Dear Linnhe

Mary and Eleanor answer Linnhe's question

Apr 12, 2024

I’ve just sent the second draft of my first novella to four agents. I did a lot of research on manuscript formatting
and I’m hopeful I ticked all the boxes. My question is,
If it is not 100% formatted correctly have I ‘wasted’ my shot at this?

My answer is, basically, you’re okay, because you’ve done the work and formatted correctly—so any minor errors won’t kill the sell.

Although formatting might reveal another as a rank amateur who hasn’t bothered with the do’s and don’t’s, that’s not you, Linnhe, as I’ve read your novella online and your email to me about formatting.

Quickly, on the basics—and, at the end here, I’ll answer the question you sent me about formatting dialogue.

The basics:

—Times New Roman, 12 pt font, black.
—Double space.
—One space after a period.
—Numbered pages.
—Indented paragraphs with no space between paragraphs.
—Use Word.doc or docx
—Be careful with spell-check (e.g., its and it’s may be seen as correct)

I’d like to pose two bigger aspects as add-ons to your question:

1. What do agents look for right off the bat? Rejections!

AND

2. Should you self-publish? That’s a question you asked in a post after—now—six agents have rejected your manuscript.

So, here we go:

What do agents look for right off the bat?

Agents wants to sell books and probably want a writer with more than one book up her sleeve. They’re looking for sales big-time—and that’s not so great in today’s wold for what I call the “deeply literary” and that includes sci-fi, unless you find an unusual soul who still cares about the magical, original discovery.

Let’s remember that, when Faulkner won the Nobel Prize, not a single one of his books was in print. In this footnote1 a link to a New York Times article addresses this question: Would Cormac McCarthy get published in today’s world? Eleanor and I talked about Cormac McCarthy in our last post “Dear Elizabeth”—because, in a way, The Road describes a world that doesn’t yet exist—so sort of sci-fi.

Once you’ve found an agent who sells sci-fi—what I see you’re doing, apart from the love story, in your novella—the first paragraph and that ever-key first sentence will help pull the agent into the work.

Here are some first sentences that teach us—whether or not these books could ever be sold in this market.

Great first lines:

“Call me Ismael” –Moby Dick by Herman Melville

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” –One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa

“It was a pleasure to burn.” Fahrenheit 45 by Ray Bradbury

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” —Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstory

And here’s one in second person, your choice for your novella:

“You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.” – Jay McInerny’s Bright Lights, Big City

Yes, as you say, choosing that second-person point of view can be a hard sell, but, as I love to say, “If there are 12 rules, the 13^th rule is Break All the Rules.”

Rejections: When to give up?

Samuel Beckett’s Murphy (1938), his first published novel, rejected 40 times; he won The Nobel Prize in 1969 and in 2013 (he died in 1989) the ms. sold for $1.5 million.
Stephen King’s Carrie (1974), his first book: rejected 30 times.
Robert Pirsig The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974); rejected 121 times.
Elmore Leonard’s The Big Bounce (1989), his first crime novel, rejected 84 times, turned into a flick twice.
Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (2009), first book, 60 rejections, NYTimes bestseller 100 weeks and a flick.

My second question: Should you self-publish and has the market changed?

The world of publishing has changed so much with the conglomeration of the major publishing houses, with so few independents left, and barely so, that I think we need to address whether or not you should consider self-publishing.

Life can be better with an agent who has your interest at heart and loves your work and will work hard for you—no way to discount that advantage.

I have a truly famous author friend, whose name I’ll share with you when I write my follow-up email to you, who no longer relies on an agent. Here’s what she’s won and done:

·      a Guggenheim
·      a Whiting Writer's Award
·      the Hopwood Award
·      two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts
·      the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Book Award
·      the Gina Berriault Award
·      a Lannan Foundation Writer's Residency
·      Best American Short Stories (twice)

When she first began publishing, she did, indeed, have an agent, but in recent years, she’s now being published regularly by a university press without an agent.

So, what’s going on?

The chances for a new voice, or, in her case, an established, unusual literary voice to get chosen by a big house has gotten even harder than ever.

As an example: A book I love entitled Tinkers by Paul Harding was published by Bellevue Literary Press and later won the Pulitzer.

I interviewed Margaret Brown, founder of Shelf Unbound: What to Read Next in Independent Publishing – I’ll be posting that interview soon.

Margaret Brown conceived and made happen this digital magazine on books. She interviewed Paul Harding and here’s what she told me in my interview with her: “If you read the book [Tinkers], it's not shocking that it won but shocking to get that kind of recognition. But really, I think we're seeing more and more of that from small presses. They're winning some of the bigger awards and at least getting on some of the short lists and I think we're going to see more and more of that. When we launched Shelf Unbound, I had this idea that there were all these books that were being overlooked by mainstream bookstores and media and book reviews and that we could spotlight those. What I found is that in the almost three years I've been working on Shelf, I’ve found some of the best books I've read in my entire life.”

In Brown’s interview with Harding, author of Tinkers, he says, “Certainly, larger publishers and more commercially oriented agents look at every manuscript with the very real concern about whether they can sell 10,000 copies of the thing in hardcover. There’s a real bottom line with which everyone struggles. I don’t begrudge people the parameters of their jobs and economic reality. I think that someone who reads a zillion manuscripts a year might find Tinkers in the middle of the pile and think, What the hell is this? The real misfortune is that quieter, more meditative books are tougher to evaluate, or even to become implicated in, in such a profit-oriented environment. Anyway, it was my still unbelievable good fortune to somehow have Erika Goldman at Bellevue come across the manuscript. From there, it was a classic case of the right book finding the right editor. Since Bellevue is non-profit, I imagine that Erika had the good fortune to be able to read the book without certain financial necessities tugging at her brain as she did. She just plain liked it, I think, and was able to publish it on that basis alone. Lovely!”

I subscribe to The Baffler, where in March, Dan Sinkyin2 talks about the formation of Authors Equity to compete with the conglomerate, owned by Bertelsmann: “…the cofounders of Authors Equity, a new publishing house launched earlier this month … brings Silicon Valley–style startup disruption to the business of books. It has a tiny core staff, offloading its labor to a network of freelancers.” Authors don’t get advances and share in the profits.

A Wall Street Journal3 article covers Author’s Equity, in which bestseller Avery Clear explains, “What attracted him, said Clear, is that ‘you make more money per copy and you get better distribution than via self-publishing.’”

Jennifer Udden4 explains in her Substack: “The model Author’s Equity is pursuing isn’t a new one: no advances for the author, meaning no up-front payment, but no needing to earn out on the back end, either. The big name authors who have signed up as brand investors don’t necessarily need big advances to make money; they have guaranteed sales because of their built-in audiences, and thus would be more willing to take a risk. There have been a number of similar imprints during my time in publishing; no-advance publishers with higher splits on royalties theoretically meant that authors could make more money than if they took an advance up front.”

So, do you need an agent? Writer’s Digest says, “The quick answer is, ‘Depends.’ If your goal is to get published by one of the imprints at Penguin Random House or HarperCollins, then you'll need a literary agent just to get over the transom. Many mid-sized publishers require an agent as well. In these cases, writers need a literary agent. … However, many mid-sized publishers and smaller presses don't require agents. These publishers welcome submissions from writers with open arms—and Submittable pages. In these cases, writers don't need a literary agent, though they may want one.”5

In another piece, Writers Digest digs further into the why’s and the difficulties—and the book proposal.6

The game is tough and getting harder. So, should you self-publish, Linnhe? Maybe!

Or maybe this post will help you (we’re hoping!), and readers on Substack will be your answer and find you – I’m also betting that agents are lurking here.

Now to the specific additional q. you sent me: “My main confusion is when to indent paragraphs and speech, in particular if a character continues to speak within the same paragraph.”

For dialogue: Indent when another person speaks. If a character continues to speak without interruption, no indent or return. Here’s an example from one of my short stories, as published, so single spaced and, in the book, right justified, “Guarding the Pie” from my book The Woman Who Never Cooked:

He said, “I want to bring you the letters.” The love letters, she understood without his telling her, the ones she had written him.
He was calling from Boston, where he lived. He told her he was coming to Baltimore to see his eighty-four-year-old mother—the same age as Olivia’s father. “She’s still on her own, thank goodness,” said Martin, “but I know I need to see her more often now.” Olivia didn’t mention that her father wasn’t faring as well. “I’ll be coming in about three weeks,” he said. “I could drop by one afternoon.” So there’d be time to cancel, for her to change her mind, for him to change his.
“Why now?” she asked. “What do I want with the letters?” When he didn’t answer, while his silence gave her time to think, she decided this must be his way of telling her he’d kept them all this time. Well, he had, hadn’t he? She felt flattered, though ashamed to admit it. She agreed to the visit because he’d saved the letters.

Hope that helps. Let me know. xo

Here’s the link to Eleanor’s post “Dear Linnhe”.

***

Eleanor and I ask you to remember that these are separate posts (we share the video that I record) but we both hope for comments on EACH of our posts—as they are separate. That’s the gift to us both as we work hard to study and consider each q.

My follow-up email to you, Linnhe, will follow, as you subscribe to us both. Look for it from my me dot com account and write back to me—as well as comment here, please.

P.S.: I have a full course that I introduce here—the link is for you to take a gander—it’s free…. https://marytabor.substack.com/p/write-it-how-to-get-started

If you missed our launch post, take a look at Write it! and This Writing Life.

Ask us a question in Comments or Notes (be sure to tag us both). Or direct message me. I’ll get your q. to Eleanor!

Next up: Persephone Godwin

Love,

Mary Tabor "Only connect ..."

Discussion about this post