Category: writing

Reader question: What’s an imprint?

- Stacy

Ingrid writes to ask:

How exactly does an imprint of a publishing company work? Are imprints more specific in subject matter or is there a deeper connection with the parent company?

Are your chances of getting published better with an imprint or does the sale of your work do better with a more well-known publisher?

I would like to submit my manuscript to a smaller company because I think that they will “get” my writing style, but this company is an imprint of a bigger one. Is it safer to submit to the parent company and hope for the best or will an imprint be more helpful and “reachable?”

First off, let’s distinguish between a smaller company and an imprint. Big and small publishers will both have imprints. You may have an advantage getting published with a smaller press because they’ll often be able to give more personalized attention from the editorial stage on through production and promotion—though that can depend, too. I’ll get to small publisher vs. large publisher in another post. First, what is an imprint?

An imprint is publishing speak for a brand. It’s usually not a separate company from the parent publisher; rather, it’s a way to divide books within the publisher that might just be on paper (editors and other staff might work across imprints; the books are simply branded differently depending on genre or audience) or might be a fiscal division of the company, depending on the size of the company and the way it’s organized.

For example, MacMillan reorganized last year so that all their children’s imprints (FSG, Feiwel and Friends, Holt, etc.) are in one division of the company, MacMillan Children’s Publishing Group. Now, I don’t know the company well enough to know whether the editorial for each imprint is divided into different departments underneath the group (I imagine so—the articles I’ve read mention that they’ll share art departments and production resources), but certain editors only work on Feiwel and Friends, and others only work on FSG. At least, that’s how I understand it as an outsider to the company—some editors could be working across imprints, the way that Sharyn November works on both Viking and Firebird books at Penguin. It just depends on how the company structures itself.

When I worked at Wizards of the Coast, I only worked on Mirrorstone books, not any of the adult novels, and not any of the game books (such as Dungeons and Dragons rule books). Mirrorstone was the imprint I worked on, but Wizards of the Coast was the company I worked for, which was itself a division of Hasbro, the toy and game company. There were departmental lines between the novels and the games (at least at first; this changed, as corporations are wont to do), and within the novels lines, editors were assigned to particular imprints. When the now-defunct Discoveries imprint was launching, all the adult editors worked on Discoveries as well as their own Wizards-imprint books, but Mirrorstone editors worked only on Mirrorstone. Here at Lee & Low, I only work on Tu’s books, and the other editors only work on Lee & Low books, not Tu.

Editors will pass manuscripts over to editors at other imprints within the company if something has been misdirected to us, but we prefer that a book be directed to the right imprint. Hence, if your manuscript fits a particular imprint, it’s best to submit to that imprint—if they take unsolicited submissions. Most of the bigger companies don’t take unsolicited submissions, and if the larger company doesn’t, usually the imprint doesn’t. Check their submission guidelines, which are usually linked on company websites. You also might poke around on Google, blogs, and Twitter to see which editors work for which imprints; if the individual editor has submission guidelines, you can then figure out whether your book might be directed to that particular editor. If the editor doesn’t post submission guidelines or specifically says they’re not open to unsolicited submissions, you’ll need an agent to submit to them.

As far as acceptance goes, the little imprints at bigger companies can be more selective than general submissions at the parent publisher, depending on what the imprint focuses on. A more literary imprint, for example, will cull “commercial”-feeling manuscripts. A science fiction and fantasy imprint will cull manuscripts that have no speculative nature to them. I run into this a lot—people will hear “multicultural fantasy for children & young adults” and only hear “multicultural” or “fantasy,” not both. A lot of the manuscripts I receive don’t hit the specific niche I’m working to fill, and so they’re automatic no’s. So unless you are sure that your manuscript definitely fits everything an imprint is looking for—AND you’ve checked whether they accept unsolicited submissions—it’s best to find either another imprint/publisher to submit to or find an agent, who can help you in targeting your manuscript to the right editors within a closed house.

The best chance of being published—whether with a big company or a small one, with the parent publisher imprint or a small imprint—is to write a good book that fits what they’re looking for. If a publisher only does picture books, they’re not going to want to see a YA novel, and vice versa.

But it sounds like you’ve looked at the books they publish and think that their sensibility is the right fit. The next step—after polishing your manuscript to perfection, of course—is to simply submit to them, if they’re open to unsolicited submissions, and see what happens. Publishing isn’t a crap shoot—your best chance at getting published is to submit widely after finding a list of publishers that your manuscript fits. Once you start getting bites, that’s the time to get down to brass tacks about which one will have better marketing, better distribution, which one has the editor you want to work with, and so forth.

The same goes for agents. Don’t just submit to your one “dream agent.” I’m not convinced there is such a thing in abstract, before you’ve started querying and talking to those who are interested in your work. Once you start getting deeper in the process, a lot of clues will come up in the interaction to help you decide if that’s the right direction to go. If you have the rare advantage of choosing between actual offers from a large publisher, another large publisher’s prestigious imprint, and a small publisher, that’s when you start looking at each company’s track record in sales, distribution, marketing, public relations, and so forth. Until that time comes, though, cast a wide net.

The question about sales I’ll leave for another post, because that gets back as well to the advantages and disadvantages of going with small presses vs. large companies, complicated by the imprint question. I’ll try to address that later this week.

Toph: “Supercrip” stereotype or well-rounded disabled character?

- Stacy 9 Comments

I just today read this post on disabled people (or, if you prefer, people who happen to be disabled)—particularly regarding creation of characters—over at the Rejectionist, so being a little late and interested in continuing the discussion focusing on a specific character, I am turning my potential comment into a blog post instead.

Rachel notes that the “Supercrip” character stereotype is “the most pervasive and most cherished in the Able-bodied Narrative.” What was that relatively recent book made into a movie in which a kid with spina bifida (or was it cerebral palsy?) joins up with his able-bodied friend/nemesis with a mental disability to imagine that they’re both superheroes, but ends up with at least one if not both dead because they get beat up? (Forgive me if I mangled that plot—I got so annoyed by the emotional manipulation that I stopped paying attention; I must have been watching it in a location where I couldn’t just turn it off, like at a relative’s house or something.)  Then there’s A Beautiful Mind, which I can’t judge well because I refused to see it because it appeared to portray a schizophrenic curing himself—another trope Rachel discusses, looking for the cure. (My mother is schizophrenic. Sorry, it’s not curable.) It isn’t enough that the guy is a mathematician who happens to have schizophrenia. No, it makes him one of the best mathematicians in the world! It’s all so inspiring! (gag) Tell me if I’m wrong, because like I said, I avoided it it due to perceived possible emotional manipulation.

As Rachel says,

Supercrip is the “inspiring” and “amazing” disabled person who has “suffered” and “overcome” the “terrible limitations” of disability. Bitch magazine explains it thus:

Supercrip provides a way for non-disabled folks to be “inspired” by persons with disabilities without actually questioning—or making changes to—how persons with disabilities are treated in society…. Supercrip cannot just be human; she or he must be superhuman and surpass not only her/his disability, but the realms of “normal” human achievement. Supercrip allows some non-disabled folks to feel better about themselves; this is quite evident when it comes to statements like, “What an inspiration!”

In fiction, particularly fantasy, the Supercrip trope is interpreted in its literal sense—the disabled superhero, a la Daredevil, a blind man with super-sensitive hearing and touch that completely negated the effects his blindness and therefore of his experience as a blind man. It is a form of fixing and normalizes disability by rendering actual conflicts and difficulties of being disabled as irrelevant.

Which makes me wonder where Toph in Avatar: The Last Airbender fits in to this paradigm.  I don’t see Toph in the same way that I see those emotionally manipulative stories. Toph may be “making up” for her blindness via Earthbending, yet it’s not really the same thing … is it? Sure, she can “see” with her feet, but it’s a much different kind of seeing. She still can’t do some things her companions can, like read. (Because, duh, she’s blind, as she so matter-of-factly reminds them.) Being blind is simply a part of who she is as a well-rounded character. She’s not *more* awesome than everyone else (though she’s still VERY awesome)—she’s just who she is, a smart, capable girl who happens to be one of the best Earthbenders in the world (hence, my wondering: stereotype?), who discovers metalbending, who grows emotionally as a character (as does everyone in the group), and who is one of several essential people who will help the Avatar save the world.

It makes me wonder how a fantasy hero with a disability might be portrayed without playing into the Supercrip stereotype; after all, one of the main tropes of fantasy protagonists is that the reason they’re the protagonist is that they stand out in a crowd, whatever their unique talent is. It makes me wonder if it’s simply that their disability doesn’t need to be replaced with a magical ability (i.e., their disability doesn’t compensate for the “loss” of whatever ability an able-bodied person might possess), or if there’s something I’m missing, as a mostly-able-bodied person who doesn’t always get it.

How about Professor X? His disability (being unable to walk) doesn’t affect whether or not he can use his mental powers to speak in others’ minds or read their minds. It’s not a direct compensation for abilities lost—Jean Grey has the same powers and is able-bodied. And for that matter, if you’ve seen (spoilers!) The Book of Eli, in which a disabled character is a major part of the plot, there’s a huge possibility of the stereotype interpretation.

I’d really like to parse this out, because it’s important to me that people of all kinds are portrayed in the fiction I edit, and I’d like to be sure to watch out for stereotypes, but in the case of fantasy and science fiction—as opposed to realism, in which I find many more of the “inspiring” Supercrip stories using Rachel’s definition—it seems important for many (not all) protagonists to have special powers, whether able-bodied or not.

What’s your opinion? Would Toph be considered a Supercrip? How might Toph be made better as a character, within the bounds of the Avatar world, but not as a Supercrip, if you might consider her one?

From the archives: Word counts

- Stacy 2 Comments

This was posted on the old Tu Publishing blog back before I moved to New York and joined Lee & Low. You may have seen it there, or you might not have. It wasn’t ported over to the new website with some of the other content (the blog has been folded into the main Lee & Low blog, where you can get all sorts of great commentary and information on multicultural topics). An LJ reader asked about word counts in response to my last post, and I think that this kind of thing can be helpful to writers as a general guideline. Note that nothing I declare here is hard and fast. There are some writers who write very short YAs, for example—but those people generally are also not debut writers, and this kind of info is often most helpful to those getting started on their careers.

So, without further ado, the post—edited slightly to reflect that we’re now six months later than when the original post was put up in January:

We try to be specific in our submission guidelines, but there are some things that might not be clear to a new writer. For the most essential of essentials of children’s literature, please make sure to research the genre on Harold Underdown’s The Purple Crayon (and we highly recommend his Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books, as well, for great basic information).

But some things are more specific, and preferences can vary from publisher to publisher and imprint to imprint. Word count, for example, is something we don’t see too many guidelines on because so much can depend on what a publisher’s goals are. So let’s talk about what Tu Books would like to see in word counts.

First of all, when we say we are not looking for chapter books, we are specifically referring to the “intermediate reader” or “transitional reader” chapter books like Magic Treehouse. They’re shorter books for kids who have just become fluent enough readers for their own independent books, with real chapters. They are not to be confused with “early reader” books, which have fewer words and are targeted to a slightly younger reader than a chapter book. While we love chapter books, we want to focus more on older readers. There is no such thing as a “YA chapter book.”

Middle grade novels are generally for ages 8–12, or about 3rd grade to 6th or 7th grade. Readers tend to be pretty fluid through publishing categories—a third grader might still be reading picture books for older kids and chapter books while devouring middle grade books, all at the same time. But middle grade novels are a specific section of the bookstore and have specific requirements. It’s a marketing category. That section might be called “Independent Readers” or “Middle Grade” or “Children’s Novels,” depending on the store.

What happens if the book is too long? (Sketch by Howard Tayler)

Generally, middle grade novels are no less than 30–35,000 words at the minimum, and usually a whole lot more words than that. They can range anywhere from 30,000 words to 70,000 words or longer, especially in fantasy. If your “novel” is only 17,000 words, it’s too short. A 90,000 word manuscript might be a touch too long for a middle grade audience unless you’re J.K. Rowling and have already hooked tens of millions of readers with three or four books. Especially given the current economic climate—in which paper and shipping and everything else involved in printing a book is costing more—it’s best to keep a middle grade novel under the 50,000–60,000 word range, because then the design of the book can still be beautiful while keeping the page count relatively low, which ensures that even reluctant readers won’t find the printed book too daunting.

YA novels are for the 12–18 age group—the teen section of the bookstore—and word count might range from 45,000 words on the low end to 100,000 words on the high end. To tell a complex enough story for a sophisticated YA readership, though, 45,000 might be a bit low. However, plenty of really awesome YA writers have done it in that many words, so I wouldn’t rule it out. But again, if your YA book is 17,000 words, it’s either a short story or not finished. And remember the economy: too long can be hard to work with, as well. Consider whether your 100,000 word opus might really be two novels in a series or if perhaps some of the subplots might be simplified or saved for another book. If not, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but it’s something to be aware of.

These are all just guidelines, of course—like the Pirate Code, they’re not laws. But if you’ve got a 250,000 word “YA novel,” you’ve actually likely got three to five different books masquerading as one (or just one honking adult novel, depending on the subject matter). If your story is for older readers yet is only 10,000 words long, you’ve got an extremely long short story that will require a different publishing venue, or you haven’t fleshed out the story nearly enough. What’s missing?

What I’m seeing in the submissions pile

- Stacy 4 Comments

Last week, as I was going through a pile of submissions, I was thinking about the kinds of submissions I’ve been seeing. Many of them work really well, and it’s made it hard to choose, in some ways. I’m working with a few authors on manuscripts in various stages—though as you know we don’t have anything to announce just yet—but what about the rest? What are the things that make me say no right away? What kinds of things am I not seeing? So here’s a random list for you. Some of them are pretty obvious, but sometimes lists can be useful.

What I’m seeing in the submissions pile:

  • A lot of really great Asian-based fantasy. Which is awesome, but it’d be nice to see more of other cultures & ethnicities too.
  • A lot of really great YA. I’d like to see more middle grade books.
  • Really, really short books or really, really long books. If your book for teens is 13,000 words long, it’s too short. (That’s too short for most chapter books.) If your book for middle graders is 150,000 words, it’s way too long.
  • The occasional ms based on a “Native American” culture (i.e., not a specific tribe, but the label “Native American”). Be aware of cultural appropriation issues as well as how diverse the people behind the term “Native American” are, especially if you’re writing transracially. If you want to include any kind of Native American content, be sure to check out the resources at Oyate and American Indians in Children’s Literature (those are looking at currently-published books, but it’s a great way to see how to avoid cliches and misappropriation as a writer). There are hundreds of different cultures, not just one, and most First Nations/Aboriginal/Native American cultures regard their traditions as sacred and it’s important to respect that when mining history, religion, folklore, and mythology for magic systems and worldbuilding. If you do decide to include a Native American character and you’re not writing from that background, do your research and consult experts.*
  • Adult wish-fulfillment fantasy that has nothing to do with children’s/teens’ immediate lives. Remember, your audience is young readers, not adults.
  • On a similar note, stories that feel out of touch with kids/teens as they are today, rather than as they were at the time today’s adults were children.
  • Fantasies based on northwestern European folklore. These are not non-Western cultures. They are the very definition of Western. Perhaps I’d love them from another publisher, but I don’t want to publish them for this imprint, sorry.
  • Realistic tales about real, important world events that involve no fantasy or science fiction element at all. I’m sure they’re lovely/gripping/horrific, but I don’t want them. I’m looking for speculative fiction.
  • Certain kinds of characters that just don’t suit my tastes, like anthropomorphized inanimate objects and animals. For some reason, though I LOVED anthropomorphized animals as a kid, they’re just not something I want to read anymore. Blame it on missing the farm? Though SF about bioengineered people with animal DNA is fair game as long as it’s original.
  • The oddly occasional blatantly racist tale. Though thankfully I see these only very rarely.
  • A lot of not-quite-ready and not-right-for-me manuscripts that do follow the guidelines well (thank you!), which is just as it should be. Some manuscripts will work for me, some will work for other editors, some will need some more work before they’re ready to be published. Some had problems with voice, which I discussed in a previous post. Some had speculative concepts that needed more development and just weren’t ready for me, though they sounded like they had potential. Some were, honestly, downright incomprehensible. (At least there aren’t any submissions in crayon from prisoners yet. Yes, this has actually happened in the past.) That’s a normal part of the process.

The takeaway: I’d really like a few more awesome middle grade books to consider (that fit my submission guidelines, of course). And that there are lots of cultures/people I’m not seeing enough of in the submissions pile. I’d love to see more Latino, Middle Eastern, and Native American/Aboriginal/First Nations characters.

I’d love to see a Native American or Middle Eastern character (from a specific background; I’m being general here to include the many different cultures this could mean) in a futuristic/dystopian/SF novel, by the way. One that extrapolates how things are today and creates a new world with new problems. Something akin to Setsuna‘s world in Gundam 00 (does the future include peace in the Middle East? Has the balance of world power changed ala China’s influence in Serenity? (minus the no-Chinese-main-characters thing)), or something more culturally specific and less of the same generic New Age-y “Native American” discussed above than Chacotay. How might the world look to someone of a specific ethnicity in 200, 300, 400 years? Different from the mainstream because of their cultural background? Sublimated into the larger culture? Gone underground? Lost, even? In 400 years, will American culture be colorblind/accepting of all/dead/something else completely, and the issues people face be completely foreign to someone from our time? What about that same scenario, but in Iraq? And how would all that play out amidst changed technology?

Oh, the possibilities! Where is the Native American The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm?

* I wish I could find the link or at least the place I saw a link to guidelines the Australian government put out about writing using Aboriginal content, because it would probably raise some really great issues whether you’re dealing with that culture or another. If anyone knows what I’m talking about and has access to that link, can you share it?

What kind of fantasy is Tu looking for? And what kind of synopsis?

- Stacy 1 Comment

Another writer question, the answer for which I think will help more than just one writer. If any of you have questions about what we’re looking for or anything to do with the submission process, please let me know, and I’ll be glad to answer here on the blog (anonymizing your question so it can be generalized).

i was really glad to see Lee and Low’s new imprint. I’m a long time fantasy/sci-fi fan distressed by the cultural sameness of  the genre.  I have a middle-grade novel that I am currently doing some final revisions for before submission. Because I realize time is valuable commodity for editors, I wanted to get a sense how expansive your fantasy/sci-fi terms were, before I submitted.

My novel is fantasy the way Harlan Ellison’s, short fiction, or Octavia Butler’s Kindred is fantasy.  It is a slight conceit used to push the character forward. I do not engage in a discussion of big ideas like Xenogenesis, Foundation etc., nor provide a full-fledged alternative universe like Cordwainer Smith, William Gibson or Anne McCaffery.

So my question is, is that enough? Obviously, you cannot decide on the individual merits of piece without seeing it, but I wanted to be sure I was targeting the appropriate house. Also, Lee and Low’s main imprint requires a chapter by chapter synopsis, but you only suggest a synopsis. May I assume you want a simple one page synopsis (plus first three chapters)?

First, addressing the question of what kind of fantasy we’re looking for:

Fantasy in children’s and YA books is pretty wide open. It can be anything from changing one little thing in the real world (people can fly or be telepathic, etc., or there’s a secret magical cult of ninja vampires, or the Knights Templar secretly fight the undead, unknown to the wider world, or, I don’t know, a girl like Matilda finds out she can teleport things, but maybe nothing bigger than a pencil), to changing a whole world in the future or alternate history (dystopian SF like The Hunger Games or steampunk like Leviathan), to alternate world high fantasy, either through portals (like Harry Potter) or just starting out in that world (like fairy tale retellings).

I’m not sure what you mean by a slight conceit to push the character forward. If you mean something akin to just one little thing changing—such as the ability to time travel, but not control it, as happens for the main character of Kindred—sure! That works, definitely. There are a LOT of middle grade and chapter books based on just such an idea, a small tweak of reality as opposed to huge sweeping differences in worldbuilding.

But I just want to be sure that you’re also familiar with what’s out there right now for children and teens, and not just what was published in the 70s and 80s by some of the best authors on the adult side. If you haven’t already, I suggest going to your local bookstore (or library, but the bookstore is better for seeing more current books all in one place) and looking at the middle grade and YA shelves to get a good idea of how broad the definition of SF/fantasy is in that section. While Octavia Butler’s work is classic and everyone should read them, they’re not what teens are reading right now (at least, not exclusively—of course they’re still reading her, or she wouldn’t be a classic).

Same goes for middle grade readers. Some books will always be classics, but when thinking about writing for a middle grade audience, you want to start from the idea that modern kids will be reading this, so you don’t want to use titles written for adults 30 years ago as your comparison point. As I look at my shelves filled with Shannon Hale’s Goose Girl and Princess Academy, Pseudonymous Bosch’s This Book Is Not Good for You, Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, and Adam Rex’s The True Meaning of Smekday, I see a pretty broad range of fantastic and speculative worldbuilding in these titles for middle grade readers and think you’ll probably be okay. David Lubar’s My Rotten Life changes only one thing about the world: a science experiment gone wrong turns Nathan Abercrombie into an accidental zombie. One little tweak in the possibilities of science leads to hilarious adventure.

So: if you’re familiar with what’s out there right now for this audience, you’ll probably get a sense of whether or not your story works for this market. If it also features diversity in its characters and setting, then it works  for submitting to Tu. In particular, I want to emphasize that we’d like the main character to be a person of color.

To answer the synopsis question: Yes, a page or two (perhaps four at most for a big, epic tale) is the kind of synopsis I’m asking for with sample chapters. It’s the kind of synopsis that would answer my big-picture plot questions if I liked the first three chapters, to see if you can plot a novel and carry through from a great start. Of course, whether that held up in the full manuscript would then remain to be seen, but it gives me a better idea of whether I’d want to request the full manuscript.

Is my character “black enough”

- Stacy 14 Comments

I recently got this question from a writer, who agreed that answering it on the blog would be useful:

My hero is a fifteen-year-old African American boy [in a science fiction story]. A few of my alpha readers (not all) have said that he doesn’t sound “black enough.” I purposely made him an Air Force brat who has lived in several different countries to avoid having to use cliche hood-terminology. I want him to be universal.

Do you have thoughts on this either way?

Is there a possibility that my potential readers could really be offended that a) I am “a white girl writing a book about black people” and b) that my character doesn’t sound black enough? I’ve looked through your blog and website and haven’t found anything specific to my needs on this particular question. Perhaps I missed it?

…should I use Ebonics or not use Ebonics?

First of all, black people—just as white people or Latino people—are a very diverse group of people. There are people who speak in Ebonics [ETA: which I believe would be more accurately referred to as BVE–Black Vernacular English] and people who speak plain old suburban English, people who speak with any of a variety of Southern accents and people who have Chicago accents, people who speak with French or Spanish accents (or who speak French or Spanish or an African language). So the question of whether a particular character in a particular situation sounds “black enough” is a complicated question, one that even the African American community can’t necessarily agree on. Within the community (and I say this because I asked a coworker who is African American, who can speak with more authority on the subject than I can) it’s often a question that draws on complicated factors, such as money, privilege, “selling out,” skin tone (relative darkness or lightness—literally, being “black enough”), and hair texture, which all relate to how much a part of which community a person might be.

The question, then, is fraught with loaded meaning not only to do with stereotypes, but also socioeconomic meanings. [And, edited to add, because it might not be clear enough: The question can also tend to be offensive because of that diversity and the loaded meaning the question carries.]

Which leads me to the question of your alpha readers. What are their demographics? Is it a diverse group? What is their experience with the military? Is more than one of them African American? When writing cross-culturally, you’ll want to be sure that your beta readers include sufficient numbers of the member of the group you’re writing about. Every individual experience will be different—one person’s opinion on whether a character reads as African American will probably differ from another person’s, especially if their socioeconomic background and regional experiences are different. An African American from the St. Louis suburbs will have a different life experience than someone who grew up on a farm in Louisiana, whose experiences will probably be different from a kid who grew up in Harlem or someone else who grew up in Seattle.

If your local writing group isn’t very diverse, you might need to branch out for beta readers who you can rely on to comment on that particular element of your story—perhaps through an online writing group, perhaps through the SCBWI. You might even approach a local high school and ask if any of their students who come from a similar background to your character might be willing to give you feedback on your manuscript. Do you have connections with a local Air Force base? Perhaps you might network with people you know in the military to find someone who can give you feedback on that aspect of the character building.

To answer your other questions: it’s always possible that someone will be offended by a white person writing about a person of color, but generally, most readers I’ve talked to who care about diversity in fantasy and science fiction want that diversity to come from everyone, not just writers of color. This is why I emphasized alpha readers—it’s important to make sure that if you’re not from that background, you do your research (which it sounds like you have) and then run it past someone other than yourself who understands that culture or background (in this case, you’ve got two cultures going on: African American and military, particularly Air Force, which has a completely different culture than Army).

A few someones is even better, to ensure that you get different points of view and can mesh that feedback into something that works for your particular character, who will be an individual in his own right and not a representative of a group that plays into a stereotype.

Which leads into your next question: should you use Ebonics? And the answer to that is: I don’t know. Do African Americans in the military use Ebonics? Do only some of them, and does it depend on their family history/region of origin? Do their kids speak to each other in Ebonics? Or do they have their own way of speaking that’s particular to the Air Force community? (My uncle was in the Air Force and I have a couple cousins who might read this who may be able to answer that question; they’ve never spoken anything but “Midwestern” to me, but they might have spoken differently to their friends who were also Air Force brats.)

And that’s important too: people often have different vocabularies when talking to different groups of people. When my roommates from Georgia talked to their family, their accents became stronger. When I talk to my rural family, the word “crik” has been known to creep back into my lexicon. So ask yourself, “what’s the context my character is in?” as well.

And of course, that’s just me spouting off from the point of view of an editor. Readers, feel free to chime in and help out writers who write cross-culturally: what other issues should they be aware of when writing African American characters?

Announcement: Now closed for critiques

- Stacy

Given the demands on my time from a number of directions, I am now closing for new critiques indefinitely. I still have several critiques I’m working on that I need to get back to the authors on; if you’re one of those people, I apologize for the wait. You will be hearing from me soon. For anyone with whom I haven’t made a payment arrangement or agreed to do a critique, I apologize that I won’t be able to assist you.

To be able to have the time I need outside of my day job to start Tu Publishing, I need to reserve my evenings after the day job for that, once I finish the critiques that are in the current queue.

If you are local to me in Utah, I plan to recontinue the seminars on writing and publishing that I have done in the past. I’ve meant to schedule another one soon, but I’ve been swamped, and haven’t been able to do so. Seminars use much less of my time than one-on-one critiques, and so I’ll be able to schedule those much more freely in the future.

If you aren’t in Utah and would like me to come to your area for a seminar on writing and publishing, please contact me at stacylwhitman AT gmail.com, and we can discuss the particulars. Generally, you’ll need at least 20-30 people for a general seminar, and 10-15 people for an in-depth seminar.

My sincere thanks to all those authors with whom I’ve had the chance to work one-on-one this last year. I enjoyed reading your work, and I hope that my feedback was useful as you work toward publication.

Why I can’t recommend you to an agent

- Stacy

Sometimes I get emails from people who are just starting out in the publishing process. I understand the frustration that comes when from seeing that practically every publisher requires agented submissions. If you aren’t sure where to start, it can be daunting to try to find information on publishing through Google (Writer Beware covered this a while back, and they’ve got some good points—there are a lot of self-publishing and disreputable agents that show up at the top of such searches).

But the solution is not to approach a publishing house or a specific editor to ask (or even sometimes demand), “If you won’t read my manuscript, then recommend me to an agent so I can get you to read my manuscript!” I can’t even do this for relatives/friends/relatives of friends without knowing their writing really well (and even if I know their writing well and think it’s good enough to be published—a rarity—I would generally be more likely to recommend someone’s writing to a fellow editor, rather than an agent).

I don’t feel qualified in helping writers find agents, and in fact feel that it’s a conflict of interest to make such recommendations. Agents recommend writers to editors. An agent is a writer’s advocate in contractual negotiations. The publisher shouldn’t interfere with that relationship. (For a different kind of hypothetical example, even if I were to feel that a writer’s agent might not be doing a very good job, it’s not my place to suggest that the writer find a new agent; the very nature of my position as a representative of a publisher makes my opinion biased, even if writers would say the same thing about the agent.)

Also, it’s important to remember that most editors/companies who have limited their submissions to agented-only have a good reason for the requirement: usually they need a way to limit the quantity of their submissions while ensuring the quality. This means that they’re pretty busy people, and it’s kind of absurd to expect them to give personal attention to every single request for information. It just can’t be done, and allow them to do the work that makes the company money as well. While it may only take “a few minutes” of their time, multiply that by a thousand or ten thousand, and the noise crowds out the work getting done.

We understand, though, that getting published is a frustrating, sometimes opaque process for those who haven’t discovered the rich resources of the internet—or who have googled “publishing” and been hit by completely unreputable results. Finding information on getting published on the internet can be really hard if you don’t have a single place to start. This is why editors and agents who blog do what we do—to provide a source of general information and conversation about the industry that can usually answer most questions, especially the basics of the submission process.

If you do find a single place to start—for example, if someone you know says, “Check out the website of this editor I know!”—it can be tempting to hope that this connection will subvert the frustrating hunt for information. However, if you hunt a little deeper (well, really, if you made it to my website, you should have come to my blog first, rather than to the page that shows my email), you’ll find that the blog—and even more, the whole blogosphere/Twitterverse—provides a wealth of information that can set you on your path without having to rely on an email from an overworked editor for a reference she feels that ethically, she can’t give.

So let’s discuss some of the first places you should be looking, if you’ve gotten this far, for information on how to get published in the children’s and young adult market, which should spiderweb out to a number of different resources through links and references in blog posts and Twitter feeds.

First place to start for children’s and YA writers: the SCBWI main page. That page should lead you to links for your local SCBWI, which should lead you to information on local meetings, writing groups, conferences, and other events–including conferences at which agents and editors are in attendance. Join a writing group, join the local listserv, and start absorbing all the riches of reliable information your fellow writers have to share.

The next place to go is just as important as the first: Harold Underdown’s The Purple Crayon. This is such a complete resource that I often just recommend these two sites (SCBWI and this one) for people just starting out looking for information on getting published in children’s and YA books. Harold wrote The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books, has been an editor for years (several years at Macmillan, Orchard, and Charlesbridge, and now a freelancer), and has been maintaining the Purple Crayon for many years, at which you can find information on topics from the basics through the entire publishing process and on to figuring out agents.

A new essential resource I’ve started adding to the list is Agent Query. The site seems to be down at the moment, but I got through at a back door—but the database, which is its most useful feature, doesn’t seem to be working. Keep checking back on it, because it is a great resource for writers starting out on the agent-querying process, with information on writing a query, how to avoid scammers, and a full search of agent listings by genre and several other considerations.

Also note that plenty of blogging authors discuss how to find an agent (and when the appropriate time is in your writing life to find an agent). Google the authors who your work would fit in with most, and start listening to what they say about their writing process, about how they got started in their career, about how they found an agent—you’ll find a lot of good information there, and links to resources that will be much more useful than a quick Google search. Mentors are definitely out there.

Keep an eye out on Preditors and Editors, as well.

If you’re looking for an agent, you should be reading the blogs and Twitter feeds of at least a few of the many agents out there offering advice. Here is a list, in no particular order:

There are SO many more that I’m definitely forgetting, but it’s getting late (I started to write this last night and fell asleep in the next paragraph, actually), and you should be able to follow the conversations on these blogs and feeds to get a sense of who else is out there to follow. Between all of them, writers new to the publishing end of things can get a great education, and all for free.

Who am I missing on the agent list? Please include links to Twitter feeds for agents who don’t have blogs. (I’m linking blogs for people who have them, Twitter feeds for those that don’t have blogs. Those who have blogs might also have a Twitter feed, but truth is, it’s 1 am and I’m hieing myself to bed, and I’ll worry about that tomorrow.) I’ll add the links to the list tomorrow as time permits (which I have, but it’s still incomplete). Also remember that Twitter has become a really great source of information on publishing from a number of publishing folks who don’t have as much time to blog, but who can participate in more scattered conversations throughout the day. For a full list of all the publishing people on Twitter, check out … I can’t find the link of the page that has them all listed. Hopefully someone will know what I’m talking about and give me the link, because I have to run out the door right now and run some errands.

Writing Excuses hilarity, conferences and conventions for children’s/YA

- Stacy

Today’s Writing Excuses covers conventions you (writers) should be attending, but they didn’t really have time to cover conventions and conferences specifically geared for children’s books (and I actually am not sure if any of them have been to anything except the occasional BYU Writing for Young Readers). I’ve been meaning to post something about this for a while, so this sparked me to remember to do this post!

(And remember to go back to Writing Excuses next week, when they talk about what you should be doing at a writing conference/convention.)

Before we get into that, though, I had to share a hypothetical scenario that Brandon and Peter, long-time friends of yore, came up with after I twittered about Dan‘s US cover. My tweets get imported into Facebook, and in answer to this tweet:

I am Not a Serial Killer (and you can too)–friend Dan Wells’s book’s US cover is revealed: http://tinyurl.com/kkfrjx (he’s @johncleaver)

Peter posted this in reply on Facebook:

Well, according to Brandon:

Q: If the gang from Writing Excuses were put in a horror film, obviously Dan would be the killer. But what order do you think everyone would die in? And how would they die? (The victim list includes: you, Howard, Jordan, Pemberly, Stacy, and Peter)

A: Ha! Well, let’s see. If Dan were the killer, I think he’d try to take out Howard first, since Howard is obviously the most dangerous of us all. Though he sees me more often, so he might try to get to me first. I’d put it in this order:… Read More

Howard
Me
Jordo
Peter
Pemberly (he’d leave the women for last because he’s a very gentlemanly killer.)

And then Stacy would take Dan down in a surprise ending. She’d edit him out of the script or something.

So if you know the Writing Excuses guys, watch out for Howard, but perhaps even more, watch out for me!

On to conferences. In the podcast, the guys cover several different types of gatherings that writers might attend: literary conventions, anime conventions, media conventions, conferences and trade-shows. In children’s books, we don’t really have conventions for fans in the same way that fantasy/scifi has conventions (Comic-Con, DragonCon, anime conventions–these are big gatherings where vendors set up booths to sell (or give away) things directly to fans). Though we might consider a parallel to that to be school visits, which aren’t exactly a big thing in adult books.

Trade shows, of course, are the same for both adult and children’s–BEA (Book Expo America, a show for booksellers), ALA (the American Library Association’s annual and midwinter conferences, a trade show for librarians, obviously), IRA (the International Reading Association, a show for teachers, especially elementary teachers), NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English, kind of more of a conference than a trade show compared to the others above, high school English teachers). Obviously, IRA and NCTE tend to attract more children’s and YA books, and of course educational publishing, but there’s some crossover.

In the children’s book community, though, the biggest conferences to be aware of fall under either literary conventions (according to their definitions, though we might call them conferences interchangeably) or conferences (again, according to their defs). Which ones should you be aware of?

Literary conventions

  • SCBWI New York
  • SCBWI Los Angeles
  • Local SCBWI conferences like those hosted by the Seattle, Chicago, Houston, and New England SCBWIs

All of the above are great — and inexpensive — places to attend classes on craft, getting published, and marketing your book, meet guest editors and writers, network with other writers, and all sorts of other beneficial activities. You might meet people who you’ll end up forming a critique group through, or you might discover that a guest editor is looking for something that you write; often editors who work at houses that are closed to unsolicited/unagented submissions are open to submissions for a limited time from conference attendees.

Connected with these things, if you aren’t familiar with the activities hosted by your local Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), you should investigate. Most chapters host a lot more than their yearly conferences–they often have monthly meetings, offer a listserv, have members looking for critique groups online and in person, and man other local resources. You’ll be able to find out information on both the national and local organizations at the link above.

Conferences (aka workshops or seminars)

  • BYU Writing for Young Readers
  • Clarion
  • Chatauqua
  • …I know I’m missing several — what am I forgetting?

It’s getting late, which is why I’m forgetting a lot. I’ll save this post and add to it tomorrow, but in the mean time, feel free to post conferences I’m forgetting in the comments.