Write That Book Already!: The Tough Love You Need To Get Published Now (10 page)

LESLIE LEVINE

“When my first book,
Will This Place Ever Feel Like Home? Simple Advice for Settling In After You Move
was first being shopped around (by agent number one) it was rejected by, among others, Contemporary Books. Some years later, after it went out of print at Dearborn another company wanted to pick it up. Which company? Contemporary, of course. So somewhere in the paper trail that holds up my house there are two very different letters from the same publishing company: one is a little more hopeful than the other, but the two of them together offer a slightly different interpretation of a commonly heard bit of wisdom: when one door closes, another from the very same house (pardon the pun) may open a few years later . . .”

AMY TAN

Author of
Saving Fish from Drowning:
“Early on, when I was just starting to write the stories that would become part of
The Joy Luck Club
, my brand new and very optimistic agent sent a story of mine to the
Atlantic
and
New Yorker
, which were the two great literary venues for short stories at that time. I recently found the rejection letter, dated September 1, 1987, from Mike Curtis, the fiction editor of the
Atlantic
. He says, ‘The Amy Tan is beautifully written, and I hope you’ll send us more of her work. This story, however, tries to cover much ground, and seems to us a bit too thin. Maybe the next one.’

“I was excited to get more than a standard rejection letter and from the top editor himself. But I was also struck at the time that my story was referred to as ‘
The
Amy Tan.’ I had become an entity. The story was actually titled, ‘Waiting Between the Trees.’ And I have to say now that I agree with him—as a short story, it does not work. It does not have a short story shape. As a chapter in a book, it works better, but is still, as Mike says, ‘thin’ as a story. It is more about the internal voice of this woman who feels she is invisible to her daughter. The story was later included in
The Joy Luck Club
and a year later, Mike did take a story called ‘Two Kinds,’ which also became part of the book. And to add to the 180 degree irony, a year after I was published, I was one of three judges who had to read and select three writers for a fellowship. Mike Curtis was one of the other judges and our tastes were very similar.

“Until I was published, that was the best rejection letter I had ever received. Like Stephen King, when I started to write fiction, I put up a bulletin board, which I intended to cover with rejection letters. That would prove I had been serious enough with my writing to send out what I considered a finished piece and to then get going on a new story. I even thought I might create a decoupage of those letters and use that as wallpaper. I received some rejection slips with the standard lines: ‘Thank for sending us your story. We are sorry that we did not like it enough to include it in our magazine.’ One was on a 1" x 8" strip—obviously cut from a page with these two lines repeated top to bottom. That original page had seen plenty of time in the copier, had been cut into thousands of strips, and sent to thousands of unhappy writers. It was a big deal to get a rejection letter with a handwritten note. I had one from the
New Yorker
that was encouraging in her rejection. It said: ‘Try us again.’ A number of years later, I received a letter from the
New Yorker
asking me if I had anything they could publish. Now that was stunning.

“I do think that editors have particular tastes. The gist of some letters said: ‘Not for me,’ meaning, ‘this might appeal to some other editor, but it’s not for me.’ That was brought home to me when I received two rejections for
The Joy Luck Club
at around the same time. One said, in effect, that he liked the universal emotions of story but thought the voice was too ethnic and contrived. The other said that he liked the universal qualities of the voice, but thought the story was too ethnic and contrived.

“I later met one of those editors in an inadvertent way. I had gone to a writers’ conference in Old Chatham with my editor to meet up with one of her writers. At one point, we found ourselves at the back of a room where an editor of a very literary house was standing before a fireplace, giving a fireside chat on what an editor looks for. He made a point about literary tastes by saying, ‘I was one of the editors who received a manuscript of
The Joy Luck Club
. And I read it and I rejected it, because it was not for me.’ It seemed that everyone in that room knew I was there, except the editor. He went on: ‘And even though that book appealed to many people and went on to do very well, I would still say that book is not one I would publish.’ At this point, the whole room was buzzing and people had turned around to see how I was reacting to this. The editor then saw me, turned around, grabbed a poker iron and said, ‘Should I plunge this through me now or in the privacy of my room?’ I was laughing, and I said that I agreed with what he said, that there are books that appeal to us for various reasons, and others that don’t, and an editor should never be swayed by a larger public opinion.”

WENDY NELSON TOKUNAGA

Author of the novels
Midori by Moonlight
and
Love in Translation
: “A book I like to recommend to writers for inspiration is
The Resilient Writer: Tales of Rejection and Triumph from 23 Top Authors
by Catherine Wald. The book is made up of in-depth interviews with writers such as Janet Fitch, Wally Lamb, Elinor Lipman, Bret Easton Ellis, and Amy Tan, who tell their stories of how they withstood the pain and frustration of rejection and criticism and continued to persevere on the often rocky road to publication. These writers offer valuable insights into both the creative process and the intricacies of the publishing world, as well as some much needed comfort that certainly helped me as I tried to keep my confidence up as I weathered my own rejections.”

BOTTOM LINE

When communicating with agents and publishers, it’s crucial to be courteous and professional and to follow their submission guidelines. Try to understand the process from the other person’s point of view. As you can see, the work of many—if not most—writers gets rejected at times. You need to approach the goal of getting published with the endurance and determination of a long-distance runner.

WHY YOU MAY NEED AN AGENT

A good literary agent will not only sell your book to a publisher, but will also be your champion and advocate throughout the whole publishing process. Some publishers won’t even look at unsolicited manuscripts that are not represented by an agent. So what do these agents do? Glad you asked.

CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS

If you do try to sell your book without representation, you’ll be left alone to deal with your publisher and an almost indecipherable contract should your book be purchased. Reading and negotiating contracts is one of the ways in which agents earn their 15 percent commission, and we think it is worth it to have one in your corner.

The Author Enablers’ Guide to the Right Writing Rights

What is it that your agent actually sells when your manuscript is acquired by a publisher? It boils down to the right to publish, distribute, and sell your original work. Most often, in a book-publishing deal the agent negotiates the grant of “primary rights”—hardcover, paperback, mass market, e-book, direct mail, and language(s)—but may retain some subsidiary rights to sell on your behalf. Subsidiary rights might be sold directly or through a subagent to book clubs, foreign publishers, movie or television producers, and so on. Keep in mind that any money a publisher pays you is an advance against future earnings.

Some other specialized, subsidiary (or secondary) rights include: animation, anthology, audio, book club, digest, dramatic, electronic/new technology, entertainment, foreign translation, large print, merchandising (commercial tie-in), motion picture, performance, periodical, (first-serial, like pre-publication excerpts or second serial), radio, television, theater, and videocassette/audiocassette/DVD. Phew!

Now, what if you want to use someone else’s original work in your book? Though it may be tempting (and easy, now that we have the Internet), it’s not okay to do this without permission, and permission often has to be paid for. (Most publishers have permissions departments and are open to direct queries.)

For example, if you want to use lyrics from a song written by someone else, you must get permission from whomever owns the rights to the property—and that entity is often not the performer, or even the composer, of the song. A little research on
www.bmi.com
and/or
www.ascap.com
(the two largest music-rights organizations) will usually provide the information you’ll need. You’ll have to find out who wrote the song, and who owns the copyright—then it is up to you, the author, to contact the copyright holders and arrange to pay whatever fee is required for usage. Your publisher will want to know that you have the legal right to use the material, so be sure to include copies of your agreement(s) with the copyright holder(s) when you submit your manuscript.

Using visual art requires a similar process. The first step is to locate the images you wish to obtain and figure out who can provide a copy. Sometimes it’s a museum, sometimes a commercial image bank. Then you need to make a formal request for usage in your book. If you need help phrasing your letter, there’s a good template in
The Chicago Manual of Style.
You may be asked to fill out an additional application, but you can get the ball rolling with a simple, businesslike letter. Keep in mind that reproducing color illustrations is expensive. Before you decide to include four-color art in your book, think through whether it is absolutely necessary. Additionally, it’s not always the author’s decision, but that of the publisher.

It’s important to understand the difference between “copyright permissions” and “use permissions.” The copyright for a work (a painting, a sculpture, a drawing) is usually not held by the owner of the physical work. For example, you might want to reproduce a painting found in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. At your request, the museum may provide a color transparency, or a high-resolution digital file, along with nonexclusive world rights to reproduce this image in your book, but all that the museum has granted is the USE of their reproduction; you must still obtain reproduction permission from the owner of the copyright, the estate of the artist. Both use and copyright permissions are required before a publisher can comfortably go forward with a book that includes a copyrighted image.

With both music and visual art, some older works will fall into the public domain category. This means that copyright no longer applies to the work. Laws vary from country to country, but the safest rule of thumb is that the work slips into the public domain seventy years after the author’s or artist’s death. However, this is not a hard and fast rule—many estates still hold on to the rights after the author has died. Even if a work is in the public domain, you may still need to get a “use” permission. For example, certain museums and collections will require a permission application for the use of their reproduction, and they will ask that you meet certain conditions, even if the work itself is in the public domain.

If this is confusing, think of it this way: you probably wouldn’t want anyone using your writing, music, or artwork without your permission, especially if the usage resulted in profit that wasn’t shared with you. So do your homework, and start acquiring the rights you need well in advance of your manuscript deadline. At the very least, it’s good Karma.

ARE YOU READY? LET THE SEARCH BEGIN!

Before you begin your agent search, your manuscript or proposal should be fully conceived and in good shape. You may also want to establish some credibility as a writer by having shorter pieces published in journals or periodicals, if at all possible.

“Okay, big-shot Author Enablers,” you might say. “
You
have an agent (a lovely woman named Deb Warren who sold this book to Adams Media) but how do I get one?”

There are several tried-and-true methods for acquiring agents’ contact information. Finding an agent to represent you involves a mix of ingredients that includes some focused effort and good timing, as well as the aforementioned sticktoitiveness.