The Insider Scoop – Interview with Caitie Flum, ex-agent intern and proofreader (Part 3)

Welcome to The Insider Scoop, where I’ll be bringing you interviews, useful tips and tricks, and all sorts of insightful information from those deep within the children's book industry.

Today, we continue our interview with Caitie Flum, an ex- agent intern with Hachette Book Group and Writers House, and a proofreader in the medical industry.

This interview has been posted in three parts as follows:

• Part 1 – a day in the life of an agent intern (here)
• Part 2 –evaluating queries (the inner workings of a literary agency) (here)
• Part 3 – the specific things that agent interns report on when assessing queries/manuscript submissions for a literary agent, plus more about queries (today)

So, onto the final part this interview…

Question 5 - What information concerning a query/manuscript submission do you put in a report to the literary agent? [Out of curiosity, do you have a standard checklist that you compare against - if so, is this something you can share with us?]

I don't have a checklist, but I will give you an overview of the things I included.

Query:

Usually if anything beyond decision it would be underlining things I loved or a quick sentence about the book's greatness.

Rach: First impressions so do count!

Partial:

• Reaction after first 5-10 pages.
• If there was any character development in first 50. So many partials have just action, action, action and nothing to develop who the character is or their motivations. Character is so important (especially in YA and MG) and if the writer hasn’t made it a priority in the partial, it is an issue.
• Impression of main and side characters.
• Any major issues I saw.
• After 50 did I need more?
  

Rach: That’s interesting. “Need more” vs “want more” or “wouldn’t mind looking at more.” Seems a much higher test that needs to be passed!

Full:

This was always the longest because this is what the agent would see, or, more likely the foundation for my editorial letter to the author (which made me very nervous).

• I would include everything from the partial.
• Lots of time on major issues with suggestions on how to fix overall quality of writing (it is easier to fix an okay story than an okay writer).
• Analysis of market and how well it is written with market in mind.
• What I think the hook is.

Question 6 - What causes you to automatically reject a query/manuscript submission? Is there anything in particular we should avoid saying/doing when submitting a query?

• Too much voice in the query, like I said before it is usually covering up for bad writing or story.
• Sending us a query for a genre/type of book we don't do at all.
• Comparing self to blockbusters (Twilight, Harry Potter). Comparing is fine, but find something that wasn't a smash, it shows you actually know your competition.
• Trashing a book we represented. It didn't happen to me, but Jodi Reamer was upstairs and she would get queries trashing Twilight all the time. Guys...she represented it. She helped it make a ton of money. Even if you don't like it, don't bash things she worked on then claim yours is better thinking she will want yours!
• Too many errors. I forgave a typo or two, but grammatical errors or too many typos showed laziness.
• People talking about more than one project in one query. Just don't.

Rach: Great advice Caitie, thanks!

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Well, that wraps up this interview with Caitie Flum. Thank you so much for sharing your insights into this world with us.

A final word from Caitie… I have a book blog where I also discuss the publishing world at caitieflum.wordpress.com. If you look on that blog, you will see I am currently accepting queries/partials from writers who want a critique. I will give you what I gave the assistant.

And stay tuned next Monday, October 25, where I'll be interviewing the winner of our First Crusader Challenge (announcement of results to follow shortly).

Top Tip - Keeping Track of Queries

I recently wrote a Top Tip post about Creating a Query Database. As I discussed in that post, there are so many things to take into account when you're going through the query process, and I've found it helps to be organized right from the start.

Rachel Kent from Books & Such Literary Agency wrote a great blog post on keeping track of queries, which gives a literary agency perspective. Check out the post here.

Rachel makes a couple of particularly good points:

• If you’re consistently receiving the same feedback on a query, proposal or manuscript, and you’ve kept track of it, you’ll easily notice the pattern of rejections and make a change.
• Keeping track of query submission dates is becoming increasingly important because more and more houses and agencies are not sending rejection replies.
• If you don’t hear from the agency or publishing house within 8 weeks or so, you should write to check on your proposal. Only do this for requested proposals and manuscripts and not for unsolicited query letters.

Here's one piece of advice that I hadn't even thought of, and you may not have either:

Never count on being able to find an email again. Emails are known to get lost–computers crash, things are accidentally deleted or can be forgotten. Keep files with important emails and information.
I'll also add this:

The general view seems to be that you should only query an agent once per manuscript where a partial or a full manuscript was requested, unless a period of time (eg 6 months) has gone by and the manuscript has been significantly revised. I'll be writing a post on this issue at a later date. The thing is, you don't want to embarrass yourself by querying an agent if you've already queried and then re-queried. Also, some agencies have a "no from one agent is a no from the agency as a whole" policy. So it's really important to keep track of when the query was sent, which agent you queried, whether you can query other agents at a particular agency, and whether you've re-queried a particular agent (and the date of that re-query).

Also consider keeping a record of the particular draft of your manuscript that you submitted, so you can track this at a later date.

Definitely something to think about...

Do you have a query database? How do you keep track of your queries? Do you rely on your email history for your data?

The Insider Scoop – Interview with Caitie Flum, ex-agent intern and proofreader (Part 2)

Welcome to The Insider Scoop, where I’ll be bringing you interviews, useful tips and tricks, and all sorts of insightful information from those deep within the children's book industry.

Today, we continue our interview with Caitie Flum, an ex- agent intern with Hachette Book Group and Writers House, and a proofreader in the medical industry.

I’ll be posting this interview in three parts as follows:

• Part 1 – a day in the life of an agent intern, how to stand out from the slush pile, and thequery assessment process (here)
• Part 2 –evaluating queries (the inner workings of a literary agency) (today)
• Part 3 – the specific things that agent interns report on when assessing queries/manuscript submissions for a literary agent (Monday 18 October 2010)

Onwards with Part 2 of this interview…

Question 3 - Is there anything in particular in an unsolicited query/manuscript submission that makes you think, "This might be the one?"

A spectacular hook. The couple of times we requested a full right away we were hooked to the idea in the first sentence. Also, queries that show, not just tell, why the book is so special make a huge impact. And, of course, if it was really well-written.

Rach: Hmm, a first sentence hook. Am onto it!

Follow-on question: What can we do as writers to capture your attention and stand out from the slush pile?

First, don't be gimmicky. That will get our attention but we will automatically think that the gimmick is a disguise for a bad story or bad writing. If you want to stand out find out what the agent likes and make sure you are querying a project they would be interested in. And don't just say you are "like their client x", just do it in an easy way like saying your book will appeal to the same market as client x.

And just write really really well. Be concise but descriptive. Tell us what happens, but make sure it isn't too plot centric (ex. make sure your strong characters manage to stand out). I know it is hard, but that is what stands out more than anything else.

Some of it is luck. Both the assistant and I loved Buffy, Lost, the Dark Tower, etc, so if something sounded like any of these things or if it was inspired by them, we would get excited about it. That is complete luck, but it isn't a bad idea to mention something in pop culture, as long as it fits.

Stating your chosen market helps you stand out also. Showing that you know who your market is shows that you have written for that market.

Rach: What fantastic advice. I love the suggestion that we make sure our character stands out in our query as much, if not more, than the plot itself.

Question 4 - Do interns/assistants/agents automatically read all materials submitted with a query letter (eg, the first 10 pages). Or does the query letter have to generate enough interest to make you turn to those pages in the first place?

That completely depends on the person. If the query was complete garbage, I would never bother reading pages. However, if I had any interest in it at all for my agent, I would read the sample pages. Having 5-10 pages will not hurt, it can turn a N into a M and a M into a Y.

Rach: I’ve been wanting to find out the answer to this question for ages now. I guess it shows just how important the query actually is, even if the agent does accept a partial submission at the same time…

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Thanks so much for your time today, Caitie. Stay tuned for Part 3 of this interview…

A final word from Caitie…

I have a book blog where I also discuss the publishing world at caitieflum.wordpress.com. If you look on that blog, you will see I am currently accepting queries/partials from writers who want a critique. I will give you what I gave the assistant.

Query Letters - Follow the Submission Guidelines

There is a huge amount of information out there on the internet about how to query, what to include in your query letter, how to find the right agent for you, and so on. I'll try to discuss some of this on later posts.

One thing I did just want to mention is the importance of following the submission guidelines for the particular agent or editor you are querying or submitting to. While most of the guidelines are fairly standard, some agents/editors do ask for different things. An example that springs to mind is the agent who wants you to include a paragraph on how you see your book being marketed. Other agents specifically ask you to advise in your letter whether or not you have submitted your query to publishers.

What you don't want to do is to leave out something in your query letter that will cause the agent/editor to press "delete" or move straight on to the next query letter. It's hard enough to stand out in the hundreds of queries an agent/editor receives each week without shooting yourself in the foot in this way.

Perhaps as importantly, read that agent/editor's personal blog. More and more industry professionals are blogging these days, and they often include information in their blogs about their own personal querying preferences. They often also tell you what they DON'T want to see in a query. This insider information will be invaluable when it comes to distinguishing your own query from the 150 others submitted on that day.

Best of luck with your queries.