Agent Search Update

Unfortunately, I'm not updating to announce that I've signed with an agent. The agent search goes on. For those of you interested or just following the stats out of morbid curiousity, here's the latest:
127 Agents queried (About half were queried the first week of January (email and on-line forms) and half the last weekof January (snail mail))
81 Responses so far
11 Requests for a Full
8 Requests for a Partial
7 Fulls Rejected
4 Partials Rejected
Four of the rejections on the full came with comments and two of the patial rejections with comments.
The thing I find most interesting is that the comments are all over the place. One agent found a key element to be 'too convenient'. Of course, that was a part that I'd labored over. One agent, who read a partial, didn't like much of anything. A couple of agents wrote a LOT of comments and one of them made notes on the manuscript and returned it at her own expense. I'm so impressed with someone that dedicated to his or her profession.

The entire experience shows me just how subjective it all is. One agent thought the pace was slow and the text overwritten and uneven. Another agent thought the writing was whip-smart, the over all pacing good, characters well thought out and the narrative clipped along at a good pace.

So, when you get those rejection letters that say no and then tell you that this is a subjective business and another agent might love it -- well, they're right.

Sucking up to Booksellers
Yes, I'm all for it! In fact, I'm doing a bookseller "basket" for the Romantic Times Convention. The RT people suggested stuff like tote bags, chocolate and (of course) autographed books. They also suggested something in line with the main character(s) of your book(s). My main characters so far are spies and PIs. So, I'm thinking of using a aluminium briefcase for my "basket", and of course I'll include several autographed copies of both books that are out now. Any other suggestions? I'm thinking of totes or coffee cups with my book covers on them but really, does anyone want to walk around with a tote that has a red veiny skull and the words BREEDING EVIL on it?
My friend Bobbie Cole/Lyn Cash suggested a maternity tee-shirt with that book cover. She's a sick woman, therefore a very close friend of mine.
It's really a shame that my next book isn't out yet because then I could include a camera. That book is a cozy mystery and the main character is a photographer. If you want to read an excerpt, go to my web site. www.lizwolfe.net.
Oh, and I'm waiting for those suggestions!

Just Who The Hell Do You Think You ARE?

I'm speaking of esnips.com. Perhaps you've heard of them? A lot of writers are talking about them. I sincerely hope you have not taken advantage of their offerings.
esnips.com is a site where you can download illegal copies of books, stories, movies, music, photography--all sorts of things. What they are saying, in effect, is that they do not value any of these things. They certainly do not value the effort put into creating them. After all, they're FREE.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard the excuses which basically boil down to: "It's not cheating the author/artist/publisher/whatever out of anything because I wasn't going to buy the book/movie/song/photo anyway, but since it's there, I might as well have it cause everyone else can."
Well, let me tell you, you are wrong. If you download from any of these sites, even if you weren't going to spend money to have the item anyway, even if you never read or listen to the download, you are pirating.
I don't expect to become rich and famous from writing. But I spend a lot of time, I put a lot of effort into my writing. If you don't want to buy it, fine. But don't download it because it's FREE.
Because it isn't. Ever.
It saddens me that we value our art and our artists so very little. By offering their work to everyone for nothing we are telling them that it is worth nothing. Is that really the message we want to send to our artists? To our society?
If it is, then I might as well keep my writing to myself. I can always print off copies for my friends who enjoy my work. The friends who actually go out and PAY for the book once it's published.
I hope that all the publishers, big and small, will unite to take this site down. We need to send a message to anyone who thinks this is a good idea.

Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Psychic, etc.

My husband watches a lot of the Sci-Fi channel. Therefore, I'm exposed to some shows I'd probably not watch left to my own devices. And I really like some of them. OK, most of them.
I'm noticing that there's more and more of the weird out there. And not just on the Sci-Fi channel. Heroes and Medium are both on NBC and are both hits. Dresden is doing quite well, I believe on the Sci-Fi channel. I've seen trailer so for several new shows that deal with psychic ability and paranormal activity.
And this is prevalent in books, too. I understand that paranormal romance is the fastest growing segment of romance books right now. And Urban Fantasy seems to be on the rise. Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files) will be the captain of a panel at Romantic Times this April. I've had the pleasure of meeting Jim at a couple of conferences and I'm looking forward to hearing what he thinks about why people want to read about witches, werewolves, vampires, gargoyles, demons, ghosts and anything else that goes bump in the night. The reason this is so fascinating to me is that I've been making notes on a book that I want to work on after I finish the one I'm half done with.
And it wants to be an Urban Fantasy.
At first, I was more than a little surprised. Then I realized that I really like to write things that are just a little over the edge (and if it's the bleeding edge, all the better). So, maybe that's why it appeals to me.
So, what do you all think about the Urban Fantasy and Paranormal genres?

RT Booklovers Convention
This will be my first year. I'm haven't been to a conference for a year and a half, so I'm really, really looking forward to this one. To make it even better, I have three critique partners going. We've been online buddies and cps for several years and they have all met each other previously.
The conferences I've been to before were geared to writers rather than to fans. I understand there are a lot of fans at RT. Maybe one of them will have read one of my books.

Obsession
That's the current phase I'm in with my agent query process. I've queried a total of 126 agents for my latest thriller. 66 by email or on-line forms, 60 by snail mail. So, far, I've received 54 responses. Nine for fulls and Nine for partials. Four of the requested partials have been rejected. No really specific reasons except for one agent who suggested that I work on dialog and pacing. I found that interesting because I usually get the most compliments for my dialog and pacing. The others were the basic "not right for me" responses, although one agent mentioned that I "wrote well".
I'm actually pleased with this response. Nine requests out of 54 responses is over 16%. That is a good success rate, I think. Or, perhaps, what I choose to believe.
And if this recent endeavor isn't enough to obsess about, I still have three agents reading the full of another thriller. Two have ahd the full for almost a month. One has had it for almost 3 months. I suppose I could email her and ask about it. But what will I hear? Probably not "Oh, I meant to call you and offer representation, but I forgot. Thanks so much for reminding me." No, I'll either hear that she hasn't gotten to it yet or it's "not quite right for her". I can wait.
And I can obsess.

What's going on. . .
You might think I've been writing like a maniac since I'm done with the query process. But no. First of all, the query process isn't really finished. Now, I get all the responses. Mostly these are form rejections. Yes, it's true. When you query agents, mostly you get rejected. The more you query and the more rejections you receive, the easier it gets. But, so far, I've had really good response on this query (again, thanks to Miss Snark and the HH COM). And that's where the real nail biting begins. It's great that so many agents have liked my hook, but what about the writing? Of course, some agents got a few pages or chapters, so when one of those agents wants to see more, I get a little excited.
So, not so much writing going on just yet. Mostly, I check my email and my snail mail and print out the partials and fulls that are requested. I read blogs. I even clean the house (just a little, nothing to get too excited about).
Oh, and I had some good news. My daughter is in a management training program and just got a real manager position. She's so excited. Of course, I'm just smiling and nodding. No way am I going to burst her bubble.

Queries
Done. Finally. Just sent out a ton of queries to agents. 66 email queries and 62 paper queries. Everything from a basic query letter to three chapters and a synopsis. The email queries went out first and so far the results have been encouraging. I received 8 requests for partials and 6 for full manuscripts for a totalof 14. Nice! Also received 12 form rejections and 3 of the partials have received rejections.
The paper queries have just gone out so I won't hear anything from them for a while.
Again, I have to thank Miss Snark and the Happy Hooker Crap-O-Meter. I believe the results are directly related ot how strong my hook is for this book. And the HH COM really helped me craft it.
Now, I just hope the actual book doesn't suck.

Yikes! Ten days since my last blog.
But I have a really good excuse--I mean reason. I sent out a bunch of queries by email about a week and a half ago (see the incredible coincidence?). Now at the time I sent the queries, I still had to do a final polish on the book and write a few pages to tie everything up at the end. I figured that wasn't really a problem, I could finish that in a few days of concentrated effort (I work well under pressure).
Well. I started receiving requests for fulls and partials right off the bat (thanks, I'm certain, to Miss Snark's Happy Hooker Crap-O-Meter). Now I sent the queries on Saturday so I wasn't really expecting to hear anything until Monday. By Sunday, I had a fistful of requests.
Oops.
I still had to do the polish. And write those last few scenes.
The first part of the polish went reasonably well. I already had the partial polished and gleaming when I did the queries so all of those got out right away. Then I discovered a problem. I had a loose thread. So, I've spent the past ten days finding every instance of that thread and eliminating it, which often included rewriting some rather large portions or adding scenes. Now that I'm finished with the loose thread, I need to write the last few pages then one final read through.
I swear, I'm never doing this again.
Oh, but I have some excellent news!
One of my "dream" agents requested the manuscript I was peddling in November. Since she was on the list for this one too, I was able to send the full of the first manuscript with a partial of the second. I've queried her on several projects and she's always had something positive to say. Also, I met her a few years ago at a conference and I think I could work with her very well. OK. Off to do that final read through.

Drive-by Posting

I'm swamped. But there are a couple of things I wanted to mention. I promise a longer post in a couple of days.

First of all, fellow author Kent Braithwaite just told me his Jesse Ascencio series has been optioned for development into a TV Series. The pilot will be based on his novel THE WONDERLAND MURDERS.
I love to hear news like this because I believe if it could happen to him, it could happen to me. At least that's what I tell myself in order to keep the green-eyed monster at bay.
Congratulations, Kent!

The other announcement is about ITW's (International Thriller Writers) 150 Thrillers contest. Some lucky winner will receive 150 signed thrillers by some of the best thriller writers in the business. Unfortunately, my books aren't included because I (as usual) was not paying sufficient attention at the correct time. Still, it's a great contest. And all you have to do is sign up for the ITW Newsletter. The website is www.150thrillers.com and as soon as I have time, I'll put a link in the sidebar. So, go, enter. Read thrillers.

I celebrated a belated holiday with my daughter today. She gave me a book (always an excellent choice) that will come in handy as research for my next novel. But, even better than the gift, was her inscription.

Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Study hard, be evil.

Love,
Lani

It's always surprising to find that your daughter knows you so very, very well. And, perhaps, just a bit disturbing.

Happy Hooker Crap-O-Meter
Yes, I'm one of the many who is fascinated with the HHCoM. Not only by Miss Snark's comments but also by the comments of the snarklings. This is an educational process that most writers would pay good money for.
How many writers haven't toiled over that all-important query letter only to have no freaking idea if they'd gotten the hook right? Even if the agent accepts sample pages, that hook is still important. And for agents that don't want sample pages or synopsis, it is crucial. You've got a manuscript of about 80,000 words and you have less than a page to get an agent interested enough to want to read a few pages. That's pressure. That makes actually writing the manuscript seem easy.
So, did I subject myself to Miss Snark and the Snarklings? Of course! I sent my entry off with eager glee. Where else could I get so many informed opinions as to whether I'm doing it right? And for free!
So, Miss Snark didn't hate mine. She didn't say it sucked. There were parts of it she didn't think worked and parts that she liked. Her comment didn't say whether she will request pages. I had several comments that were pretty much all positive.
That was good. A writer works in a vacuum most of the time, so to haul out your work and show it to others is always a little scary. I mean, what if you're the only one who doesn't htink your baby is ugly? But when you get the compliments, the "I'd like to read more of this", it's great. It makes me want to neglect the housework even longer and write more.
But first I need to work on the hook. I need to get it just right because it's going in the mail to agents in January.

The Thrill of Beginning
The best thing about struggling through the end of a book is looking forward to the next project. I don't know about other authors, but I always get at least one idea of what I want to do next during the writing of a current project. If the writing is not going well, I gets LOTS of ideas and have to resist the urge to toss what I'm struggling with and switch to one of my bright, new idea.
My current ending has gotten delayed a few days due to real life, but I should be finished by the middle of next week. Then I'll save the manuscript, back it up to several different places and forget about it.
Then the fun begins. I'll start researching my next project. I already have a rough idea of the premise. So I'll spend a couple of weeks, maybe a month, researching all kinds of things.
Than it's back to the current project. Enough time will have gone by that I'll look at it with a fresh eye. I'll be thrilled when I find a particularly good passage and horrified at some of the crap I wrote.
It's all part of the process.

The bitter end.
I'm there. Well, almost. I have just a few more scenes left to write on my current manuscript. And I've reached that point where I'm pretty sure the entire thing is a piece of crap. I've evidently used up any small amount of talent I might have ever possessed.
I know how the book ends. I know who lives and who dies and who's happy or sad about that. I'm not thrilled with my scenes. They seem rushed. They seem stiff. I wrote a three page scene that is almost all dialog.
And I don't know how to wrap everything up. Character wise, I mean. Because I can't just say what happened, I need to give some indication of their futures. The characters can't just look at each other and say "Well, there you go. We're done."
Endings have always been difficult for me. No idea why.
The manuscript that is littering some agents' desks right now didn't have a decent ending until the final-final-final edit. Then it just came to me. And it also left it open to a sequel. Which is good, but also bad because it would be a bitch of a book to write.
The good thing is that no matter how much I hate every thing I'm writing right now, I can change it all when I revise. And revise, I will. Probably more than once. But first I get to write the last few scenes, and put it away for a few weeks.
That putting it away part? That's what I'm looking forward to right now.

Welcome to my blog. Hopefully, I'll be posting every few days.