Well, we have exciting news at the L. Perkins Agency.
Marisa Corvisiero has decided to start her own agency, in conjunction with her literary consulting business, PowerHouse (see her blog announcement at http://thoughtsfromaliteraryagent.blogspot.com/), and Emily Keyes, who had worked with this agency as an intern while getting her Masters in publishing from studying NYU's Center for Publishing, and then going on to work in contracts at Simon & Schuster, has come back to us.
So welcome home, Emily! Emily is now the Contracts & Foreign Rights Manager at the L. Perkins Agency. She’s very passionate about YA and teen novels and is looking to acquire in that area.
Previously, she was a Contracts Administrator at Simon & Schuster, Inc. and a writer for “The World Almanac for Kids.” She is a graduate of the NYU Publishing program and knowledgeable about many areas of publishing, and an expert on all things “Sweet Valley.”
Email her at emily@lperkinsagency.com. Follow her on twitter @esc_key
And good luck Marisa.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
An Agent's New Year's Resolutions
You probably think that a literary agent's New Year resolutions should include things like keep up to date with query letters or take on new clients or sell more books. But when you've been doing this as long as I have (almost a quarter century), the last thing you want is more. What you want is better, and/or more efficient.
So, this year I want every single one of my clients, whether fiction or nonfiction, to be under both traditional and epub contract. This way, they should never have a week or a month when they have nothing to write.
And every author I represent should be in twitter and facebook and Goodreads, and comment and review books they love on Amazon. If you want someone to give you a good review, pay it forward. It's not rocket science.
I do not want to add another print book to my already buckling bookcases, unless I throw (or give away) another book. I recently redid some of the rooms of my home office and went through books from my adolescence, which I remembered loving, but when I pulled out the paperbacks, the pages flew out. Let's be real, I will never read those copies of those books again. So I am going to throw those books out and download what I want.
So, it's pretty simple. Better, more efficient, and leaner.
So, this year I want every single one of my clients, whether fiction or nonfiction, to be under both traditional and epub contract. This way, they should never have a week or a month when they have nothing to write.
And every author I represent should be in twitter and facebook and Goodreads, and comment and review books they love on Amazon. If you want someone to give you a good review, pay it forward. It's not rocket science.
I do not want to add another print book to my already buckling bookcases, unless I throw (or give away) another book. I recently redid some of the rooms of my home office and went through books from my adolescence, which I remembered loving, but when I pulled out the paperbacks, the pages flew out. Let's be real, I will never read those copies of those books again. So I am going to throw those books out and download what I want.
So, it's pretty simple. Better, more efficient, and leaner.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Brave New World of EPublishing
You're probably a little shocked that I'm posting, but I closed the Agency between Christmas and New Year's (as all good publishing businesses do - it's one of the very few remaining perks of the business), and I have some time to myself, which I give to you.
It's been a crazy year. Ebooks now outsell mass market titles, practically putting paperbacks out of commission. Borders went out of business completely. But more and more people are reading, and that includes a whole new generation of readers who now consider reading entertainment again.
When the dust settles, we will find that the author has come out ahead, although many who have toiled patiently in the low advance/reserve-against-returns fields for years, just don't see the corn for the seeds.
I've been an agent for almost a quarter of a century. I've had a lot of authors say they would do anything to make a good living as a writer, and then ask me what they should do. In the past, that answer had way too much to do with luck and timing, but today, a genre writer who puts in 40 hours a week can make a good living as a writer within two years of starting out through epub. The times they are a changing.
I believe we are entering a whole new world of publishing that resembles the pulp fiction heyday of the past. Readers want dependable books that they can devour, and authors who can deliver them consistently. This will be a renaissance of story telling. It's quite exciting.
Its also exciting that books have once again entered the water cooler conversation, as witnessed by the Steve Jobs bio. We all downloaded and read it almost immediately. How many of us are reading 11/22/63 right now?
I am really looking forward to 2012, and being part of this brave new world for writers and readers.
It's been a crazy year. Ebooks now outsell mass market titles, practically putting paperbacks out of commission. Borders went out of business completely. But more and more people are reading, and that includes a whole new generation of readers who now consider reading entertainment again.
When the dust settles, we will find that the author has come out ahead, although many who have toiled patiently in the low advance/reserve-against-returns fields for years, just don't see the corn for the seeds.
I've been an agent for almost a quarter of a century. I've had a lot of authors say they would do anything to make a good living as a writer, and then ask me what they should do. In the past, that answer had way too much to do with luck and timing, but today, a genre writer who puts in 40 hours a week can make a good living as a writer within two years of starting out through epub. The times they are a changing.
I believe we are entering a whole new world of publishing that resembles the pulp fiction heyday of the past. Readers want dependable books that they can devour, and authors who can deliver them consistently. This will be a renaissance of story telling. It's quite exciting.
Its also exciting that books have once again entered the water cooler conversation, as witnessed by the Steve Jobs bio. We all downloaded and read it almost immediately. How many of us are reading 11/22/63 right now?
I am really looking forward to 2012, and being part of this brave new world for writers and readers.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Agent Life Update
OK, so I've been working two jobs for two and a half years. And I've been doing a pretty good job of balancing the responsibilities of both.
I have four agents working for me, and a website (lperkinsagency.com) that gives writers a very detailed description of what we're all looking for. And I have personally stopped taking on new clients (unless, of course, Stephen King begs me), so I can focus on guiding my junior agents. We have broadened the scope of the agency as well. We have an ebook only agent who is kicking ass (and can really guide writers on that part of their careers) and we've starting selling children's books (Louise Fury just sold a children's picture book to Random House), not just young adult and middle grade fiction.
I go over every book that is submitted under my agency name with my junior agents. We do contracts together, so every contract gets my years of agenting expertise (and boilerplate). So I find it a little surprising that writers seem disappointed that I am no longer taking on new clients. Even if I wasn't running a publishing company (Ravenousromance.com now publishes about 200 books a year, and I personally edit 50 of them, and oversee a staff of five), I would probably only take on a handful of new clients a year. By running the agency and supervising, I (we) can launch many more new careers and resurrect old ones. The odds are actually much better for the unpublished writer here now.
But we are swamped. It staggers the imagination to see how many queries we get. An agent's life is not all about queries, especially now that it takes longer for editors to get approval on purchases (I have a book by a NY Times best selling author who has sold over 400,000 copies in hardcover that I have been waiting on an offer for for over 9 months), we can submit a finite amount. It makes no sense to have five horror first novels piled up with the same editor.
I have four agents working for me, and a website (lperkinsagency.com) that gives writers a very detailed description of what we're all looking for. And I have personally stopped taking on new clients (unless, of course, Stephen King begs me), so I can focus on guiding my junior agents. We have broadened the scope of the agency as well. We have an ebook only agent who is kicking ass (and can really guide writers on that part of their careers) and we've starting selling children's books (Louise Fury just sold a children's picture book to Random House), not just young adult and middle grade fiction.
I go over every book that is submitted under my agency name with my junior agents. We do contracts together, so every contract gets my years of agenting expertise (and boilerplate). So I find it a little surprising that writers seem disappointed that I am no longer taking on new clients. Even if I wasn't running a publishing company (Ravenousromance.com now publishes about 200 books a year, and I personally edit 50 of them, and oversee a staff of five), I would probably only take on a handful of new clients a year. By running the agency and supervising, I (we) can launch many more new careers and resurrect old ones. The odds are actually much better for the unpublished writer here now.
But we are swamped. It staggers the imagination to see how many queries we get. An agent's life is not all about queries, especially now that it takes longer for editors to get approval on purchases (I have a book by a NY Times best selling author who has sold over 400,000 copies in hardcover that I have been waiting on an offer for for over 9 months), we can submit a finite amount. It makes no sense to have five horror first novels piled up with the same editor.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Why Writers Should Go To Writers' Conferences - It's Not What You Think
Louise Fury, Sandy Lu, Marisa Corvisiero and myself (lperkinsagency.com) will be all be attending the Writer's Digest Pitch Slam (http://www.writersdigestconference.com/) tomorrow afternoon at the Sheraton where mostly unpublished writers will descend upon us hoping to find the agent of their dreams.
And many of them will, it just won't be what they expect.
I say this because, of course, I've been attending writer's conferences for years.
I go because I think of it as a way of giving back. It is rarely a way for me to take on new writers directly.
Let me tell you three stories of writers who I helped get published by going to writers conferences. Only one of them do I represent now.
Lisa Delman and I met at the Maui Writers' Conference. We kept on running into each other in the hallways and in restaurants and the pool, just about everywhere we turned. But she wrote nonfiction self-help books, and that's not really my thing, so I encouraged her to find an agent who thrilled at that. We ended up on the same plane home, and really bonded (we were the same age and playing the dating game), so we became "writing friends." During the course of a vacation conversation (I was visiting the town where she lived and we decided to hang out), she told me this moving story about the letters she had written to her mother when she thought she was dying, and I said to her, "that's your book!" DEAR MOM, I Always Wanted You to Know (Perigee http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Mom-Always-Wanted-Know/dp/0399530797- ) was born there, and I did represent it. It just wasn't the book she was pitching then, and it took 5 years from that Maui conference to publication.
Jeremy Wagner plopped himself in from of me at a BEA pitch slam only two years ago. He was the hardest working unpublished writer I'd met in long time. He had a decade of conferences he'd attended and editors he'd consulted with, and he told me he was so happy he'd finally gotten my attention, because I was the horror babe. And he was right. I had once been the horror babe, but I was now launching Ravenous Romance and not actively taking on new clients (but had just hired 4 new agents who were taking on new clients), so he thought he was screwed. But I told him I would be his guardian agent, and give him advice whenever he needed it. He needed it a lot. And I gave it - a lot. I bought a short story from him for an anthology I was editing for Ravenous Romance in HUNGRY FOR YOU LOVE (St. Martin's Press http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Your-Love-Anthology-Romance/dp/0312650795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295686247&sr=1-1-spell), our Zombie romance anthology, which eventually made it to book stores, so I gave him his publishing start. But he also got an agent, and just sold his first novel, THE ARMAGEDDON CHORD (http://www.jeremy-wagner.com/books.html), to an epublisher, which is the right move for a new horror writer right now.
I met Trinity Blacio at Lori Foster's fabulous readers and writers conference in Ohio. It's an intimate gathering of about 200 readers and writers in Cincinnati, the home of Grater's Ice Cream, Skyline Chili and Montgomery Ribs. I had just launched Ravenous Romance and was looking to get a feel for what readers wanted, and Trinity introduced herself. I had bought one of her stories for our THREESOMES anthology (http://www.ravenousromance.com/lesbian/threesomes-an-anthology.php?keyword=blacio) She told me about a werewolf world she had been writing about for the last 7 years. Listening to her, I knew she had a world as complicated as Anne Rice's vampires. I bought the book, and her RUNNING IN FEAR (http://www.ravenousromance.com/fantastica/running-in-fear-abandoned.php?keyword=blacio) series is one of our best-sellers.
So the moral of these stories is that a writer shouldn't go to a writers' conference thinking that they will get their dream agent or book deal. Listen, learn, mingle, keep in touch with everyone. You might make a friend or a contact that will change your life, but let the experience be your guide.
And many of them will, it just won't be what they expect.
I say this because, of course, I've been attending writer's conferences for years.
I go because I think of it as a way of giving back. It is rarely a way for me to take on new writers directly.
Let me tell you three stories of writers who I helped get published by going to writers conferences. Only one of them do I represent now.
Lisa Delman and I met at the Maui Writers' Conference. We kept on running into each other in the hallways and in restaurants and the pool, just about everywhere we turned. But she wrote nonfiction self-help books, and that's not really my thing, so I encouraged her to find an agent who thrilled at that. We ended up on the same plane home, and really bonded (we were the same age and playing the dating game), so we became "writing friends." During the course of a vacation conversation (I was visiting the town where she lived and we decided to hang out), she told me this moving story about the letters she had written to her mother when she thought she was dying, and I said to her, "that's your book!" DEAR MOM, I Always Wanted You to Know (Perigee http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Mom-Always-Wanted-Know/dp/0399530797- ) was born there, and I did represent it. It just wasn't the book she was pitching then, and it took 5 years from that Maui conference to publication.
Jeremy Wagner plopped himself in from of me at a BEA pitch slam only two years ago. He was the hardest working unpublished writer I'd met in long time. He had a decade of conferences he'd attended and editors he'd consulted with, and he told me he was so happy he'd finally gotten my attention, because I was the horror babe. And he was right. I had once been the horror babe, but I was now launching Ravenous Romance and not actively taking on new clients (but had just hired 4 new agents who were taking on new clients), so he thought he was screwed. But I told him I would be his guardian agent, and give him advice whenever he needed it. He needed it a lot. And I gave it - a lot. I bought a short story from him for an anthology I was editing for Ravenous Romance in HUNGRY FOR YOU LOVE (St. Martin's Press http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Your-Love-Anthology-Romance/dp/0312650795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295686247&sr=1-1-spell), our Zombie romance anthology, which eventually made it to book stores, so I gave him his publishing start. But he also got an agent, and just sold his first novel, THE ARMAGEDDON CHORD (http://www.jeremy-wagner.com/books.html), to an epublisher, which is the right move for a new horror writer right now.
I met Trinity Blacio at Lori Foster's fabulous readers and writers conference in Ohio. It's an intimate gathering of about 200 readers and writers in Cincinnati, the home of Grater's Ice Cream, Skyline Chili and Montgomery Ribs. I had just launched Ravenous Romance and was looking to get a feel for what readers wanted, and Trinity introduced herself. I had bought one of her stories for our THREESOMES anthology (http://www.ravenousromance.com/lesbian/threesomes-an-anthology.php?keyword=blacio) She told me about a werewolf world she had been writing about for the last 7 years. Listening to her, I knew she had a world as complicated as Anne Rice's vampires. I bought the book, and her RUNNING IN FEAR (http://www.ravenousromance.com/fantastica/running-in-fear-abandoned.php?keyword=blacio) series is one of our best-sellers.
So the moral of these stories is that a writer shouldn't go to a writers' conference thinking that they will get their dream agent or book deal. Listen, learn, mingle, keep in touch with everyone. You might make a friend or a contact that will change your life, but let the experience be your guide.
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