This week we give you a very special edition: How To Get Your Book Published.

Guests: Literary Agent Margaret O’Connor-Chumley of the Renaissance Literary and Talent Agency and Sarah-Jane Stratford, Author of The Midnight Guardian (2009, St. Martin’s Press).

Host Mark Jeffrey opened the show describing the ‘three steps’ to getting you book from your hard drive to the book store, and promised that the three participants would go into detail describing their own experience with the process.

Mark introduced Margaret first, revealing that she is his own agent, and noting that Margaret sold his book very fast: within about four month of meeting.  Next he introduced Sarah-Jane, and held up her book THE MIDNIGHT GUARDIAN, describing it as ‘Vampire vs. Nazi’s in WWII Germany.’  Sarah-Jane elaborated on this description, and described her trip to Bogota, Columbia briefly.

Mark noted that This Week In Books is a re-boot of the previous ‘Bibliotech’ show, and that there are past episodes that include interviews with Anne Rice, Margaret Atwood, Scott Sigler and Goodreads founder Otis Chandler, among others.  He also noted that the ThisWeekIn.com network currently boasted 17 shows and they could be found in iTunes, YouTube and other outlets.

Then. they dove into the questions:

STEP ONE: GET AN AGENT
- Do you actually need an agent to get published?  Why?

Margaret of course said that you DO need an agent; the large publishers simply will not speak with you otherwise.  Mark agreed very quickly, noting this was a rhetorical question primarily.  Publishers need a filter in order to deal with the huge volume of submissions.  They want books ‘ready to go’.

Sarah Jane did not even DREAM of trying to publish her book on her own.  She had been a screenwriter previously, so she already had an agent who introduced her to Margaret.  This was in early 2008.  Her book sold in summer 2008, and published in Oct. 2009.  It took three months from introduction to book deal.  Mark and Sarah-Jane noted that Mags worked quickly.

- Mags: How did you become an agent?  Why?  How long?

Margaret responded that she went to school as an English Lit major.  She loves books, of course.  Initially, she worked in NY for an academic publisher (Cambridge University Press) in marketing.  She moved to LA eight years ago, and ‘sort of stumbled’ into a being an agent.

- Can you be your own agent or somehow go around having an agent?

No.  It’s like being your lawyer.  Not a good idea.

- How does one go about getting an agent?  Do you need a referral?

The writer’s job is to DO THEIR RESEARCH on the agents.  Look in books your like, the writer typically thanks their agent — if your book is similar, you should contact this agent.  Some resources mentioned:

Publisher’s Marketplace

Publisher’s Weekly

GalleyCat

Writer’s Digest

Google ‘literary agents’.

Mark then told the story of how he got published.  He self-published via Lulu.com at first, then did a podcast audiobook or podiobook next.  He went to the World Fantasy Conference in Arizona, where he met Evo Terra who suggested he podcast the book for free: he did, got 2.4 million downloads.  He built an audience.  Armed with this, he went through several agents who were unable to get a deal, and then through a friend, he was referred to Margaret.

There was another step in the middle where Mark was required to do a rewrite before the deal was complete; Margaret remarked that this is somewhat common now.
- SJ: How did you meet Mags?  How did you get her as an agent?  Tell us how you got published.

Sarah-Jane originally called her book ‘Gods and Monsters’, which Margaret asked her change due to a title conflict with the movie of the same name.  Once the name was changed, she got an offer.  St. Martins made a quick, aggressive offer after several soft ‘passes’ by other publishing houses.
- Mags: How did most of your clients end up with you?

People cold query me.  Sometimes it works.  Mags read every single submission to her.  Comes via regular mail and internet as well.  Referrals work best: Mark and Sarah Jane were both referred.

- What should I look for in an agent as an author?  What makes a good agent / agency?  Does size matter?

The size does not matter, since it is one on one relationships.  The agent watches out for the cover, etc. and pays attention to the smaller, newer writers like Mark and Sarah-Jane.  Margaret has only worked at smaller agencies, so her view admittedly is a little skewed, but her preference is clearly for smaller.

Mark told Anne Rice’s story (and remarked that it was available in episode 14 of This Week In Books): Anne was literally pushed onto a bus by her husband Stan to a lit conference; total luck that she ran into an agent.

Maraget told the story of a girl at Book Expo walked around with a cart, and sold 30,000 copies of her self-published book.  Margaret picked her up, got her a two book, six-figure deal off the strength of this.

Mark summarized: you have to act like an entreprenuer with your book and get out there and market it.

STEP TWO: GET AN OFFER
- Okay, I’ve got an agent.  What happens next?  How long does it usually take?

Nothing set, nothing normal.  There is no ‘market’.

-  Mark rephrased the question: How many rejections does it take before you say, Not working?

Mags: After 25 or so rejections, I figure it is not going to sell.  If I get 3 – 4 of the same kind of rejection notes, I will pause the submissions and see if I can get them fixed.

- How things like the Kindle and the iPad change the process of getting published?

Sarah-Jane said no, since she owns neither.  Mark told the story of Boyd Morrison (also previously on This Week In Books) who self-published on Kindle and got a large book deal from this.

Mags said that this was not the norm, but they were seeing this sort of ‘inventive’ thing more and more often.  However, in this past week, there is a new book that outsold on Kindle versus paper, and this was the first time this had happened.  However, ebooks only account for 5% of all book sales.

Margaret noted that she had a Sony eReader that she usually uses for manuscript reading, but not really for reading market books.

- How much money will I make on my deal typically as a first time author (advances, etc. — what is market?)

Again, there is no ‘norm’ for market.  It depends who the publisher is, whether it is fiction versus non-fiction, etc.

- And how does a lit agency actually make a living on low numbers like that?  Is it hit-driven?  or do you make your money on film rights and stuff like that?

Yes it is hit-driven.  Renaissance being in LA has some advantages to marketing film rights that NY counterparts do not have.

Mark compared the book world to the tech VC world where, out 10 investments, 9 were expected to die and the tenth was expected to go huge, and that tenth company would more than make up for the nine losses.  Margaret sort of agreed, but did not know whether the ratio was ten to one in the same way.

- How do foreign rights work versus domestic?

Sometimes you sell them together, sometimes apart.  Sarah-Jane sold her foreign rights to Latin America, where it has taken off like crazy.  Hence her trip to Bogota, Columbia.  The publisher there, Norma, paid for her trip in full and treated her like a queen.  Sarah-Jane was kind of blown away by how much people loved her down there: it was very gratifying.  And now she has seen pictures of her and someone being used by people as their Facebook profile.  Norma is a very major Spanish publisher, like a Harper or Random House.  The red carpet was rolled out in a big way for Sarah-Jane.  Her book was published down there in April 2010.

- What should you look out for in a book contract?

Mags: There are LOTS of things.  Again, there is no template, really.  When they will publish, when they approve manuscript, when they will pay, which rights they get and keep (foreign, ebook, film), etc.  Renaissance has a methodology they use on things they always ask for.  Cover consultation for one.  Mark expressed his angst at not seeing his cover yet; Sarah-Jane agreed that her cover was great and revealed that she had FOUR covers total — one for each hardcover and one for each paperback.

STEP THREE: GOT A DEAL.  NOW WHAT?
- Do I have to rewrite my manuscript?  What is that process like?  How long does that go on for?

Mark described his two major rewrites, wherein he got a paper manuscript with handwritten notes, instead of MS Word Track Changes.  The opinion was that this still fairly normal for the book world.  Then Mags described copyediting, which is the final ‘rewrite’, which is done by the publisher (not author, which is nice) and adheres to strict definitions of English and dictionaries for spelling.

Mark revealed that he fought this process at first, but then found it VERY useful and improved his book a great deal.  Sarah-Jane concurred, citing some specific examples that her editor gave her for ideas that ‘vastly improved’ the book.

- Do you get control of your cover?

Not totally.  And this is a good thing; publishers know how to sell books better than the author in a lot of cases.  On the other hand, a bad cover can kill a book, so a good agent at least gets cover consultation.  Mags noted that she always tried to get this, but publishers know what covers / colors / trends will appeal to the buyer at Barnes & Noble, for example.

- From completed manuscript to book on shelf, how long does it take?  What is normal?

Consensus: a year or two.

Mark closed the show noting that This Week In Books is currently the #1 Literary Podcast on iTunes; the #22 most downloaded episode overall and the #17 most download Audio episode.