Internship: One Month In

I’ve now been at my internship at FinePrint Literary Management

/Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation for just about a month.  I love it and I feel like I’m learning so much.  Can anyone ask for more from an internship?

Because most people I’ve talked to don’t know how a literary agency plays into the lengthy process of getting a book published, I just want to run through it quickly:

Step #1: Author Writes A Book

Step #2: Author Writes A Query Letter to an Agent at a Literary Agency Asking the Agent to Represent Them

Step #3: Agent (or Intern, in the beginning) Reads the Query Letter/ Partial Manuscript. There Are Four Options:

Option #1: The Query Letter/Manuscript is Plain Old Bad.  Reject.

Option #2: The Agent the Author Wrote to Isn’t Accepting New Clients or That Genre/ Type of Book the Author Wrote Isn’t Selling Well In Today’s Market.  Reject.

Option #3: The Query Letter/Partial Manuscript is Intriguing.  Request Full Manuscript.  Potential Offer of Representation to Follow.

Option #4: Wow! The Query Letter/Partial Manuscript is Great.  Request Full Manuscript and then Agent Wants to Represent Author.

If Option #3 or #4 Happens:

Step #4: Agent Works with Author to Edit Manuscript.

Step #5: Agent Pitches Manuscript to Publishing Houses.

Step #6: Manuscript Sells.  Everyone Celebrates!

Step #7: Manuscript Now In the Hands of a Publishing House.  (Then, for the

Following Year+: Editor Works with Author and Agent to Edit Manuscript.  Editor Works with Sales/Marketing/Etc. to Pitch Manuscript to Entire Company and Sell it to Bookstores/Libraries/Etc. Editor Works with Design/Art Department to Create Cover.  And more….I covered quite a bit of this at my first internship, at Bloomsbury Children’s Books)

Step #8: Manuscript, now a Book, Makes it to Bookstores.  Everyone Celebrates Again!

There you have it.  Eight simple steps to getting a book published.  Piece of cake, right?

At FP-NC I’ve been dealing mostly with Steps #3 and #4.   Every day when I get to work there will be a pile of queries waiting to be read.  Most of them fall into Options #1 or #2: REJECT.  The writing, even for the query letter, needs to be fantastic and hook a reader immediately.  Most aspiring writers could benefit from a look at QueryShark, by FP’s own Janet Reid.   There have been a few manuscripts in the pile of many that have fallen into Option #3 for me.   With the full manuscript in hand, I was eager for it to turn into an offer of representation.  No luck for that author: REJECT.  I have yet to personally see an Option #4.  They’re a rare species.  But I’m on the lookout!  I was, however, able to sit in on a meeting where one of the agents signed a new client.  This client’s work is fantastic- I’m very excited!

The larger part of my day (and often, night) deals with Step #4.  I help the agent I’m working for that particular week read and edit a large pile of manuscripts. Some belong to potential clients, some to first time clients, some to long time clients with a new manuscript.  But the process is the same: they all need editing, and lots of it.  Reading an average of one full manuscript a day, I’ll settle into the far-too-comfy-for-my-own-good armchair or red couch and I begin reading, taking detailed notes along the way to turn into a reader’s report.

If it’s a good manuscript, I’ll still have an average of five pages of comments and suggestions for improvement.  Language can always be tighter, characters always more relatable, world building always more vivid.  Whether authors make these changes or not is another story, but the agents know what they’re talking about, and they’re teaching their faithful interns to do the same.

If it’s a bad manuscript and doesn’t belong to a client, that’s normally the end of the road.  REJECT.  Once if it’s client’s, however, the agent has to work with the author to make the manuscript better.  I couldn’t believe it at first- no rejections (at least, from the agent) anymore!

So, good or bad, I’m writing up a lengthy reader’s report detailing all the changes the author should make to their work.  I’ll pass this report on to the agent I’m working for, and she’ll add her own opinion/comments, and then forward it to the author.  Time for revisions.

A huge part of agent’s job is Step #5: Pitching the Manuscript to a Publishing House.  Just last week I was lucky enough to listen in on one of the agents working hard to sell a manuscript she is so passionate about.  Per my request, she sat down with me and another intern and explained how she selected the eight or so editors to focus on based on her relationships with the editors, the editors’ interests and what type of books the imprint or company tends to publish.  That little chat was so eye opening.  There is A LOT to know!   The agents at FP-NC, however, are fantastic and, of course, know their stuff.  The office ended up with a Step #6: Celebration on that one the following week!

Celebrating a big sale or the debut of a novel is also a big part of literary agency life (Celebrating does make it twice on Steps-to-Publishing-A-Book!).   Although I sadly couldn’t attend, there was a launch party for Kody Kepliner’s debut novel, The DUFF, during my first week of the internship.  And I may have secretly been jumping up and down when she visited the office the week later to rehash all the launch’s excitement.  The perks of being an intern!

Phew! That was long! But that’s the life of an intern (and really anyone who works in publishing.  Hours are L-O-N-G!).  But, as anyone in the industry will tell you: IT IS SO WORTH IT.  You get to read books and make great books available to the masses.  FOR YOUR JOB! I’ve read great projects, ones that I know will absolutely be books in the future.  (Oh, how I wish I could tell you about them…but I had to sign a confidentiality agreement…but you’ll read those books soon in stores.  Promise.)

And not just the job, it’s the people, too.  Where else can you find such like-minded people?  People who get excited as much as you do about a manuscript or a newly released YA novel or a debut author.  Case in point: during my very first lunch while I was interning at Bloomsbury the three assistant/associate editors were saying that they needed to read Twilight.  Now I had just read Stephanie Meyer’s book, but NO they couldn’t be talking about the YA novel, now could they? These were intelligent, mature women, after all.  So, shy intern that I was, I kept my mouth shut.  But there was no need, I soon learned.  It was the YA novel they were talking about.  Of course, why wouldn’t it have been? They were children’s book editors.  I was a children’s book intern.  You read children’s books for work, to stay up with trends, but also because you love them.  In how many other jobs is your work reading the same thing as your pleasure reading and you have the colleagues to talk about it with?

This is why I’m willing to do a second unpaid internship in the hopes of it leading to a full time job.  Because I need that publishing job.  Not for the money, although that is a big plus (even though publishing pays infamously low), but because I LOVE books.  I love reading them, writing them, and I want to make great new ones available to read and help everyone to feel the same way I do.  I always want to be surrounded by books.

There I go again.  I started talking about the daily grind of an unpaid intern and ending up preaching about why I’m a Book Lover.   But it’s all related.  And so worth it.

A Bit About My Writing

So I’ve been babbling for the past few weeks about books I love and various other book related topics.  Today I’d like to go back to those Book Lover goals…and not the (should be relatively easy but isn’t in this economy) goal of getting a job…the harder goal of becoming a published author.

Gah- I said it again! I’m already a writer, but I want to be an AUTHOR too.  In face-to-face conversation, this statement is nearly always followed by a bashful smile.  But then when someone asks me what I’m writing about, the shyness disappears.  Why? Because I LOVE what I’m writing.  I’m passionate about it.  And that why I can call myself a Book Lover.

So, a bit about what I’m writing, how I’ve gotten here, and where I’m going…

The Rose of Coracus is a YA novel that takes place in the quasi-medieval fantastical kingdom of Harren, where Shayna, a dancer and talented seamstress of a hated ethnic group, meets the Crown Prince in disguise, Johnathan, who is trying to learn more about his future kingdom.  Add betraying best friends, potential suitors, pressure from parents and a building rebellion into the mix, all while Johnathan and Shayna are trying to figure out their place in the world.  You can see where this is going (so you think!)…but I’m going to make you wait to find out the ending until you can buy the book in stores! 

I’ve been working on this story seriously for the past eight months or so, when I decided I would do it for my senior project at Hamilton.  This summer I did a series of revisions (and learned the importance of setting a rigid schedule for yourself), including adding all of Johnathan’s perspective…I NEVER thought I’d be able to write from a male point of view, but I think (and have been told by my faithful reader, Heather) it works.  In August, just when I thought I was being close to finished, my friend read the beginning and came up with a GENIUS addition to the plot, which meant I needed to do major rewriting…and I wouldn’t be finished for a few more months (geez, thanks a lot, Heather!).  In reality, though, I’ve been working on this story much longer.  After being influenced by Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books in middle school, I began writing my Harren stories during the summer between eighth and ninth grade.  Called Shayna’s Story until recently, it was envisioned to be the third in a series.  In early high school, my friends and I formed an informal writer’s group.  This novel was the only one I ever finished…finished in the eyes of a sixteen year old.  Which is why, five years later, when I had the opportunity to work on the story again and make it MUCH stronger through my senior creative writing class, I eagerly did so.  And now, clocking in at 71,000 words with a few chapters still to be added and one more round of polishing, I’m just about done…done in the eyes of a twenty two year old.  I know there’s SO much work still to be done, but I’m super proud of what I’ve accomplished and sure that, with all that hard work, perseverance and other Book Lover values I’ve picked up along the way, this story is going to be something.  Someday.  Hopefully someday soon?

In another month or so I’m going to begin the second, and probably even harder, step of trying to get an agent to represent me.  I’m lucky, because of my background in publishing, I know more than the average writer about what I’m supposed to do and not do.  I’m sure I’ll make some mistakes, but I also know that lots of writers try to get their not-so-good manuscripts published (I’ve read and rejected more than I can count).  Mine is WAY better than a lot of manuscripts I’ve read interning at Bloomsbury and FinePrint/Nancy Coffey.  And if those potential authors think their manuscript deserves a chance, mine sure does, too!  Probably, some intern will reject my manuscript, like so many others.  But then again, maybe one intern will like it.  And pass it on to her boss.  And she’ll like it, too.  It only takes one.

I’ll keep you updated! 

Books + NYC + Map = Love

I’m a Book Lover, obviously.  I <3 NY and am eager to move here permanently.  It is, after all, the second best city in the world (after London, naturally).  But what you may not know about me is that I’m obsessed with maps.  When I was little my mom posted a huge world map on the wall and I would impressed my extended family with my ability to find any country they could name.  Today, I’m lucky I now have a boyfriend who thinks he drags me into map stores, when really, I want to be there just as much as he does.  (Really really cool) Old maps, new maps, world maps, city transportation maps…they fascinate me.  Thus, when I found something the other day that combined all three of my loves, I just had to share it:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2005/06/05/books/20050605_BOOKMAP_GRAPHIC.html

This is AWESOME.  Of course, the map doesn’t include a lot of recent MG/YA books that have Manhattan settings.  Laurie Halse Anderson’s Revolutionary War era Chains and Forge, Rebecca Stead’s Newbery winner When You Reach Me, Anna Godbersen’s turn of the century Luxe series, or Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series, for example.  And there are plenty of others; authors past and present have always been pulled towards NYC and the amazing setting the island provides.  So use this map as a start for your Manhattan literary wonderings, and add your own, too.  I’m sure you’ll find something around every corner.

Get Your Library Card, Folks!

This is going to be a short post (my internship is keeping me so busy…more on that later) but I wanted to add a little reminder to my blog.

September is Library Card Sign Up Month! Woo hoo! So exciting!

But really, everyone should have a library card.  Where else can you read all the books you’d ever want (plus watch movies, listen to CDs and audiobooks, etc.) for FREE?  And then there’s the awesome programming for kids and adults, free classes and even free museum passes or access to special programs/databases online.  Go to your library.  Check out (haha-get it?) all the possibilities.

Just earlier this week I went to the Morningside Heights branch of the New York Public Library and got my very own card for my sometimes home. Granted, because I don’t actually live in NYC yet they’d only give me a temporary three-month card…but hopefully by the end of December I’ll no longer be quite so unemployed and have a place of my own in the city.  But until then, I’ll take the temporary card.  All I had to do is fill out a simple form, sign the back of the card they gave me, and then I had free reign over the small second floor room….AND the rest of the NYPL system.  Just about anything I’d ever want to read is now at my fingertips…for FREE! (This is exciting stuff!)

So I’m urging everyone (I’m talking to you recent college grads who just moved to a new city to start a job/go to grad school) to check out his/her local library and get a library card.  Hurry up! Get one before it’s too ‘late’. The month is almost over! But hey, I’ll cut you some slack…it’s okay if you get a new card in October or November or even next March. But the sooner the better, because who knows what you’ll discover with that library card!

Speak Loudly

I was going to blog about something different today, but in honor of the upcoming ALA Banned Books Week (Sept. 25-Oct. 2) and all the buzz surrounding Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak and the controversial article by Wesley Scroggins, I decided to write a brief post with my thoughts.

My thoughts are simple and straightforward: BANNING BOOKS IS A BAD IDEA.

Why? Banning a book that explores controversial topics doesn’t protect children; it hinders their growth, maturity and knowledge. We learn things through thought and discussion; without acknowledging a matter, we’re essentially erasing it.  And, simply put, that’s no good. 

Although many books have, and will, face a challenge, I’m going to focus on Speak for the moment.  I was lucky enough to read Speak as part of my required summer reading one year in high school.  Yes, it’s true I remember that my mom was surprised when the narrator’s quirky voice disclosed that she had been raped.  But my sensible mom didn’t have any problem with me reading it.  Why? Because as scary as the topic of rape is, it’s a subject many girls and women have to face…how can they face it alone, in silence? Laurie Halse Anderson is offering them support and speaking up for what is right.  How can you possible ban that idea? (And the fact that Scroggins objects to Speak because he says the rape scenes are soft porn isn’t something I’m even going to delve into…)

Contemporary books like Speak aren’t the only ones threatened- in many schools classics such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, Catcher in the Rye, and To Kill a Mockingbird are no longer on high school reading lists because someone found them to contain undesirable material. Slaughterhouse Five, Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men and many others have also been challenged throughout their publication history.  My closest encounter with a book being challenged occurred when my entire church youth group was given The Color Purple; several parents spoke up strongly and forbade their children from reading the novel.

Yet, banning a book to protect children from reading strong language or about rape, race relationships, religion (or lack thereof) and sexuality isn’t the answer.  Can’t we sit down and discuss these topics, perhaps even after reading the book that brings up the topic? That seems like the perfect place for a high school teacher or parent to step in.  Let children explore and learn; it’s perfectly alright to aid and guide them along the way, but don’t hush up the truth.

In honor of Banned Book Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, read a banned or challenged book. Check out #SpeakLoudly on Twitter.  And actually speak.  Silence isn’t the answer.

For more information:  

Laurie Halse Anderson’s take: http://madwomanintheforest.com/this-guy-thinks-speak-is-pornography/

ALA Banned Books Week website: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/index.cfm

Buy v. Borrow, Hardcover v. Paperback

Do I buy a book or borrow it from the library and/or a friend? If I’m going to buy a book, do I want it in hardcover or paperback?  These seem like simple questions, but for a book lover, they’re essential. 

When I was little, I was a library girl because my mom didn’t like to buy many books.  Books are expensive to buy, especially if you don’t reread them.  Then they just sit on your shelves (and look very pretty).  As I got older, however, and realized that 1) I had a little spending money and 2) I DO like to reread books (for example, I reread the Harry Potter series each time before the new book came out), so I decided to start buying books.  Yet unlike today’s teens I didn’t know what the-next-big-thing-in-YA was.  Probably because the-next-big-thing-in-YA tread hadn’t even started yet.  I wasn’t inundated with social media that advertized books; I barely knew what Amazon was and most certainly didn’t order my books online!  I bought books the old-fashion way: going to the bookstore and seeing what caught my eye.  It’s true I had a few favorite series that I made sure to follow (Tamora Pierce’s several Tortall series, T.A. Barron’s The Lost Years of Merlin series, Elizabeth Haydon’s Rhapsody Trilogy and Symphony of Ages, among others), yet for the most part it was just pick and choose.  And because I was a teen with just a little spending money, often my decisions were based on cost.  A hardcover verses a cheaper paperback? I’d pick the paperback.  (Oh, and another tiny confession to make.  I HATE jacket covers.  I know they’re supposed to protect the hardcover book and look pretty, but to me they just get wrinkled and bent the moment I pick the book up, so it’s a waste of material.)

Now that I’m involved in the publishing industry things have changed, yet I’m hesitant to change with them.  I’m constantly surrounded by people talking about the-next-big-thing-in-YA, and I want to read it, too! Unless I’m lucky enough to have snagged an ARC, my options are limited.  Buy the expensive hardcover (I caved in and did that for Linger)? Wait a little longer to borrow if from a library (if they carry it), knowing that chances are I’ll buy the paperback, at least, eventually?  Right now I’ve settled in a sort of middle ground; buying popular books the moment they’re in paperback, but sometimes it takes a while for that to happen.  Even though I’ve read (and LOVED) The Hunger Games series, I still don’t own the first two books because they’ve yet to be released in paperback (what a marketing/sales feat!).  And I have yet to read books that I’ve heard positive reviews about for ages: The DUFF, Before I Fall, When you Reach Me. It’s killing me I haven’t read these books yet, and I’m going to run into the same problem when The Replacement, Beautiful Darkness, Matched and others come out later this fall.  I may sound like a bratty teenager (or whiny toddler), but I just want them ALL!

So there’s my book lover dilemma.  Thoughts? What do you prefer to read, a borrowed library book or a book you’ve bought? Will you go out and buy a book after you’ve read it and loved it? Will you buy in paperback or in hardcover? How do you keep up to date with all the awesome new books out there? I hope you’ve come up with a good solution, I’d love to hear it!

Imagination, and Other Book Lover Values

“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive—it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?”

- Anne Shirley to Matthew Cuthbert, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Imagination.  The chance to dream and hope.  The skills to achieve those dreams.  I sat down today trying to figure out which books I read as a child influenced my book lover values.  I came up with four names: Anne, Laura, Jo, and Nancy*. These girls were some of my best friends and role models growing up, and even today.  I can turn to my (real life) best friend and we’ll happily recount their adventures.  We learned lessons about friendship, morals, perseverance and hard work, romantic relationships, but they never felt didactic.  I learned and grew along with the girls of those books.

One of the biggest characteristics of these characters were their big dreams.  They weren’t afraid to imagine a different world, and they worked hard to achieve it. Unlike her sisters, Jo wanted to be a writer and, in turn, became one.  Anne became a writer and was one of the only girls from Avonlea to go off to college.  Nancy solved mysteries.  Laura lead an adventurous life (traveling across the country, Native Americans, illness and crop failures) and became a teacher.  They had realistic dreams, they had unrealistic dreams (“call me Cordelia”, anyone?), they had little dreams, they had big dreams.  But they worked hard to achieve them and made their way in the world, with a few bumps and bruises, but overall coming out on the top. In college Anne learns “Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing” so maybe those scrapes that happened along the way aren’t so bad.  You try, you fail, but you learn, dream some more, and try again.

These girls also dealt with issues that modern girls could relate to:

Jo wasn’t considered feminine. More than any other heroine, as a child I could relate to Jo.  It’s funny, because I’m more of a Meg today, but when I was ten I was an outspoken and creative dreamer who also happened to be a bull-in-a-china-shop.  Jo even wanted to be a writer, too!  These qualities made Jo unusual for her time, and readers can relate to her because she is presented as a well-rounded lifelike character, full of good and bad qualities.

Anne had similar difficulty fitting in, and often suffered from body image issues, although that vocab most certainly didn’t make it into L.M. Montgomery’s books.  Anne hated her red hair and freckles, and got into many a scrape (dying her hair green wasn’t really what she was going for…) trying to change her look.  In the end, she realizes that maybe she should just embrace her appearance.

And Jo’s family’s financial situation and lessons that Marmee and their father (from afar) try to teach the little women about being content even if they don’t have everything was a lesson that I needed to hear growing up.  The March sisters worked hard and made do with what they had; if they could do it, so could I.  Laura’s family provided a similar example; they starved through long winters and had to sell a cow in order to buy needed supplies.  Such a lifestyle was (is, thank god!) foreign to me, yet I still had the example of Jo and Laura.  They were creative with and thankful for what they had.

Nancy (red hair and freckled and proud about it), the amateur sleuth, also proved that you could go anything you set your heart to.  Solve mysteries? Battle evil guys? Restore lost heirlooms? Drive a car, change a tire, drive a boat, speak French, ride a horse, etc.? Check, check, check AND check. The best part was, which I’m sure my feminist mom was proud of, although Nancy had a steady boyfriend, Ned, he only showed up at the end, once Nancy, George and Bess had solved the mystery.  Go gurrrrl power! Nancy could be in a relationship and perfectly self sufficient (and kick ass), too.

These four books/series are classics, yet haven’t lost any of their charm or ability for girls to relate.  From Civil War Massachusetts, the lonely Midwestern prairie, turn of the century Prince Edward Island, or 1930s River Heights, Jo, Laura, Nancy and Anne still experienced the same things I did when I was growing up.  Literary characters make great friends (they’re always around when you need them!), so if you know a girl who has reached the age of twelve and hasn’t yet read these books, get them for her now.  She’ll thank you for it.

* For those of you not on first name basis with the girls, they’re Laura Ingalls (Wilder) of Little House on the Prairie, etc., Josephine March of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, Nancy Drew and her series by Carolyn Keene and Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables, etc. by L.M. Montgomery.