When I wrote the title of this post, I realized we were only three posts away from the 300th Roundup.  Remember?  It’s the one where we were going to show our work spaces.  Are you currently saying, “oh crap! I meant to do that?”  Well, you should be saying that, slackers.

Though I am just as guilty for not writing numerous reminders.  And by now, I simply don’t have enough time between now and when the 299th post goes up to upload more videos if they come in (I think I have 5 in hand).  The question now is do I post the paltry 5 that I have in hand (doesn’t feel like quite the milestone marker worthy of 300 posts celebrating the community)?  Ask people to upload them on their own to YouTube or Vimeo and just send me the html to embed?  Skip this celebration entirely or do something else?

Help.

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The Weekly What If: What if you only had 5 videos in hand for Blog Marks the Spot (hey…wait a second…this what if sounds a lot like the question she just asked above…).  Would you post the paltry 5 that you have in hand (doesn’t feel like quite the milestone marker worthy of 300 posts celebrating the community)?  Ask people to upload them on their own to YouTube or Vimeo and just send Melissa the html to embed?  Skip this celebration entirely or do something else?

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One reason the reminders didn’t happen is that there are already too many items on my plate.  I have been having a few too many 15 hour work days in a row, which is a tad stressful, but I really like being busy.  It’s sort of one of those when-it-rains-it-pours moments after a dry spell.

One of the coolest things on my plate at the moment is that I’m going to be the keynote speaker at the Resolve of New England’s conference on November 6th.  If you’re anywhere close to Boston (and by close, I’m counting Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine), I would love for you to come.  It sounds like a wonderful conference and I’m excited to be back up in Massachusetts.

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Another thing on my plate which hasn’t gotten done is planning an exciting meetup for BlogHer.  And I’ve got to be frank, I’ve been working 15 hour days and moving my parents, so…er…this is something that seems to keep getting pushed to be back burner.  But the beginning of August is quickly approaching so…

I am going to propose repeating something we did last year that worked very well.   BlogHer attendees can grab their lunch on Friday (the 6th) between 11:45 am–1:15 pm and bring the plate to the hotel lobby.  That way, people who are not part of the conference, but live in the area, can mingle with people who are.

Not everyone can slip out of work or get down to the city on Friday, so I propose that people start brainstorming a cheap and easy place for a bunch of people to meet on Sunday morning.  Coffee?  The lobby of the hotel again?

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And now, the blogs…

Dear Stevie has a post about a date night that she went on with her husband.  I loved the everydayness of it, but the reader is always reminded of the backdrop it rests against.  She writes, “Of course you were the topic of conversation for most of the night last night, but it was a lot more of the reminiscing about the good times we had with you talks, and a lot less of the being sad and depressed about you dying talks. I liked that, a lot.”  It’s beautiful and her photographs are gorgeous.

Fertility Foibles has a post about the Crinone that is lurking in her bathroom drawer.  The post manages to be both funny and wistful at the same time.

Peesticks and Stones has a post about dealing with her father’s things after his death and what she learned about him through the objects as well as about her own past.  There is a letter she finds on the computer, written to a woman who may be her birthmother.  The writing is gorgeous, and the moments she has captured will make you hold your breath as you read the post.

So Dear and Yet So Far has a post collecting people’s emotions surrounding infertility after loss.  It struck me because this is what social media can do that other mediums cannot–it can provide validation.  It’s not a long post, but the question pack a punch.

Lastly, Serenity Now has a post about returning to the RE–what has changed and what is still the same.  She writes, “But. I was as nervous as ever when we were waiting to see my doctor. I tried to tamp the irrational panic from choking me by breathing and pretending to be involved in work issues on my blackberry.  I never wanted to go back there.”  It’s that blunt honesty that makes this a wonderful post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Remember that Blog Marks the Spot celebration?  Answer the Weekly What If with your suggestion of how we should mark the 300th Roundup.  I’m going to be the keynote at the Resolve of New England conference.  What to do about the BlogHer get together.  And lots of great posts to read.

Avoiding real emotion by discussing lighter topics.  Puppies!

In addition to stress-reading Harry Potter, my go-to stress food is nutella.  It’s something that just tastes good.  That has dubious nutritional value despite the fact that the label tells you that orange juice, nutella on wheat bread, and a glass of skim milk makes a healthy breakfast.  When I eat it, I am instantly back in my great-uncle’s kitchen.

When I tweeted about eating nutella, it immediately got dozens of people emailing and tweeting and facebooking about nutella.  When I write about half-sour pickles, a few people half-heartedly jump into the conversation.  People may like pickles, but it doesn’t mean enough to them to let me know. When I tweet about nutella, there is a collective orgasm across the blogosphere.

The same thing happens when I write that I want an iPad.  Those words make people who don’t own one start twitching uncontrollably, panting about how they want it too (seriously, being so close to them yesterday almost caused me to faint).  The word “iPad” makes those who do own one already roll around in the words in ecstasy.

Write about a netbook and you’ll have a few people shrug their shoulders and say, “yeah, I like mine.”  Write about an iPad and you’ll have people shriek: I LOVE IT SO FUCKING MUCH THAT I RENAMED MYSELF IPAD LOVER SMITH. I LOVE IPADS I LOVE IPADS I LOVE (and then the words mysteriously stop because the writer faints away cold to the floor).

Puppies.  Kittens in adorable positions.  But not turtles.  Write about your turtle or post a picture and you’ll get a shrug.  Write about your bird and you’ll probably get people to unsubscribe to your Twitter feed or blog.  Write about your puppy and people literally lose control of their bladders as they leap towards the keyboard to shout out a resound, “me too!” or “he is soooooooooo cute!”

I am trying to think up more things that people just love to love.  And yes, I’m well aware that one of my favourite people in the world can never eat nutella and therefore probably doesn’t have strong feelings about it.  And there are people like my great-aunt who probably doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the iPad.  And there are people like me who just don’t have strong feelings about puppies or kittens.

But I’m going for the average person: certain topics elicit gushing for some reason, and other, similar topics elicit shruggy “me toos.”

Muppets.  Everyone loves the Muppets.  Bring up the Muppets and people start singing “Rainbow Connection” or talking like Fozzie Bear. Where the Wild Things Are (the book; not the movie).  Reading on the beach.

What else would you add to this list?

My parents are moving from my childhood home.  They moved there when I was four and I remember having my fifth birthday in the backyard, with kids climbing all over our new swing set.  The move is not really a surprise–they announced their intent last summer, but it has been a long journey of falling in love with a new town and saying goodbye to an old space.

The new town is a little under an hour away, so still close, but a bit farther out.  It’s really where part of my heart is regardless, so it’s special that they came to love this space too.   But I count my parents amongst my best friends, so there is a bittersweetness too in having your best friends move incrementally farther away, even if they are moving to a place you love.

Packing up the house has been both an exercise in excavation, and a series of hard choices of what to save.  Do I really need my old Fugazi LPs if I don’t have any way to play them?  Can my heart handle parting with my old childhood rocking chair?

Every few years, I remember and try to find this old  short story that had a dictator that kept severed ears in a jar that were described like dried apricots.  I can never remember who wrote it, and while I remember the final line, about some of the ears listening to the ground and the rest listening to the sky, the story appears to be un-Googleable.  As I dug through boxes, this short story percolated to the top, finding me rather than a moment where I am chasing it.

I thought disassembling the house was going to be impossibly hard; that I would be breaking down and weeping over every box.  But it isn’t really like that.  There are times when my voice catches or moments where I feel a bit numb, but there is also an important realization in all of this.  One that makes you realize how important people are, and how easy it is to give up the objects and places as long as you have those people.  That the thing I love is my family, and not necessarily my family in that house.

And slowly, as each object is removed from the house, and it becomes more like an empty box than the space from your memories, you realize how much a house is merely a blank canvas, one that can be gessoed over and reused again and again.  And then you walk outside.  And you close the door.

I don’t think you can ever truly be ready for a goodbye, the heart just doesn’t work like that.  It always wants one more minute.  But it also feels right to be there right now, helping put closure on one adventure and sealing boxes so there is room for the next one that is straining to begin.

Josh read this before I finished and he commented on my quiet perspective.  But I’m sure I will cry when I walk out for the last time.  I’m sure I will cry the first time I dial their phone number and it’s not the one I memorized as a child.  I am much more sentimental than most, and I’ve even been crying over saying goodbye to bad memories.  Because even amongst the bad memories are these little kernels of light that remind you that all that came before shaped you into who you are right now.  And I’m glad I grew up in that house, with my parents and siblings.

Last week, I wrote my take on the Jezebel/Daily Show showdown over at BlogHer.  This morning, the New York Times posted a story about Jezebel titled, “The Blog Jezebel is Not Afraid to Pick a Fight,” though the irony in the cries of sexism in the hiring practices of the Daily Show is reflected in the Jezebel newsroom photos.  The first shows Jessica Coen standing in front of several male employees on computers.  The second one shows the mostly male staff of Jezebel at work (helpfully labeled by Josh):

Where are the women of Jezebel?  Why are we mostly seeing men in the pictures?  Is Jezebel engaging in…gasp…sexist hiring practices at a WOMEN’S WEB SITE?

But the fact is that just as you can’t get the whole story of what is happening at the Daily Show simply by speaking to ex-employees and a few people who haven’t been hired by the show, you can’t know how many women or how many men or how important any individual’s job is to the whole of the product simply by examining the tiny sliver of reality contained in a photograph.  No, I don’t believe that Jezebel engages in sexist hiring practices any more than I believe the Daily Show has it out for women.

But I do think it’s a series of interesting photos considering the accusations of the blog.

Welcome back to your Do-it-Yourself MFA program.

You have your possible agent list, clearly arranged by my ranking system from 1-3.  Now it’s time to start querying.

It’s not really a surprise that agents would like you to query them one at a time, after all, if they’re dedicating the time to read your audition, they don’t want to think of their own time wasted because you’re auditioning for hundreds of others and may go with someone else.  At the same time, you will be 98 years old if you query agents one at a time.  A nice compromise is to have no more than 10 queries out at a time (um…and y’all know that when I say it’s okay to have 10 queries out at once, I mean write 10 separate emails to 10 separate agents.  DO NOT bcc 10 agents on one email.  Believe me, they talk to one another, and this will bite you in the ass.)

So you’re going to start a second spreadsheet, this one titled “Queries” and in it, you will track the following information:

• Name of agent
• Name of agency
• Date query was sent
• Method of query (was it email or post)
• What was sent (just the letter, the letter and proposal, the letter and the first 5 pages of the book, etc)
• Date you heard back
• The agent’s answer

Pay attention to the agent’s answer.  Was it a flat out cookie cutter rejection?  Did they invite you to query again if you made major changes?  Did they say they’d be interested in hearing about a future project?  Note all those things.  You’ll use this spreadsheet in the future.

Once you have your two spreadsheets in order (the first one ranked, and the second one ready to go), you’re ready to write your query letter.  Queries consist of four parts (and are never longer than a page):

• Opening paragraph–drag them in with a great first line.  Let me repeat that–drag them in with a fantastic first line that makes them want to read the rest of the letter.  Give some basic information such as the name of the book or the type of book.  If someone has introduced you to this agent, state that relationship here (do not make up an introduction if there isn’t one.)  If the person represents a book you know is similar to your own, mention it here to establish why you’ve chosen to write this particular agent.
• Second paragraph–explain what the book is about in one paragraph.  Think of the sort of paragraph that would appear on the back of the book to entice the reader to pick it up.
• Third paragraph–a brief biography containing your writing credentials such as where you’ve published, degrees you’ve earned, or your blog info.  Make sure you mention what you’re currently working on to show the agent that you’re not a one-book pony.  I wouldn’t go on and on about all of your future projects, but I’d add one sentence in about how you’re currently at work on…(and then fill in the blank).
• Fourth paragraph–closing and thank you.

Agents expect this format because it allows them to read quickly.  Their eye can go to the paragraph that matters to them most and find the info they’re looking for quickly.

Make sure you address the agent directly (do not write “to whom it may concern” or Dear Agent).  And be super honest.  If your first book is self-published, do not say that you have a published book, instead, say it’s self-published and talk about the sales record.  These small details matter because this is a relationship built on trust.  The agent would rather have you honestly admit that you found them on agentquery, you have a small blog, and no other publications but you can write the hell out of a query letter and have a fantastic book idea in your back pocket to boot.

Do not waste an agent’s time or your time.  Keeping things brief is a way to be respectful.  Don’t make huge claims like you’ve written the next Twilight.  Even if you believe that.  All you’ll get is an eyebrow raise because how could you possibly know?  On the other hand, you should mention that it would appeal to the same type of audience that reads Twilight.  It helps the agent picture the book and understand how they can convince a publisher that it’s marketable. Making sure you’re querying an agent who represents your type of book is also important–think about how annoying it would be if your boss kept slapping work down on your desk that was entirely outside your realm.  Would you be grateful for the new opportunity or would you be annoyed that your boss isn’t paying attention to your job description?

Every once in a while, an agent will ask for an exclusive look.  An exclusive look is when you agree not to query any other agent for a set period of time and allow only the agent asking for the exclusive to decide whether or not to represent you.

You will need to decide whether or not you want to give them exclusive access to your project.  If it’s a great agency, it’s worth your while to give them two weeks (make sure you set the duration of time–don’t leave it open-ended.)  If it’s not a great agency, you may want to think twice.  You would never give an exclusive look on a query, but I have given an exclusive look on a manuscript.

Oh, and spend a lot of time proof-reading and editing your queries.  They’re the first impression you’re making on the agent.

And only send what the agent asks to receive (and again, pay close to attention to how they say they want it sent.  If they say “no attachments,” they mean “no attachments.”)  Sending more is not going to be endearing or get it read.  If they don’t specify what they want, just send the query letter.

Lastly, how to pick your ten: you cannot query two agents at the same agency at the same time.  Therefore, make sure you only have one agent on your list from each agency at a given time.  If one agent rejects it, you can write a different agent at the same agency (the only time this isn’t true is if they have one central online submission form–in that case, once the agency rejects you, that agency is closed for this current project.)

Go with your gut in determining your ten and get a thick skin.  You may endure a bunch of rejections before you sign with one.  Don’t get emotional–just lick your wounds for a few minutes and send out the next one.  Think of it as simply a task you must do rather than a personal rejection.

A side note–sometimes junior agents or those building their lists are a great choice because they’re “hungry”–they’re not mired in focusing on their established clients and they’re more likely to take a risk with a new author.  If they’re part of a larger agency, they have the benefit of the agency name plus the help of more established agents for advice.  So don’t shy away from new agents.

Okay, so you send out your queries and now the responses start coming.  It can go one of several ways:

• Standard rejection (enter it on the spreadsheet and move on.)
• Personalized rejection with some advice (if it resonates with you, take it to heart.  Otherwise, enter it on the spreadsheet and move on.)
• A partial request (yay!  Send them what they ask for and enter it on the spreadsheet.  Do not get too excited–a request is good, but it isn’t an acceptance.)
• A full request (yay! Send them what they ask for and enter it on the spreadsheet.  Do not get too excited–a request is good, but it isn’t an acceptance.)
• An offer of representation.

Obviously, what you want is that last point–an offer of representation.

My advice, this is the point where you leave the confines of email and you have a conversation over the phone.  Before you sign is the time to decide if you’ll work well together.  I told my agent things about me such as how I work.  I asked her questions about the way she works.  We decided it would be a good relationship based on what we could know in that moment.  And that’s what this is–a leap-of-faith relationship based on a mutual love of writing and books (including your own).

Your agent will probably ask you to sign an agency agreement.  Read it and have a second person (perhaps someone with a law background) read it too.  And then you’re on to the next step–selling the book or proposal.

Okay class, any questions on what was discussed here? Please leave them in the comment section below and I will answer them in the comment section below. Keep in mind that I have a lot of topics to cover so your question may be answered in a future installment (see below). So keep your questions about agents.

Heads Up and Looking Back: topics that will be covered in future installments or that were covered in past installments

1. Before You Even Get Started

2. Are You Ready to Be an Author?

3. How to Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal

4. Why You Need an Agent

5. How to Get an Agent

6. THIS POST

7. What Happens Next–Waiting for a Book Sale

8. No Agent? Other Paths to Publication

9. What to Expect After You Sign a Book Deal

10. Be Your Own Publicist

11. A Mishmash of Leftover Questions and Answers