by Wendy Call
Boston local member Wendy Call is somewhere between idea and bookshelf for her narrative nonfiction book No Word for Welcome: Mexican Villages Face the Future.
“The National Writers Union rocks and the publishing industry sucks!” Rivka Solomon, declared, summing up her experience getting her book transformed from an idea into a hot-pink cover on the bookshelf. “Join the union!” she told the audience.
At the first of the NWU/Cambridge Center for Adult Education 2003 Writers’ Life Series, Rivka Solomon (That Takes Ovaries: Bold Females and Their Brazen Acts, Three Rivers Press/Random House), Rodnell Collins (Seventh Child, Carol Publishing Group) and Mary Sullivan (Stay, Zoland Books), shared their experiences in “From Idea to Bookshelf: Authors Share their Publishing Stories.” Series moderator Charles Coe set the tone for the evening, saying the three of them were there to share their “sometimes cautionary and horrifying tales” with the audience. Their tales were indeed riveting.
To oversimplify for the sake of clarity, their stories can be boiled down to five steps.
Mary Sullivan, novelist and coordinator of PEN New England, is a big believer in writing every day. Her novel did not come out of just a single idea, she told the group, but was woven from a lot of bits and scraps she had written. Sullivan also warned that the writing will take a lot longer than you expect. When she started looking for an agent to represent her novel, “I thought it was done, but it wasn’t.”
Rivka Solomon recommends writing articles based on your book’s topic, to get your name out there. She wasn’t able to land articles in heavyweights like Mother Jones or The Altantic Monthly, but she stockpiled a hefty folder of clips from magazines for women and girls including Bust, Moxie, Sojourner, and Lilith.
When she was ready to start looking for an agent, Mary Sullivan didn’t have many personal contacts, so she relied on the Literary Marketplace guidebook. She sent a query letter to 50 agents. The process took over an entire year. Make sure to list your awards and important publications in your letter! In the end, three agents were interested in representing her.
Rivka Solomon sent her query letter to 18 agents she identified from the NWU agent referral list. “The last sentence of your query’s first paragraph should be that this is a simultaneous submission,” Solomon advised. “The first sentence is ‘I’ve chosen you.’”
Based on her query letter, five agents contacted Solomon wanting to see her proposal. It’s important to remember that the proposal is, above all, a marketing document. She recommended Michael Larson’s book Literary Agents: What They Do, How They Do It, and How to Find and Work with the Right One for You and Susan Page’s The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book.
The path from query letter to an interested agent might be circuitous. Rodnell Collins noted that if an agent gets back to you, asking for other materials or asking you to re-work something, do your very best to provide it. These requests are a good sign—showing the agent is very interested.
Rodnell Collins cautioned against revealing too much to your agent or editor. “You are the creator of the material,” he said. “Protect your intellectual rights.” While working on his biography-memoir of Malcolm X, his uncle, he found some people in the publishing industry to be a little too interested in his material. Over the many years that his mother, and then he, worked on the project that became Seventh Child, they had source material stolen from them.
Collins noted that while it seems you are selling yourself to the agent, keep in mind that you are the one doing the buying. “When you are looking for an agent, kick the tires and interview people.” Unfortunately, he said, you will probably have to decide whether you want to make money or you want to tell your story. He managed to do both, but that is not always possible.
Finding the right agent, Mary Sullivan said, “should be like walking into an apartment and knowing this is where you want to live.” She chose a New York agent who she did not feel particularly comfortable with. Eventually, she switched to another agent she really trusted. In the end, the New York agent garnered only a $2,500 advance for her first novel, which her second agent landed a $45,000 contract with Morrow for her second book.
All three writers stressed the importance of networking. Collins suggested thinking back to high school and college friends and seeing who is connected to the publishing industry.
Rivka Solomon sought help from NWU advisors, and poured over the NWU guide to contracts. “The contract is paragraph after paragraph of the publisher keeping the rights to your book,” she said. The NWU helped her fight, but she warned against fighting too hard. Keeping a good relationship with your agent and your publisher is important. “Pick your battles!” she advised.
While Solomon combed through her contract sentence-by-sentence, Mary Sullivan paid little attention to hers. “I completely trust my agent and I can’t stand contracts.” “Mary, you have lived a charmed life as far as contracts.” Charles Coe noted with a smile. “Not reading a contract is like putting on a blindfold and crossing Mass. Ave. at rush hour.”
“You need to be your own publicist, no matter what,” Sullivan counseled. She developed a database of names—everyone she met and all her relative’s friends. She mailed out a postcard featuring the book’s cover and a list of her readings. “I set up readings for myself – and I hate readings! If I could never read again, I wouldn’t, but you have to.” She also worked with a friend to put together a promo package for Stay, and received many good reviews.
Rivka Solomon didn’t just promote her book, she fostered an international movement. Working through the internet, she built a national, then international, network of women and girls talking about their brazen acts at a series of Open Mike events.
Solomon also composed a 15-second pitch for her book and made hundreds of cold calls to editors and reporters. She followed up with e-mail and faxed press materials, and garnered 70 media hits for her book. She closed the evening’s lively discussion with her list of seven key things she learned:
1) The published industry is about self-fulfilling prophecies. They throw tons of money at the few books they expect to become best-sellers, and leave the rest of their list to flounder.
2) Your have three months after publication to sink or swim. You MUST take full advantage of every opportunity in those three months.
3) Get as many free copies of your book as you can. Get the contract to specify you will receive more. Ask for even more than that when your publisher stops doing publicity for your book.
4) Do your own publicity!
5) Make your book reading an event.
6) Things you never expect to happen will happen. Be ready!
7) And most important: Believe in yourself and the power of your story.