Ask Stephen Barbara! Guest agent coming April 30!

[MacAllister]

Stephen Barbara, with the Donald Maass Agency, will be here to answer questions the week beginning April 30.

From last week's AW Premium Markets Newsletter (interview by Lisa Abbate):

Stephen Barbara is a literary agent and the contracts director at
the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York City. His clients
include Lisa Graff (THE THING ABOUT GEORGIE), Marlene Perez
(UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT), and Teddy Children's Book Award winner
Tammar Stein (LIGHT YEARS).

One of the newish agents, but by no means inexperienced, Stephen
is primarily interested in representing YA and middle-grade
novels, chapter and picture books, high-quality adult literary and
mainstream fiction, narrative nonfiction, nonfiction in the areas
of military, history, biography, pop culture, and a variety of
genre fiction. He is looking for smart, fresh, funny writing,
original premises, and writers who are hoping to establish long
careers and build up their audiences. Prior to starting at the
Maass Agency, Stephen worked briefly at HarperCollins, and at the
Fifi Oscard Agency. Stephen is very interested in seeing new
projects and has promised to respond to every query he receives,
so don't forget to tell him you read about him here! Queries with
five pages of sample text pasted into the body (no attachments)
can be sent to him at sbarbara@maassagency.com

[Good Word]

Great! I'm looking forward to this, Stephen. There's a nice group of people here, and some very talented writers.

~Lisa

[C.bronco]

Dear Stephen,
With the summer approaching, is this generally a bad time of year to query agents? I most likely will continue to send out queries, but would like to be realistic about how this time of year will affect responses.
Thank you for taking this time to help us out!

[Irysangel]

Hi Stephen!

So, what kind of book would people be surprised to realize you own (or represent)?

Thanks!

[Carmy]

Hi Stephen and welcome.

How do you define literature?

[Stacia Kane]

Hi Stephen, and thank you!

What genres are you not interested in? What's your "dream project" (if you have one?)

[Kasey Mackenzie]

Hi, Stephen! Welcome to AW, and thanks for stopping by.

What types of YA are you most interested in? I know there's a wide variety in this genre, so I'm just curious which subgenres of YA you're looking to represent. Thanks!

[janetbellinger]

Welcome, Stephen. What will be the newest trends in writing in the coming years? Will current reading preferences stay the same or change? Thanks and welcome to AW

[Toni1953]

Hi Stephen!

In these rapidly changing markets, what genres would you consider particuarly hot right now and which are cooling off?

[SkyWorthy]

I'm just wondering about the pros and cons of an agent and where to find a trustworthy one

[Judg]

Is it advisable to query agents and publishers at the same time? Why or why not? I've seen conflicting advice on this point.

[Sury]

Hi, Stephen. Great to have you here!

Would you consider internet and its influences as part of popular culture? This is with reference to the kind of subjects you would like to represent when seeking submissions on popular culture.

Thanks for your time.

Sury

[Dollywagon]

Ho-Ho! I saw the words 'picture book' and I was in here like a rat up a drain pipe.

Many thanks for taking time out to spend with us Stephen.

I actually live in the UK so what I ask may not be as relevant in the US, but I, like many others I'm sure, am finding the pb market an absolute nightmare at the moment.

Most publishing houses have closed their doors to unsolicited manuscripts and recommend finding an agent. Many agents, unfortunately, have done the same. Result - dead end.

I appreciate that for an agent, the business end of the pb market is not as lucrative as other categories. I also appreciate that agents and publishers get innundated with poor quality work in this area - after all, anybody can write one!
But the market is so shuttered at the moment, it is actually very difficult to even find agents who will entertain queries, and so is very frustrating and extremely disheartening.

Do you see the balance shifting in the near future? Is there anything on the horizon that looks set to give the pb market a boost?

Incidentally, I write 'rhyming-text picture books.' I could give lessons on how to make life difficult.

[Lavinia]

On the Donald Maass Agency website it says they do not represent non-fiction. But when I go to your profile, I see that you do.

Is non-fiction something new to you?

Are there non-fiction books out now that you would have loved to have represented?

You say you are interested in military non-fiction, does that include memoir?

Thanks...and Welcome to AW!

Lavinia

[JennaGlatzer]

Welcome, Stephen!

Having been with a couple of publishers who've promised much and then dropped the ball on publicity once the book was released, I'm wondering if you ever try to include publicity commitments in the contract. That is, do you ever ask the publisher to specify a publicity budget or guarantee things like co-op money, mailings, a certain number of review copies, lead placement in the catalog, etc. in the book contract? If not, do you have any suggestions for how to ensure that a book will actually get support from the publicity department?

[Dollywagon]

Is e 'ere yet? Is e 'ere yet? Is e 'ere yet?

(It's been the 30th a lot longer in the UK than where you lot are!)

[ixchel]

Welcome Stephen!

Can you describe what happens when you do decide to take on a client. Do you call the client? E-mail them?

[Stephen Barbara]

Greetings,

I'm thrilled to be a guest on Absolute Write Water Cooler this week! And thanks to MacAllister for that nice introduction.

FYI, I've just returned from a writers' conference in New Mexico, so I'm in that post-conference haze which is the result of a) jetlag and b) having listened to dozens of pitches in the space of 8 hours and responding in semi-demi-intelligible fashion. But, I'm going to start scrolling through these questions now and I'll see what I can come up with!

More soon,

- Stephen

[jvc]

Hi Stephen, welcome to the forums and thank you for agreeing to answer our questions.

Since you’ve just been to a writers’ conference, I thought I’d ask a relevant question. Do you have any suggestions/advice for writers who may be pitching at conference in near the future?

Secondly, when reading an unpublished authors work, what is it that grabs your attention and want to offer representation?

[gp101]

Hey, Stephen. Glad you're diving into our pool today. What should a newbie expect from a writer's convention? Is it a different experience for people with completed manuscripts than it is for those still working out the basics of writing? How can the attending editors/agents help us? Any conferences you suggest we attend, if we've never been to one before?

Thanks for your time.

[britlitfantw]

Hi Stephen! It's a pleasure to "meet" you. Thank you for taking the time to come around and answer some questions for us. I was just wondering about what a new client can expect in the weeks following their acceptance of an offer of representation. What's going on on your side, what will be asked of the writer, etc.

Thanks again! Best wishes getting over your jet lag.

[andracill]

Hi, Stephen, thanks for doing this (especially when dealing with jet lag).

Do you and the other DM agents pass mss around? Or if we get a no from one, is it okay to query another?

Thanks!

[Stephen Barbara]

Originally Posted by C.bronco

Dear Stephen,
With the summer approaching, is this generally a bad time of year to query agents? I most likely will continue to send out queries, but would like to be realistic about how this time of year will affect responses.
Thank you for taking this time to help us out!

I wouldn't dwell too much on the slowness of the business during the summer - many agents (and editors) go on vacation during summer months, and naturally that will affect response times. But the agencies are still open and queries are still being read from June to August.

In general, I think a key to not dwelling on agent response times is to keep working on your writing while querying - and to multiply submit to agents so that you're not stuck waiting for one response before you send out your next query.

[Stephen Barbara]

Originally Posted by Irysangel

Hi Stephen!

So, what kind of book would people be surprised to realize you own (or represent)?

Thanks!

I'm known as an agent who handles primarily children's material - YA, middle-grade, chapter and picture books, etc. - so I think it would surprise many to know that my interests and reading habits are fairly eclectic.

I tend to buy books from categories all across the board, and two of my favorite types to read are narrative nonfiction books and business memoirs, e.g., LIAR'S POKER, CONFESSIONS OF A STREET ADDICT, LOSING MY VIRGINITY. It's a function of my fascination with how the world works and the stories behind successful people, and it informs my interests as an agent as well - I'm actively seeking nonfiction projects in the areas of business, business memoir, diet/fitness, narrative, pop culture, and biography, to name just a few.

[Stephen Barbara]

Originally Posted by Carmy

Hi Stephen and welcome.

How do you define literature?

I don't think I can do any better than the OED or Mirriam Webster for a defintion of literature. But for an agent "literature" refers to those golden backlist titles that generate royalties from here to eternity - books like To Kill a Mockingbird, Watership Down, Catcher in the Rye, etc., a type of book which few of us have the pleasure of representing and all of us hope in our heart of hearts to discover.

Most days, however, we agents sell vampire or werewolf novels, category romances, nonfiction projects about trendy diseases or new ways to burn fat. And that seems to pay the bills and keep us fairly entertained, you know?