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 The odds are actually much better for the unpublished writer here now.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.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
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Writer's Digest Pitch Slam (http://www.writersdigestconference.com/) tomorrow afternoon at the Sheraton where mostly unpublished writers will descend upon us hoping to find the agent of their dreams.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.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Happy Halloween
So, I am going to a big HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE party hosted by one of the authors in the anthology. I've had a zombie queen outfit made especially for this. It's quite exciting. They'll be giving away free copies of the book to everyone who attends and I hear the indoor pool has been dyed red and has body parts floating in it!
Next week we'll also have a book signing at Blood Manor, the live action haunted house downtown, so I'll announce the details as soon as they are in place.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Golden Apple Awards
This evening, I was given the Golden Apple Award from the New York Chapter of the Romance Writers of America as Agent of the Year. It is quite an honor.
Below is the speech I made:
"I am so honored to be given this award tonight. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.
As many of you know, I have been a literary agent for two decades, where I really started as an agent of horror fiction. I am responsible for the sale of more than 250 vampire novels, and many of them have been romances, although we didn’t call them that years ago.
About 10 years ago, we started calling love with the proper vampire 'paranormal romance'. The romance community truly embraced me, and my writers and junior agents, and made us all feel loved.
I was also an agent of erotic fiction written primarily by women,. They too were taken in by the romance community and you will find many of my authors writing erotic romance happily ever after because they now have a much larger readership.
I am thrilled to be part of this amazing community that continues to grow and support each other, as well as other writers. And this RWA chapter is a dynamic force in this incredible universe.
Thank you so much for this award."
The Golden Apple Award, which fits perfectly in the open palm, is truly one of the most stunning awards out there. Mine has already found its place at the center of my living room table!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Advice to a New Writer
One of my former interns had taken on a new horror writer, whose work has been under submission for 8 months. Most of the houses have rejected him, but he writes in periodically to ask "what's happening?"
I just wrote back to him today, and thought my note to him might be useful to other writers who have recently started the submission process.
"Print publishing is in turmoil right now. Leisure Books has effectively gone out of the print business, and B&N and Borders are having extreme financial difficulties. Mass market sales are suffering during the recession and horror is mass market. It's also summer. So, in all likelihood nothing is happening and nothing will be happening soon. I think it's almost impossible to place a first horror novel right now in print.
I can refer you to one of the other agents in house (go to our website) after Labor Day, but I do think epub is probably the way to go for horror right now.
Just because you are new is no reason for you to fail to follow publishing news. You should be reading the Writer's Digest blogs, Publisher's Weekly and Publisher's Marketplace, as well as Galleycat."
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