesn't look like it. You have to download the free iBooks app, although there seems to be some interaction with iTunes. Standing by.

Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble announced that they would be making their own app available for the iPad. Let the great iPad book app wars commence!

And Mike Shatzkin has a typically brilliant post, this one about how in an era where anyone can sell books on a relatively even playing field it diminishes traditional publishers' historic advantages: namely their unsurpassed ability at getting print books out to "the trade." The new era may favor multi-niche publishers who specialize because they are adept at building followers interested in certain topics, and this doesn't play to traditional publishers' strengths. Really interesting stuff. Can you tell how much I love Mike Shatzkin's blog??? The people who complain about all the e-book posts are lucky I don't geek out on you more.

Oh. Um, on second though I guess I'm too late on the whole geeking out thing.

This week in the Forums: we reached 1,000 members! If you haven't joined the conversation it's extremely easy to register. Among the topics being discussed this week: when will e-books reach 50% of sales, does your genre make it difficult to find an agent, how to avoid info dumps, and..... yes, still trying to figure out what is happening on Lost!

Over at her Writer's Digest blog, Jane Friedman talks about some very common advice that writers should be very wary of/careful about: opening books with action.

And speaking of which, lots of people talk about the necessity of "tension," but what is tension exactly? My wonderful client Jennifer Hubbard has a fantastic definition: it's "desire balanced by obstacles."

Carolyn Kellogg at the LA Times has a very interesting look into the modern book tour, a landscape that is being stratified between publisher organized book tours and decidedly DIY versions as everyone tries to deal with fewer bookstores and less space in local media.

Remember the wolf T-shirt at Amazon with the hilarious reviews? Reader John Ochwat has a survey of some of the different products that have attracted these hilarious reviews, including a can of uranium and a book priced at $7,679.00.

And finally, Orbit Books has one of the coolest book trailers I've ever seen: the making of a cover. In two minutes:



Have a great weekend!

Choose Your Own E-book Adventure

We all remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books as kids where you suddenly time travel to the Civil War and you have to decide whether to get on the raft across the river or run away and you have to flip to page 97 to find out if you survived?

Well, should you be intrepid enough to, uh, click on a few links, you're about to Choose Your Own E-book Adventure. Ready the time machine!

I know, I know, some of you are saying, another e-book post. Here's the thing: some of the most common questions I receive these days are along the lines of, "What's going to happen to authors/agents/publishers in the e-book era? Are publishers going to survive? What does it mean for authors?"

And while I try to give a reasonable answer, in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "Well, that depends on lots and lots of factors that are impossible to know at this point." It's really hard to look into the future when X, Y, and Z could throw the whole future into a wildly different outcome. The future might look basically like what we have now, with the major publishers distributing most of the books electronically through e-book stores, or it could look wildly different than that, with the e-book vendors or device makers or some combination being the main game in town.

So. I thought I'd turn some of those variables into a couple different guesses about what different versions of our publishing future might look like. Ready to play? Here we go:

It's 2010. Right now e-books comprise only 3-5% of sales, but some people think e-books represent the future of the book business and will eventually comprise the majority of sales.

Do you think this will happen?

E-books catch on in a big way
E-books remain a niche market

You Tell Me: Which Writer's Career Would You Most Like to Emulate?

We all have writers we look up to for their body of work, their fame, the adulation they receive, and maybe even the islands they own.

Whose career would you most like to emulate? Would you go for the fame, riches, awards, or all of the above?

Which writer's life do you look at and say: I want that.

A Blog Post on Repetition, Repetition That Is Distracting

I don't know if I'm just now noticing, noticing the way some writers repeat certain words or phrases for emphasis. But I've been seeing this so much lately, seeing how authors are taking a word or two from the beginning of a sentence and using them again to elaborate, using them in a way that I think is supposed to sound lyrical. As with any writing technique it can be done well, done well in a way that emphasizes a key word or two. But when it's overused, overused again and again, it can begin to drive the reader crazy, crazy in a way that you definitely don't want to drive a reader.

Please be careful with repetition, repetition that can become distracting if it's used too much, used too much in an attempt to create a lyrical style, a lyrical style that is undermined by the repetition.

Don't Believe the E-book Skeptics

Originally posted at the Huffington Post

Slate's technology writer Farhad Manjoo recently wrote a very interesting article about some off-base predictions of yore about our digital future. He focuses on a whopper of a Newsweek column from 1995 (which is actually titled "The Internet? Bah!") about how the Internet would be a passing fad because, among other things, online shopping can't replicate the experience of a salesperson, an online database can't replace a daily newspaper, and the Internet was so jumbled he couldn't even find the date of the Battle of Trafalgar.

Whoops.

Rather than just hardy har har-ing at the article, Manjoo takes a different, and very insightful approach. He notes that the author of the article was hardly a Luddite - he was actually deep in the weeds of the early Internet. The problem with the article wasn't that the author was dumb, the problem was that he was looking strictly at the Internet of 1995 and ignoring the potential for innovation and change.

Manjoo lays out four principles for more successful predictions about our digital future:

1. Good predictions are based on current trends
2. Don't underestimate people's capacity for change
3. New stuff sometimes come out of the blue
4. These days it's best to err on the side of (technological) optimism

When people make predictions about our e-book future, I find myself mystified that some people are so dismissive of their inevitability. I see blog posts and comments around the Internet from people who look at the nascent e-book landscape and think, "Blech. Expensive grayscale Kindles in a white piece of plastic? No way e-books are going to catch on!" Some people admit that they're going to be a part of our lives, but do so grudgingly and see them as yet another signpost that we're all going to hell in a handbasket.

Here's the thing they ignore: e-books are only going to get better.

Move over Nostradamus, here are some predictions about our digital book future:

1. The e-book reading experience is only going to improve.

Sure - not everyone loves the current grayscale Kindles and tiny iPhone reading experience, particularly for books that are illustrated or are beautifully designed. But better devices are coming and it's going to open up a new era of book design of unlimited possibility.

I remember that my high school English teacher told us that when William Faulkner was writing THE SOUND AND THE FURY he wished he could have published the text in different colors to denote the different perspectives, but obviously that would have been prohibitively expensive for publishers at the time. Not anymore. With the iPad and other devices coming soon, E-books are going color.

Tomorrow's writers are going to have almost limitless ability to include beautiful color photos and art and interactivity and creative design even in the mass-est of mass market books, the ones that are currently printed on cheap paper and sold on supermarket racks and where the idea of including anything colorful or design-y besides the cover is laughable.

Think of how much a fancy illustrated book costs now and then think about how cheaply that can be done digitally. E-books may be uglier than print books now, but they're about to get more beautiful.

2. E-readers and e-books are only going to get cheaper.

Sure, right now e-readers are out of reach for much of the population. That's going to change. Every new technology is out of reach until it gets cheaper. Digital toys that would once have sold for $100 are now given out in McDonald's Happy Meals. Lower prices for iPad-like devices of the future are inevitable.

And while publishers are currently taking a stand against deeply discounted e-books, the $12.99-$14.99 price point that they are fighting for is still half the cost of a $25 hardcover.

It's soon going to be possible to buy e-books cheaply on an affordable e-reader device, and they're going to be more colorful and interactive than most of their print counterparts.

3. Finding the books you want to read will only get easier.

One of the most common fears about the coming era is that no one will be able to find the good books in a time when anyone can just upload their novel to Amazon. It's the Fear of the Jumble, which was also expressed in that column at Newsweek, where the author complained that (in 1995) you couldn't even find the date of the Battle of Trafalgar on the Internet. He didn't realize that Google and Wikipedia would come along to give you that answer in mere seconds.

Already there are sites like Goodreads and Shelfari cropping up that allow people to swap reviews and recommendations about books. People increasingly find new books through blogs, forums, and heck, hearing from an author directly. It was never really possible before for authors to reach their audience directly - now it's a piece of cake.

Humans are really, really good at organizing things. If we can organize the billions and billions of web pages out there so that we can find what we want within a few seconds I think we can manage a few million books.

4. People are ignoring the digital trend.

I was watching a Seinfeld rerun the other day and there was a funny moment when Elaine hated a movie she was watching so much she called the video store and threatened not to rewind it. I'm going to have to explain this joke to my kids. And then I'm going to tell them about this funny thing we used to have where used to get these things called DVDs in the mail rather than having them downloaded straight to the TV (or wall or inside our eyeballs or whatever we're watching movies on in the future).

Everything that can be digitized is being digitized because it's cheaper and easier to send pixels around the world than physical objects. First it was music, then newspapers, then movies. Books are next in line.

5. Habits change

Yes, yes. The smell of books, reading in the bathtub, writing in the margins, a bookshelf full of books, etc. etc.

People will still have that choice and there are some books that simply can't be replicated digitally. But when faced with a better option, consumers shift extremely quickly. Right now the benefits of e-books are a little murky except for early adopters and those that can afford the devices. But that's just right now. Pretty soon they're going to be better (color! design! portable! interactivity! instantaneous!) and cheaper. Readers won't pay a premium for an inferior print product out of habit and nostalgia in great numbers.

The e-book era is going to be one of incredible innovation and unlimited opportunity, and people who don't see e-books dominating the future of the book world are ignoring the coming innovation and creativity and affordability. I refuse to believe the skeptics and pessimists. Books are about to get better.