Agent Q&A - Michael Carr, Veritas Literary

mbowman said:

I've been having a lot of trouble getting agents to bother to look at my manuscript, because I'm a first time author, no credentials (besides a BA in Creative Writing) and I'm writing something that blurs a few genres and isn't the norm for genre fiction.

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I second Michael's advice. It's a myth (put about by vanity presses and disgruntled writers) that agents and publishers aren't interested in first-time authors. I have one short story credit, in such an obscure e-anthology that I didn't even bother mentioning it in my query. Hasn't stopped me getting requests for the full ms of my alternate history fantasy espionage thriller (since we're talking genre-blurring...)

If you aren't getting requests for partials, it means one of two things:

1. You haven't tried enough agents yet.
2. Your query isn't quite there yet.

Have you tried posting your query in SYW (Share Your Work) here on AW?

While my fiction is out looking for an agent, I have a work in progress that blurs the line between memoir (mine) and non-fiction (biography of someone else.) It's in my voice but brings in this other person to the point that if I took him out, there would be no book.

Would this be queried as a memoir or non-fiction?

KingM said:

The memoir market is tough at the moment unless you have a platform. I see solid writing with heartbreaking or fascinating stories several times a week in the memoir category, but almost none of them will get a request, simply due to market issues.

I won't say that biography is an easy sell, but you'll have a better shot by calling it a biography and then cleverly working in the memoir angle (without using this word) in your query.

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Thanks, Michael. The person I'm working with has a huge platform but not in this country. It would be as if Bob Dylan were to introduce someone from a middle European country to America, with the music and how he got to where he was. There's a platform travel-wise, plus one up in the Great Lakes region and biography in his country with after-concert sales.

I'm hoping that with it being a hybrid, I can submit a proposal earlier rather than wait for the whole book to be completed.

Mr. Carr, thanks as always for answering all our questions.
While waiting to get a response from agents on a query, I've been working away at a novel that is in a different genre from my previous work. This new manuscript is almost ready for submission (beta-read, edited to within an inch of its life, etc.) and I was wondering--after getting a rejection for the first manuscript--what is an acceptable amount of time to wait before querying the same agent on the new project? In the case of agents who are the no response = not interested type, how much time should I wait before querying?
My fear is that they'll think I pulled things out of the trunk and dusted them off while, in actuality, I'm just the type of person who works on more than one project at a time.
Thanks again for your time.

Mr. Carr, thanks for taking the time to help the writers here! I'm wondering if you could talk about the market for fantasy. I've written a contemporary fantasy and have had some luck with agents from my query, but not nearly enough for my comfort. I have four fulls out and one partial, all with quality agencies, but the rejections far outweigh the requests for partials. One big publisher asked for the full after I pitched at a conference and followed up with the first chapter. They've had it since September.

Hi Michael,

I'd like to ask you a question regarding something that has cropped up a few times on another board here. I understand that your answer won't necessarily be applicable to all agents. I'm going to phrase it in terms of my own personal situation for clarity:

Occasionally I write a book that I think might be marketable and send it to agents. I have a string of publishing credentials that I don't consider worthy of mentioning to agents (sales of novels to non-advance-paying publishers, sales of short stories to magazines for small sums of money, some books published through a company I own). Recently I have started writing books in different genres and selling them under pseudonyms. None of the names I write under are my actual legal name. I do not mention any of these accomplishments on my cover letters to agents. On my cover letter, I simply address it to the relevant person and add a description of the book (how long it is, what genre, etc.) and a pitch and details of where I may be contacted, by my legal name. I try to concentrate on the book itself and hope its merits sell it.

So my question is, would you say it is deceptive/rude not to include such information on a letter to an agent? If someone in my position sent you a book, and you liked the book, would you be likely to represent this person if you then discovered it had this kind of track record, or would this deter you and would you prefer only to represent people with no previously published books, or with books published only by advance-paying publishers?

Thanks for your time.

KingM said:

Here's what I would do. I would send out the partial and say something like, "Here are the first three chapters, as you requested. I do have partials out at two other agents who requested just within the last few weeks. Hopefully, this won't be a problem. I'll hold off on sending out any other queries until I hear back from you."

This is assuming "hear back from you" means just a week or two. Anything longer on a partial is too much to ask. There's a chance she'll just pass, or tell you to try back when you don't have other partials out there, but I wouldn't rush the first two agents based on this agent's request after the fact.

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Thank you for the great advice! I am going to do exactly as you suggest, I think that's the best possible solution...and better to take a chance than just let the opportunity slip by. Thanks again!

Hi Michael,

You said in a previous post that you don't have any MG clients "yet." Does that mean you're looking for MG? I didn't see it listed on your website.

Hopefully this wasn't asked before. There are a lot of posts, so my apologies if it has been.

Thank you Michael. I had to revise and resubmit the full to two of those agencies. The main problem was the protagonist's age. She was elderly. I modified to make her 28, with a mysterious past.

If a hypothetical writer should hypothetically hit "send" instead of "save as draft" while preparing her query letters (before the book is ready to query), should said hypothetical writer hypothetically send and "oops" email after it or just wait to see if the agent in question contacts her?

(Hypothetically )

KingM said:

Ouch, I feel your pain. How far from done is your book? If it's just a few days or a couple of weeks, I'd wait it out. If you just wrote:

TITLE (think of something better)
by Cyia

Chapter One/Prologue:

Then yes, I'd probably send a retraction email.

If it makes you feel any better, I once knew an agent with two partials to read, one of which he was ready to reject and the other he hadn't read. He wrote a detailed rejection letter for the first partial and sent the response to the second writer. What was worse, after the second writer wrote a, "???" email, followed by an embarrassed apology, the agent had to send the second rejection letter about twelve hours later.

I felt like...uhm, I mean he felt like an idiot.

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Oh no! I cringed big time reading this!

KingM said:

Ouch, I feel your pain. How far from done is your book? If it's just a few days or a couple of weeks, I'd wait it out. If you just wrote:

TITLE (think of something better)
by Cyia

Chapter One/Prologue:

​

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Not quite that bad. I'm editing the second half of it.

KingM said:

Ouch, I feel your pain. How far from done is your book? If it's just a few days or a couple of weeks, I'd wait it out. If you just wrote:

TITLE (think of something better)
by Cyia

Chapter One/Prologue:

Then yes, I'd probably send a retraction email.

If it makes you feel any better, I once knew an agent with two partials to read, one of which he was ready to reject and the other he hadn't read. He wrote a detailed rejection letter for the first partial and sent the response to the second writer. What was worse, after the second writer wrote a, "???" email, followed by an embarrassed apology, the agent had to send the second rejection letter about twelve hours later.

I felt like...uhm, I mean he felt like an idiot.

​

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(((Hugs))) You're human.

That's what we like about you, Michael!

Michael, is it worth mentioning in my query that I'm a full-time freelance writer in addition to my fiction work? Will it help anything, or will it seem like I'm trying too hard to impress them?

Makes sense. Thanks!

KingM said:

If you've got space, sure, especially if you've got some impressive credits.

Neutral:

Schenectady Gazette, Zambia Broadcasting Online, Bay Area Parenting, Madison Engineering Journal.

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That's funny. I actually worked at the Schenectady Gazette as a sports reporter for a year! But I agree, it's not something I put in a query. Only local people have heard of it. I just say I have four years of journalism experience with two daily papers.

Maybe I'll shoot for Zambia Broadcasting Online next.

Dear Michael,

I sincerely want to thank you publicly for being such an outstanding supporter of writers. As others have said here and as you have promised yourself you are not only responsive to queries and on requested material, but you are extremely generous with your time and expertise.

Though I was of course extremely disappointed that you didn't make a full request on my book, I have to say that your feedback was a much-needed wakeup call that my book needs yet more work. I am too passionate about this project to give up and start a new book quite yet. But I realize after the initial disappointment in reading your kind and constructive response that my work is not done.

If you had sent me a standard impersonal rejection, I may have just gone on blindly querying, assuming that the book was just "not for you", but because you gave me some specific details, I now know that I need to stop querying and fix the problems if I can before resuming.

So, though I know that it is time-consuming for you to write detailed responses and that it probably opens you up more to rude reactions, I hope that you will continue to do this knowing that it is so helpful for us on this end of the process.

Thank you so much!