Swish, Swish, Waddle Waddle...

Publishing is like a duck. No kidding - hear me out.
Have you ever watched a duck walk? It like, meanders... Swish, swish, waddle waddle... all day long. But if you freak the duck out, it bolts. (Not that I go around trying to freak out ducks... well, maybe metaphorically speaking...)

Anyway, ducks = publishing. That's the code word for today.

I'm sending around a project for a client that I think will garner a ton of interest -- so I tried to do it "auction" style without really calling it an auction. I just asked to hear back in three weeks and sent all the submissions out at once. It's pretty risky, but I think this project can handle it - it has mass appeal. Hopefully.

So we got our first pass yesterday with a "great writing, not for us" comment (yes, they give those to agents as well as authors...) and that kind of stinks. I hate starting projects on a down note. So I called the author and we basically beat the rejection into the ground (stomp, stomp) and then talked about how fat our thighs were, respectively.

Productive phone call, I'd say -- as it made me stay away from the ice cream in the freezer for the rest of the evening.

We're both going to be at RWA Nationals this year - so we're pretty excited. I've been speaking with a bunch of my clients who plan on being in attendance, and we're all trying to figure out what/when/where/why, etc.

Otherwise?
I'm bores senseless this evening and will have to go through my backlog of fulls and partials that I have to read (whimper). I really need to catch up on those fulls, it is just so daunting a task, though. I mean, they are HUGE and I know I like to finish books --- so, I want to give it sometime where I can really devote it to the manuscript. Likely? No. Ideal? Yes.

JUST NEED TO DO IT!

:) After I watch some tv or something.

I'm horrible. I know it.

Sad, Down, Pout...Pout...

Last week I got rejected twice. On behalf of my clients.
It really, really sucked.

I don't think authors realize how emotionally attached their agent gets to the projects they represent. The first time I received a rejection, I burst into tears.

Right there in the office, I started crying.

The head of our agency had warned me that something like that could happen - that I'd feel like I was being rejected, and I had looked at her like she was crazy. Why would I care? It's not MY writing that was getting rejected. ...but, I couldn't stop crying.

Not only would I have to tell the author that they were rejected (and I couldn't do it by mail, like an editor could), but I'd have to explain why.... And when you receive a rejection from an editor, they don't pull any punches. They don't make it "nicer" or try to soften the blow. They tell you. This didn't work for me. I didn't find this interesting. This wasn't good enough.

And you then have to soften the blow for the author.

I hate it. I hate being rejected. I hate the fact that with every rejection I get, my confidence in the project wanes --- and before I let it pull me under, I have to go back and reread the project to pull myself out of the funk. Realize exactly what I loved about the project to begin with, you know? Remind myself that it's one editor, one house. Not the world. Someone else will want it.

And you start all over again.

I think the worst part is when I get a letter from the author, after I tell him/her about the rejection, they are so sad, too. And I just want to cry with them! Instead, I have to tell them that it's all part of the business, that the next editor will love it, or the one after that --- you just have to keep trying. It's not an exact science. ... The same thing my boss tells me when I'm upset about the rejection.

It just sucks.
Anyway. I wish I didn't have to tell my clients about the rejection. I wish I could just keep mum until I got the sale and then go and tell them, " You received fourteen rejections, but we just got an offer..."

Wouldn't that be nicer? Easier, definitely, and easier never means better. It just means easier.

So, I hope to toughen my skin but not so much that I don't feel the ping of the rejection either. Because I never want to get that far away from my clients. I want to feel the pain of it with them. Because, once you lose that -- well, once you lose that you lose that closeness. It's no longer about the books, it's about the money. (sometimes it has to be about the money, don't get me wrong...)

Anyway.
Two rejections/One Week = Sucks.

The Year of Secret Assignments

In about five seconds I'm going to google Jaclyn Moriarty (the author of THE YEAR OF SECRET ASSIGNMENTS) and tell her that she's the author of my favorite new YA book.

This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Seriously. It was absolutely fabulous.

-------

Yesterday I had lunch with an editor over at Harlequin - and they are really, really expanding.
New lines include Spice (romance/erotica) and an african american line that hasn't been named yet. Very exciting stuff and I look forward to seeing where they go. They are still looking for authors for the above lines, NEXT, and BOMBSHELL.

-------

The Next Big Thing

This afternoon I went to the local B&N and picked up $100 worth of books.
One of which was Johanna Edwards's THE NEXT BIG THING (March 05). To be perfectly honest, I was a bit skeptical... I've seen the Reality TV show thing done before (American Idle by Alesia Holiday is a perfect example) and I've seen the fat to fab theme before (Jemima J, a book that I read and almost enjoyed... if it hadn't been for the fact that the protag was one bathroom away from sticking her finger down her throat in order to get to fab and her weight loss was all-so-magical!) --- I decided to pick up this book because I saw it listed on the Chick Lit Loop - which I believe the author is a member of. I've checked out Johanna's website and so I figured, why not -- let's stomp down that inner-cynic and try it out. How bad could it be?

I brought the book home at two and finished at eight thirty (reading through half of my dinner), as much as it might insult the author to find how quickly I sped through her labor of love, I admit that I found it a quick, light - but enormously fun debut novel!

As a "big" girl with attitude (I go by "chubby," thank you) - I thought Johanna's portrayal of the big girl in denial to be spot on. Having made the same mad dash into Lane Bryant hoping I wouldn't be spotted by any hot guys - or worse, ex-boyfriends. I, too, bitch about Victoria's Secrets (The secret is that they do NOT cater to larger women... in fact, I was told to "try Macy's...especially for a bossom of your size." to which I could only whimper at the fact that I once fit into Vicki's and was now relegated to pinching underwire or the department store 5, hook and eye closure, power bra) I thought the big-girl-thing was so realistic that I found myself cringing along with Kat (the protag/heroine) and, by the end, wondering if I should hit the gym myself...

I think any girl who has ever felt pressured to lose a few pounds "because you have such a pretty face that if you had a better body - you'd be just gorgeous!..." should pick up this book. And buy about forty copies for her friends and families.

A little YA Reading

What I'm Reading:

Summer Boys by Hailey Abbott
Follows three girls as they battle through their summer loves. One deals with a heart wrenching break up, one sleeps with her sister's boyfriend (gah), and the third falls in love with her best friend. I love the subtle interplay of emotion and morals through these books - which somehow makes you come away feeling as if you've learned something without having been taught. Fabulous. I'm a new fan of Haily Abbott and will go and find her Summer Boys 2.

Tall Cool One (an A-List novel) by Zoey Dean
A-list is gossip girls on the west coast. At least that's whan an editor at ALLOY (the book packagers that conceived A-List) said. Which is fine with me. I love Gossip Girls and I love the A-List novels... Got some rich, whiney princess that doesn't know what to do with herself? Yeah - good, I want to read about her!

The Au Pairs by Melissa de la Cruz
A sneak peak about the wild, fun times of the eastern set off on their summer vacations. This is The Nannies for the younger crowd... and you'll love it.

The Dashwood Sisters
A modernization (and minorization...haha) of Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility. Following the same basic plot line, the author does take some liberties to fit the storyline with 20th century constructs... but, all in all, I still favor the original. Plus, the Hollywood version had Hugh Grant. Who can you offer up to me that would be as good as Hugh Grant? Fabulous man... ::slobber::

A lot of editors seem to be catching on to the "high concept craze" - high concept basically means "good hook." Basically the editors are trying to catch the 18-35 crowd from the bottom up. They are all going GQ (a vague reference to how GQ caught the 18-35 crowd and totally killed the other men's magazines by making their product sexier and more sleek -- by aiming for the 18-23 year olds instead of the 30-35 year olds). Aim low, dear man! Aim low.

Size Doesn't Matter

I can't tell you the number of times that I've had a discussion with an author about a newer or small press and had the author say, "Yes, but shouldn't we be looking at a larger house?"

While there are undoubtable benefits to working with the big six -- an author (or agent, for that matter) should never overlook a new line or a smaller press.

In recent research for one of my clients - I came across Lou Ander's (editor of Argosy) who has just opened up a science fiction/fantasy line, PYR for Prometheus Books. Prometheus, from what I know, has a pretty good history doing NF books -- but with a look at the titles they've already released (and the heavy hitters that wrote them), Why wouldn't you want to consider this house?

Showing a little leg

While scheduling a lunch meeting, an editor mentioned a new book that was being released by Simon Pulse called The Rainbow Party. Based on an actual "game" - the rainbow party gets its namesake from a make out game that teens are playing at parties now. Basically, each girl wears a different color lipstick...

Anyway, this is a link to the basic definition on the Urban Dictionary: "To recieve fellatio from many different girls with different colored lipsticks so your "unit" appears to be rainbow colored"

YA certainly has come a long way from when I was a kid. I remember when Judy Blume was taken off the shelf for being lewd (masturbation? Eh! That's kiddy stuff!).

I hate to admit this -- (but what the hell, this is an anonymous blog, right?) -- but, I'm dying to read that book! It looks like it's going to be an interesting read.