ARE PROLOGUES EVIL? DO AGENTS EVER PROVIDE FEEDBACK? | Q&A Ft. Literary Agent Megan Manzano

two agents provide feedback after a partial or full request should you have a prologue should you have your work copyrighted before sending it to beta readers or before querying how much did you edit your book before you query a literary agent in this video literary agent megamans I know and I will answer some of your top questions about traditional publishing coming up gonna get spicy potentially it Haga Buckner's i'm aglet or I'm a writer and my debut novel the cyborg tinkerer is coming out baseball yeah I also formally worked at a literary agency on this episode of I read early we are going to be answering some of your top questions about traditional publishing querying and writing but before we get today's content hit that subscribe button and bring the bell if you haven't already here on I randomly create videos about how to be a successful modern-day author like a little voice change before we get into today's discussion and Megan could you tell us a little bit about yourself yeah so my name is Megan Manzano I work as a literary agent at the foreo literary specializing in middle grade and young adult stories I'm also a freelance editor and I've been in publishing for about five years now lady knows what she's talking about aka been a long year long five years well thank you so much for being here having me this is fun of course of course as you can see Megan came out to this studios you get to record together which has been so much fun it's been very fun seeing the studio prep work other weird behind the scenes yeah you should see the Sophia that's very questionable this but we've taken a lot of a lot of pictures anyways I post a call for questions on Twitter because I knew a mega night we're gonna get together and have this fun weekend together and so we're like oh hey let's record you know a video and answer some questions you guys submitted so many awesome questions and some of them were a little spicy questions I see you but we thought that we'd do a whole video is like a Q&A to answer some of the biggest questions about traditional publishing without further ado let's just get into the thing and I'm gonna throw up the questions on the screen like a screen shot of whoever asked them so thank you guys so much for your questions our first question is from Martha and they say I hear prologues are to be avoided and yet I've read books start out with a short chapter and then the next chapter says five years later or the first page starts with italics and then we jump in time aren't those prologues do you want to start Omega sir um I'll start I'll start oh good look at the spice going okay prologues are not an automatic no let me just start with that what's the problem of prologues they tend to be used as a kind of disservice to the reader which means that people will use prologues to either throw a bunch of information of like the past or some kind of like inciting incident that has happened before to spark the main character and then we'll jump forward from that part in the prologue to the first chapter and suddenly we kind of lost all of the build-up that you would start up with the prologue so that's kind of problem number one well it depends on the type of prologue teacher if you do the pull-up it's like a big bang yeah death a battle and then you go which like this I don't know pastoral settings right in Chapter one I want like a boy on a farm you're like yeah just yeah so yeah basically so what the problem prologue is they can just lead the reader into the wrong kind of impression they tend to be use is like a really quick hook to get you into the book and then we're on a farm and someone's picking lemons and we're like wait a minute picking love then you're like wait what is that to do the main character what just happened okay okay this is why we don't have prologue no I'm kidding I'm sorry but basically when prologues jump well lemons so all right well make recovers basically prologues are often setting the reader up for something that changes very drastically in the next chapter that it makes it very hard to either reconnect to the new main character if you introduced one it's a shift of pacing whether we have this big action boom and then suddenly we're back on this farm with the lemons got to bring it up you know or prologues tend to be a bunch of information about the past so it's kind of not really so much enticing as is building the world before we even get there which before we get to chapter one instead of trying to build the world naturally and select the main character in the reaction so are they bad not necessarily however they are often used the wrong way or just newbie writer don't know how to weave in a lot of that necessary background information into chapter 1 and so they use prologues and the way that they weren't intended to which might be setting the seam setting the tone for it give it I mean maybe you do give some kind of backstory or history but I think a lot of newbie writers right prologues in such a way that it's like an info dumping ground and then maybe it's a different character that we never see again and you can do that well I feel like Robert Jordan did that though his books again were the first book that published in the 90s so rules are different in Leigh bardugo did this like what six of crows it starts and ends with the character that's different than the main protagonist and like it works but once again like Leigh bardugo someone who's very established if she got high and she can pretty much get away with that she has that readership and interest that she's written a lot of book at point so she knows what she's doing is he able to write a good prologue you may think a lot of newbie writers just to the straight short of it is is they just don't know how to write a good prologue so a lot of times you know agents are turned off by prologues because so many newbie writers write in such a way that you're like yikes a lot of times what I personally will recommend to people is if you cannot write a prologue and we've been all that necessary background information into chapter one and going forward do that yeah because it was the time you can do it yes and that that's the question is it if you're reading you're prologue and you go is there another way I can tell this backstory then you probably don't need a prologue correct and then to answer Marco specific question there's like a short little chapter and then the next chapters like five years later so I mean depending on how they label it if there's note like it quits a prologue at the top and then chapter one could be like five years later that would be a prologue love people trying to disguise prologue those not prologues because they know a lot people are turned off by prologue see the readers a little readers don't like prologue they'll skip right to chapter one and they won't read prologue so that to me sounds like a prologue that the person was trying to attend wasn't a problem the other actually issued about prologues with doing specifically the five years later thing is for kid lit if you start off with a prologue where your protagonist is say eleven and then five years later they're sixteen you've suddenly switched age categories yes so you're no longer in middle you start the book at middle grade but then when you actually begin the story you're nya which is kind of like no different voice is very different um can they be done well absolutely but you have to be very careful about pushing you're like kind of shooting yourself in the foot by pushing yourself out of the expected market we had a lot of thoughts on this question so basically if you're a debut author list like this to be really careful for running a prologue if you can go without it go without it but of course you know your story better than we do from this side of the camera so you go with your instinct but just tread carefully prologues are a big turn-off for a lot of literary agents our next question is from Christopher and they ask at what point if any is a good form for an agent to provide some critique I understand that the volume of subs makes it impossible for queries is this also true with partial slash foals I've seen people ask for feedback on falls before guessing that isn't a good idea just generally speaking I from my own experience I received partials and full requests from a bunch of agents but I want to say was like three before that I'm not sure what the exact numbers I'd have to look it up but a handful of them never responded to me or at all and I would say most of them had like some type of generic rejection form and then a handful of them gave me like personalized feedback so it it just goes across the gamut you have no idea and you can't unfortunately expect anyone to give you feedback agents are super busy people and I have a whole video on why agents can't respond to your query letters but elet the agent and the room for me personally if I request a partial or a full and wind up passing I will give you some kind of feedback just because I feel like I've read more than your query letter which is in some cases five to ten pages depending on what an agent requests so if I request more I will usually give you some kind of direction and feedback as to why I decided that it didn't work this varies by agent it varies by schedules of agent the more developed an agent is the more clients they have which means the more they have to focus on their clients because at the end of the day most agents are Commission only so they only get paid when they sell something whether that's English rights foreign right sub rights all that so they have to constantly be working and ideally if they take on a client they're working with them for their career so it's not like they read that one book for their client and the client disappears and then they can go back to their career box it's a constant like ideally long-term relationship I cannot always provide feedback for general queries but I do try but this is once again like makes Eglin you should not go into it with expectation because it's for most people not feasible and just like another thing as well agents tend to work multiple gigs because once again Commission only I work three jobs including agent Dane um so I my days can be very long and depending on when I'm reading queries I can not always give you feedback so I apologize but at the same time like just respect other people's time and schedules and don't go into it with the expectation of feedback every time if you want feedback get some critique partners beta readers as a querying writer I wanted some feedback too just to see if like I was on the right path like if there was some issue with it eventually I realized I wrote a book that was in a saturated market that no one wanted anymore but you know so I understand wanting that but again keep in mind agents who should work on Commission only a lot of them do not have salaries and therefore maybe they're working a full-time or part-time job elsewhere and agent hang is something that they do on the side especially a to begin with so and the other thing is aside from critique partners and beta readers there are a lot of agents and agencies and pitch contests and things like that that do provide query critique synopsis critiques on a rolling basis or will put a call out like I'll take the first so-and-so so keep an eye out for those they could post a lot on Twitter same thing when there are like auctions or fundraising events a lot of the prizes from agents or publisher and/or editors like that will be some kind of critique through various levels so I think you keep an eye out for those that can maybe at least I can like guarantee you feedback if you do get one of those spots so just keep an eye out for those cuz they do call for them thank you guys for your question let's go to the next one the next question is from Amanda and they asked should you have your work copyrighted before sending to beta readers or querying I have a lot of feelings on this so if you are trying to be traditionally published and you're going to query a book assuming you get an agent and then you go on submission your book is going to be copyrighted in the process and usually you want your book kind of copyrighted a little bit later to when it's like in the closest final version of the manuscript I think there's like a 20% difference is what the the law permits I'm not really sure I'll link in the description below but anyways so if you're going to be traditionally published it's going to be copyright it in the process if you are going self-publishing you are going to want to copyright it yourself usually later on and the only reason you want to copyright something is if you have to pursue legal action automatically in Said's as soon as you write something in its copyrighted so the only time that you need to file a copyright and really use that again is if you're making some type of legal action against someone else for maybe stealing your work or whatever and I know that this is such a big fear for other writers that people you know they're afraid of people still in their work but if you're worried about that rather than copywriting it which I do not recommend in either instance have your beta readers for example signed like an NDA or for me I use Google Forms for feedback so the very first thing they have to tick off is like I agree to not distribute and plagiarize and Digitas and repurpose or share the work in any manner whatever the legal jargon is and they have to take like I agree in check mark so you can do stuff like that but I think at the end of the day if people are reading your work especially if they're writers they're not gonna waste their time trying to publish your work they're writing their own stuff but they're more worried about in trying to get published they really they're just not gonna take your work but one thing it will say this is the only danger in this part of the process is you cannot copyright an idea so if someone hears your idea and they want to write something about it they have the right to do that but the way that you write the idea and you execute that idea is copyrightable I don't know if that's a word but you can copyright that the way that you write a story is all about the execution of the story so think about like fairy tale retellings there have been so many fairy tale retellings over time especially in the past I don't know ten years during the Beast you know everyone did Beauty in the Beast I am currently I have AB you're telling coming out you're adding to it I love it but the point is it's the execution of the thing that makes it unique and as someone who loves like fairy tale retellings I'm not gonna stop reading them because I read one I'm gonna read one like that was good I would like to read another you telling so thinking about also the reader they're not gonna stop reading after reading one book about a certain trope or whatever they usually will keep reading books with the same trope over and over and over because that's something that they enjoy you were ready so ready and so winded our next question is from jasmine is it true after signing with a publisher their editors can send in s a completely change the story you intended to write is one able to back out of the contract if that happens okay this is a very loaded question the first part of the question is can an editor send you feedback that entirely changes your book I mean technically yes however that is not a sign of a good editor so how often does it happen not often yeah exactly so basically the goal of an editor when you get to a publishing house is to pretty much do another round of edits most likely you've done away your beta readers most likely you've done with your agent but essentially they will have other notes for you and they're essentially like another reader that you will revise your book with a good key for any kind of editing situation is they should never be forcing you to change big ideas of your book or big concepts of your glasses exactly if they say something like and they give examples and things like that that's something to think about but if they're like I hate this you should totally write that your character does this that is a red flag that they're trying to essentially hijack your work if you get a deal with the publisher and you have an agent who this is the time your agent would step in and be like hey this is a red flag this is probably not someone we should work with or ideally this is not the goal of their job a good editor will not actually harp like harp on you to change your entire book and your concept they will however provide notes to enhance the story similar to how you go through any round revisions that is the ideal Bowl can you get out of it in that case not vary so much by contract so ideally before you sign a deal with the publisher there will be a contract that your agent has negotiated with the publisher and the editor there are different clauses that give you the breakdown of how you can break out of a contract if you're not satisfied and what are the repercussions of doing so if you have a good agent they will recognize these termination clauses and they will explain them to you and also know if something is wrong about them and ideally your agent will also kind of understand if an editor is not providing you with the right feedback and guidance can you get out of the contract yes most likely there is a termination clause however it could be detrimental to you as a writer whether it's your whole book kind of gets cancelled whether there might be some monetary things involved it's gonna change by every single publisher and every single contractors wide agent is so important in that case if you have an editor from the get-go who's trying to change our entire book you should not work with that editor out of curiosity for our viewers yet do editors ever provide feedback on the book before they purchase it do they like here are some of my thoughts in the direction especially if it goes like option sometimes I would say so because there it's very rare in some cases but like if you put a book on sub sometimes you would also get an r NR just like it revise and resubmit so you can sometimes have thoughts beforehand I don't think they'll be as detailed as when you actually sell the book you may have some very loose thoughts but once again like that's something to talk about with your agent and I also think that one important key part of a good relationship with an editor is being able to communicate with an editor and say hey I don't feel comfortable with this or at least have some kind of conversation about what you're comfortable or maybe if you don't understand something how that explained to you if you feel like you're very in the dark about something or another is very much pushing you to do something that might be a bad sign and I think if you're ever in an instance where you're like I don't think I want to do this I maybe you're not comfortable talking to your editor talk to your agent and let them be bad cop yeah good cop they can be back yeah well bad cops whatever we're supposed to do we'll be like they're not doing this you don't like this for this reason and either will try to mediate the problem or if worst case scenario it will have to walk away from the contract the next question is from Danny do they assuming literary agents think for debut authors that it is highly recommended to write a standalone with serious potential rather than a book that requires additional books so I think it is a smarter decision to have a standalone book with serious potential and I say this because whenever a publishing house offers to buy your work you don't know how many books of yours they're buying so they may decide in the debut for example that they only want to buy your first book see how that does sales wise and then we'll offer you cut a contract later or maybe buy the entire series the best case scenario I think for selling and also for readers is to have a book if you have like a series idea where the first book can stand alone and basically that means that all of your major plot points for book want a wrapped up it doesn't mean you have to know every single thing about the world it doesn't mean that your envisionment of your character arcs have to all be fulfilled it just mean that when I finish that book I'm like oh ok the major has been done I have questions but overall were okay no big question exactly feely feeling dissatisfied exactly hangars and yeah like that basically everything should be wrapped up neatly neatly off neatly enough wow that was hard so I think that's the smarter decision instead of saying that I have a ten book series and book one needs at least the four other three books it could just be something that publishers might not want to take a chance on because they can't guarantee that they're gonna get the revenue that they're putting into the book and then there are some cases where you write a standalone they decide to purchase the whole series that's awesome but that is not always the case especially as a debut so I think the smart decision stand alone with series potential that way the editors know there could be more and they can make the decision from there Megan said it much nicer than I would have I would say if you're a debut author without like a massive audience basically like a potential readership that the you know would come with you when you publish a book you always want to write a standalone book with serious potential because especially if you have a series in your head and you want to write a series so leave openings to continue the storyline but as Megan said if the publisher purchase Book One and they don't purchase any later books because they want to see how book one performs book one doesn't perform as well you don't earn out your advance then maybe they don't purchase books too and later on so you really ideally want to set yourself up so that literary agents want to take on that book because they don't have to try and sell ten books to a publisher and the publisher can choose to buy just one book or multiple books if they would like to the next question is from Kylie I hope I'm saying that right and they asked how do you become a literary agent um that was a very tricky question or rather it's it can be a very long-winded process ideally becoming a literary agent usually starts out by interning in some way so my process was kind of I started off working in editorial in a publishing house kind of and I had several other internships like indie fantasy processes so I kind of gained like the editorial eye for critiquing manuscripts and knowing what sells and learning the market and then I got an internship that allowed for a possibility to become an agent after a certain amount of time the key thing to note is that a lot of internships do not guarantee you a job so normally what will up happening is you either work for a certain amount of time whether it's three months six months a year etc and then you either decide to stay or move on with your life or in the very rare instances you work their first amount of time and then you get offered a job so if you're in the first case which unfortunately is kind of the most common case we're publishing in general and not just becoming an agency you will kind of to take your experience and apply for positions like you would any other job resume cover letter basically very standard for me I became an agent through the internship program that I was in and then when I moved agencies I applied using a cover letter resume agency positions aren't as posted I would say unlike job sites for publishing as like editorial marketing publisher house jobs but they do pop up sometimes especially if it's a newer agency or an agency that just lost an agent and wants to fill that agency but the tricky thing about thing about agent ain't - is that sometimes for bigger agencies or agencies who want a more developed agent they usually want to take on someone who already has sales or has already proven that they know market in some way so it's a very hard process and it's very tricky but there are agencies who are growing and actively looking for associate agents which are basically agents that are gonna be trained and have a mentorship program in some regard the short answer is it's complicated the long answer is most likely you're gonna have to go through certain types of experience and internships and it's ideally apply to an agency that is looking to grow I think the kind of stinky part about trying to become an agent is that a lot of times internships you do it for free it's unpaid and then you maybe you do several internships over the course of several years and then maybe you moved like a literary assistant sort of position which a lot of interns do before they become like agents and then that may be paid hourly that might be a salary if you're lucky and then maybe you get bumped up to an agent and most places it's Commission only and it's not a salary which means you have to work usually somewhere else and pay the bills so agent ting is really tricky to get into it's a very small business is very competitive it's wonderful but at the same time the yourself in a monetary compensation so it can be really limiting to the people that can work in this feels what yeah it's not great you based I have to know what you're getting into whenever you become an agent and I also think it's one of the jobs that isn't talked about as much so you kind of don't know all these things and you're like I'll be an agent and then you realize oh there's a lot yeah it's a very niche field it's a very kind of harder field to get into without either moving around a lot or kind of knowing someone or being like an assistant position where they eventually will hire you after seeing your work this next question is from Nicole they ask what all do you need ready before you start querying oh boy other video which will be linked in the description below is ten questions to ask before you start querying but go ahead and jump it um so the first thing you should absolutely have is a completed polished formatted manuscript so that basically means that it is done in in the full scope of it so it has been edited by you beta readers critique partners or an editor that's what you decided you wanted to do but that is not something you have to do that's just a choice that you can make it should be formatted to manuscript guidelines you know is 12 point Times New Roman font one inch margins all around double-spaced nothing crazy I don't want weird colors or we were follow there's no weird fonts if you guys don't understand formatting you're hate it sign up for my newsletter I will literally give you a pre formatted Microsoft document template that you can just fill in your manuscript so yeah perfect is um so that's that's step number one your story has to be done there should be no I request the fall but the full be done in three weeks right it needs to be done for genre fiction yes um the second thing that you should have is your query letter which is basically the hook of your story that tells me about your main character what they want what are the stakes what's happening when they have to lose a little bit about you and also all the technical info about your book so that's word count genre age category anything we should know about it it has spec elements if its own voices etc and the last thing you should have is your synopsis which is your one page single-spaced or two page double spaced plot summary of your book spoil the ending give us all the details from beginning to end that's we can see your character arc your plot all your main points that get us from the beginning of the book to the end of the book you should have all those things ready before you query and you should also have a list of agents that you have researched to make sure that you know you their submission guidelines they take your story that you're writing you do not want to send a fiction story to a nonfiction agent you do not want to send a kid agent your adult literary fiction novel so you kind of just want to have everything ready to go and submit on to a one tip that I like to give is if you can't afford it consider signing it for something like publishers marketplace and then that publishers marketplace is essentially where the book publishing industry announces their deals so anything that has been sold recently they might give like a range for like how much it was sold for but I would potentially again if you can afford cuz I think it's a monthly fee of twenty-six twenty-five dollars a month so you know it's that but then that way you can research agents there know who's actually selling books cuz we don't want to have an issue agents of people that are kind of fibbing to you about what they can do for you or I have a whole video on that so stay tuned if it's not out yet or a link in the description below if it is that at this point all right this next question is from Rebecca they asked what to do with form rejections for rejections can mean several different things usually the key form rejection is your pages weren't pulling me in as much as I hoped or I wasn't connecting to the story so I know when writers get that it is like the thing that makes us all cringe because we're like well what does that mean step number one don't reply with the scathing email check yeah don't do that it doesn't help you in any way whatsoever and a lot of agents keep names of those people so don't do it just take the heat close the email and go scream or something like that make it go eat chocolate go talk to your writer friend exactly privately and not publicly yes it's trust me we all need to vent it's okay so for me personally I'll just do it that way some so when I send a form rejection sometimes it's basically what it says that I just didn't connect to your story so whether like you could have checked all the boxes like could have been everything I wanted it could have been well-written but for some reason I just wasn't pulled into it while there like the voice wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be or maybe I have something on my client list already that's so similar to it that I couldn't wrap both without being almost like a conflict of interest or whatever it is sometimes it's no fault of your own it's just a thing that has to happen another time for more directions go out is if an agent is like super busy and they need to kind of get some queries down in a timely manner and providing feedback can be very difficult query manager is good in the sense that I can set up a lot of responses and so that takes up a lot of the time away but there are agents who use email there are still some ages they even use snail mail so think about yeah I know think about how long it would take to open up a new email send things back you know send feedback back send it out and repeat and suddenly that query that could have taken two minutes has taken ten minutes so it could also be a time thing as actually I think we have to do it for merge actions is just move on from them I know that it can be very disheartening to not get feedback because you're wondering like is it something wrong but my work is it something that I'm not doing right and I mean there are agents who will give feedback so sometimes you can wait for those because that you do get them other times or if you feel that you're just not pulling anybody in go back to those critique partners and beta readers ask like is there any way I can improve this maybe you can find new readers who maybe aren't familiar with your work and ask them what's going on like I wouldn't always take it as a personal attack on your work or anything like that but it could be a step of consideration for maybe there's something not working with my opening pages or maybe not even my query yes I would say just take heart it's gonna stink you're gonna get a lot of form rejections or you get you're gonna get a lot of no responses and if you query in batches maybe you send five out at a time and you have a list of six teenagers I don't know whatever your style style is I guess so if you're querying in batches and you're getting a bunch of form rejections that might mean that it has nothing to do with you or it might mean that your query needs polishing and I mean that your your pages your story is starting in the wrong place so definitely don't be afraid to pause query talk to your critique partners get feedback on your query get feedback on your opening pages at the book etc the next question is from Alex they asked is it harder to pitch a collection of short stories in a full-length novel / novella or is a process fairly similar I will enter this one in the short answer is a lot of agents I daresay most agents do not accept novellas and they don't accept short story collections most of the times those are self-published or published with like a literary man zyne of sorts well the short stories anyway south of novellas most agencies also don't accept poetry so most of the time you're just quoting literary agents with novels you're not going to query them with screenplays or poetry or anything like that unfortunately they just don't really sell so he doesn't really take them all right next question is from Madera and they ask is it better to risk publishing the first book of a series with a publisher because that project is getting the most interest or would you hold off and continue to push other projects to the forefront you've mentioned how risky can be in the past I'm not entirely sure of the nature of this question but I will just start by saying please do not self publish any books that you want to traditionally publish there's that first rates to market that the publisher wants and if you self publish a book the audience has seen it the public has seen it and if they're not interested in it why would the publisher want to purchase and pay money for that book so for the love of goodness I feel like keep saying the love of goodness do not sell publish a book if you want to traditionally publish it you always want to query literary agents with unpublished manuscripts like 99% of the time unless that published manuscript is like performing crazy crazy well and selling really well in which case the agents are probably going to be approaching you and not necessarily the way around right now to the question if a publisher wants to publish your first book in a series but I think we talked about this before the standalone stuff most likely it's probably gonna be standalone with serious potential and the publisher will come back to you if they want you publish books two three or four or five six so if the publisher wants to buy it and you want to publish your book with the publisher then go for it and I feel if you want to publish more books then you know publish my book through that publisher if it's a good relationship I did a whole series about the pros and cons of self-publishing and the pros and cons of traditional publishing I will link that below but basically one of the pros at self-publishing is you can you're guaranteed you can publish a series you don't have someone saying we're not going to purchase the next book but with traditional publishing that is a risk so if you sell your book to a publisher and they publish the first book in a series it doesn't perform well they don't want book to that's it you are not going to publish book two and they have the rights to it and if you want to sell published book two there's a time frame where you have to wait until those rights are reverted back to you so then you can self-published book two but I don't recommend it because you can't control the price of book one and traditional publishing usually over prices things like ebooks and you can't do any special discounts things so a lot of times it's just better to start a new series and that's why stand alone what serious potential is your best bet because book two is never guaranteed for you or your readers and that's just the sad truth unfortunately yep yep which is a pro of self publishing that you can do like a whole series the next question is from LT and they asked two literary agents work with editors or as editors or does a lit agent expect a manuscript you have gone through all the editing slash form elements prior to reaching out to them if your query an agent an agent is not expecting your manuscript to be picture-perfect every agent kind of has a different tolerance for how much editing they want to do with the client when they sign a book for me personally I don't mind going through multiple edits so I'm not looking for a book that's perfect and ready to go I'm looking for a book that has really strong potential whether that's the voice is really good the story is very different the writing style is uniquely basically something I can't get over my head is usually what I'm gonna wind up offering on most agents are also editors in the sense that if you sign with an agent you're probably gonna revise with that agent before you go on submission if they are in editing exactly not all agents are editorial agents so if you get an offer a representation you should ask a hundred percent what kind of agent that agent is because some agents are editorial heavy like I am where I want to do developmental editing line and any proofread I want to get it like very very picture-perfect whereas some agents might be more developmental and that's like one brown and that's kind of it or maybe they just proofread it for you and they're ready to go but in that case they're probably looking for manuscripts that are like already done so it's gonna vary a lot by agent and that's something that you always should ask so you can be prepared for how much work you're expected to do and you can be prepared to understand what your agent is going to give you do they work with editors or as editors well an agent is going to if it's a toriel agent they're going to work with you you met at your book prior to sending it to editors and then if ideally your book gets purchased and the editor is gonna work with you and go through many runs of editing developmental copy editing reading and so on yeah ideally your agent will be involved to some extent but not to the same like they're probably not going to be working out with you in that same way again but they will be there if you have questions about the editorial process or say you just kind of want to talk about the edits or maybe if you're not sure about something or if you want to brainstorm like they're there for you in that capacity if a book is moving on to an editor it's just a different kind of relationship at that point yeah I'm the second question to answer that was does it have to go through all these editing prior to reaching out to a literary agent as we talked about before your book should be edited and polish you should have worked with critique partners and beta readers and developmentally hopefully your story is just fan-freakin'-tastic you don't to be reaching out those first dress it should be as good as it can possibly be through your own means our next question is from Gabriella and they ask what is the anatomy of a query letter going to answer this really quick go to the query hack page on the I readily website we have all of the information our next question is from Steve and they ask how do you know if it's your query letter that needs work or your manuscript the short answer is you never entirely know unless like a specific agent gives you a feedback but a lot of times even that's subjective they might be like your query letter needs work or your opening pages and I'm worried it doesn't start in the right place that would be their opinion versus someone else might have a different opinion like my golden rule for feedback is if you're getting similar feedback from I'd say at least three people then that's probably the issue and you should consider revising based off of that if feedbacks all over the place you're not getting feedback period like we talked about earlier I think it might be worth just either pulling your submission or not sending out to your next round of queries however you query and maybe working on both maybe both is a good idea the next question is from Laura Lynn I'm not sure if I'm saying that right but super cool name they asked do you prefer to work with raters who have a limited experience of blog content and online articles to someone who has never posted or published any work anywhere I do traditional publishers care one way or another I think this question is we were just chatting before we're it's more about author platform perhaps yeah and should you have a blog should you have something else I think publishers these days they want you to have an author platform in my opinion to some extent because a lot of books you know if you're taking on debut author with no audience so it's a riskier investment versus if you have someone with a big platform it's less of a risky investment because you're probably gonna have more readers interested in whatever that book is so I would say having some type of platform or experience it could be a blog it could be something else could potentially be in your favor I know I've heard this from a lot of literary agents platform doesn't matter too much for fiction because if you sell a book to say like a big five so whether it's Random House a shet Simon Shuster etc you will get a marketing plan and you will get a publicity plan for your book leading up to its release platform gets a lot trickier for either smaller houses or self-publishing because ideally when you get to smaller houses or self-published the markets either entirely up to you or it's like a split effort where a platform kind of matters more to bring in audience if you're going for the traditional publishing route and ideally you sell at a house that has a reputable marketing publicity team I don't lean platform matters too much I think its kind cool personally just to kind of have it and have an audience and just be somewhere on the no because it's just an easy way for people to find you and get to know your work but I don't think it's a hundred percent we're tired maybe we differ a little bit I'll be different I mean hurt like I do if I'm considering offering on somebody I will admit that I do look to see if they have something just out of curiosity you just to see like if we would get along together maybe what they've worked on before if I can see what they're gonna be working on so I actually think an author website is really important to have you should have um you don't necessarily have to have it when you're querying but I think if you have any publications regardless of if they're short stories magazines you should have a list of those somewhere I think it's just a good portfolio yeah and about me page and if you're publishing a book a press page yeah thing yeah and if you do um get a book deal you absolutely need to make a website you should make like and there are a lot of options to have maker and that's like a tool or conversation but you should absolutely have in that case this differs a lot if your nonfiction author well let's talk about briefly because platform is kind of everything because nonfiction is writing about obviously facts in the world and subjects in the world and subjects you're an expert exactly and publishers we need a guarantee that you know what you're talking about so if you are a nonfiction author and you have maybe 50 Twitter followers and no other qualifications you're probably not gonna be qualified in the eyes of a publisher to write the book that you're writing but if you are say professor at a school and you've been like 80 journals about I don't know say like environmentalism they're probably like okay he can write a book on environmentalism people will trust him it's about a kind of trust that you need for nonfiction that you don't necessarily need for fiction because you're not writing about facts you're writing it especially in like fantasy and scifi a brand new world with characters that aren't real and things like that so that's kind of the difference so short answer do you need it for traditional fiction publishing not really sorry guys my battery just died so we had to start over but if you want to do say anything else about author platform for nonfiction author right um so basically for nonfiction I'll just pick up with what I was saying is I'm not sure where I cut off at this point but basically for nonfiction you need to be sort of an authority in your field which is why platform matters so much more traditionally published fiction not so much it's I think it's never a bad thing to have a place with all your work or all your information or an easy way to contact you or even just social media keeping the know but it is not a requirement for traditional publishing for fiction books that's just the main bottom line I will say just to add and then slightly disagree with some of the things I would say overall I do agree with uh Megan said but I will say like for author website the sooner you create a website the sooner you can improve your SEO so search engine optimization and if you even a book coming out with a traditional publisher or if a readers trying to find you and you just mean a website and it's like at the like if you typing your name and it's 20 pages down they're never gonna find you so the sooner you make a website and can improve your search engine optimization so when you've a book coming out people can find you in my opinion that's really an ideal scenario the second thing I will say is that for genre fiction I do think author platform is in your best interest do you need to have one perhaps not but I think it would really help you and benefit you for various reasons but specifically if a publisher thinks that they're gonna do certain things for marketing for you and then they realize your book isn't performing well they pull back and then maybe they support doing more marketing support with another trail that's performing better then you can utilize your own author platform to really rev up your own marketing stuff maybe you increase book sales and then your publisher that supports you a little bit more again marketing why so I personally feel it's in your best interest I think yeah there are pros and cons of any side but I think like mix it the key thing is if you sell a book make a website please just make it have all your information contact info because there are a lot of things that come with the traditionally published book that you want your contact information readily available so it's and I think I do agree with you that's in your best interest but it is not like a total requirement you don't have to have it but would it be helpful yeah that is all the time we have for questions today so thank you so much to everyone who submitted we might get together again at the future or maybe we'll have a Q&A with you know folks command the shelves thank you so much for some of your questions and thank you so much to Megan for joining us today for people who want to find you on the Internet where do you hang out my main platform is Twitter which you can find me at Megan underscore Manzano you can also find me at my Larry agency which is two foreo literary and you can also find me on my blog which I don't really use anymore but it does have a list of my clients and some Quarian tips and my manuscript wish list which is Megan Manzano one to nine wordpress.com which will be linked below thanks for tuning in to this episode of I write early AQA all about big questions in traditional publishing if you want to support what we do join us on patreon we currently have six different here so that bunch of different perks for patrons the link is in the description below hit the like button subscribe and ring the bell so you are notified every time I upload a video if you have questions requests for future videos or witty remarks please do drop them in the comments below let's be friends on social media I'm on Twitter and Instagram I also have a monthly newsletter when you subscribe you will receive free copies of how to format your manuscript for submission which is a Word document template and a querying checklist you will also receive first access to any information about the publication journey in status of my EMU novel the cyborg tinkerer all the links are in the description below that's it for today as always keep writing

Channel: iWriterly

Views: 12,804

Rating: 4.9242687 out of 5

Keywords: writing tips, best writing advice, writing advice, literary agent, lit agent, querying, traditional publishing, book publishing, how to publish a book, how to get a literary agent, literary agent interview, literary agent query letter, literary agent rejections, literary agent 2020, iwriterly, meg latorre, authortube, book publishing process, book publishing industry

Id: W0UgkJtr1jc

Length: 42min 34sec (2554 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020