Josh Getzler
Yesterday I officially took on a new client: that minimally-modified first sentence turned out very much to be an indicator of things to come, and the English Civil War Era mystery it was attached to had great pace, a sleuth/midwife we can root for, and the promise of a multi-part series with intelligence, suspense, and heart. The author and I exchanged some emails over the weekend; he spoke to a few clients of mine, I told him in pretty great detail how I planned to approach submitting the book, and we agreed to work together. There are a couple of small tweaks I asked him to make in the book—what I call “brush strokes,” rather than “heavy lifting”—and he also agreed to write up a plan to create an online Virtual York of 1644 that will add value to his mystery novels by giving interested readers additional history of the real setting and events of the time.
So what happens next?
Well, this is one of the most fun parts of my job: Submissions. The manuscript will be done in a few days, during which time I will be putting together my list of editors for submission. In this particular case, the list ought to be pretty long, as I can approach editors who are interested in both historical fiction and mystery, and since there is definitely a feminist bent to the story, I’ll be able to expand it even further to some editors looking for women’s suspense (although that may be a bit of a stretch). Regardless, it’s a group of editors I know and like, and have spent a lot of time getting to know and like—we have lunch together, and even our shorter exchanges during the course of other submissions help us get to know each other. I’ll probably spend another post discussing the dos and don’ts of submissions from an agent’s perspective, but we’ll just say that I’m doing it appropriately—not double-dipping houses (submitting to two editors in the same division simultaneously, which gets them (understandably) very unhappy), deciding among editors at the same place when there’s more than one who might be appropriate, and then thinking of my pitch.
Pitches from agents to editors can either be done on the phone or over email. Both have been successful for me in the past. In this case, I’ll probably use the phone, since, again, it’s a group of editors I have experience with. I’ll be able to convey my enthusiasm, and I won’t need to go into great detail about the plot of the book in a pitch letter, as I sometimes need to do in, say, a science fiction novel with different worlds and beings. But one thing my authors sometimes don’t realize, and which I think is a matter of simple consideration to the editors, is this: I don’t send the manuscript out into the ether without asking first if I can send it. A number of clients have said “Wow, I thought you choose your list, then just attach it to an email with a “Here it is, hope you like it” message.” I’ve found greater utility in the way I do it, and for a couple of reasons. First, I find that there are times that I don’t realize that an editor hates, for example, dystopia, or would rather stick a fondue fork in her eye socket than see another knitting mystery. In those cases, rather than passing on an already-attached manuscript (and rendering their entire publishing company useless to the submission), they will most often recommend a colleague who might be more receptive to the topic.
The other reason I ask permission first is that it gives me one more opportunity to get the book’s idea and subject in front of the editor. Now I can say “May I show you this great mystery about a midwife during the English Civil War” and follow it up with “Per our conversation, here is the great mystery about a midwife during the English Civil War.” Every little bit helps.
I’ll do that. And then…we wait. I’ll get into further detail on this process, and others, next time. Happy July 4!
