1. Board Book — 100 words max
2. Early Picturebook — 500 words max
3. Picturebook — 1,000 words max (Seriously. Max.)
4. Nonfiction Picturebook — 2,000 words max
5. Early Reader — This varies widely, depending on grade level. I’d say 3,500 words is an absolute max.
6. Chapterbook — 10,000 words max
7. Middle Grade — 35,000 words max for contemporary, mystery, humor, 45,000 max for fantasy/sci-fi, adventure and historical
8. YA — 70,000 words max for contemporary, humor, mystery, historical, romance, etc. 90,000 words max for fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal, etc.

you love her, don’t you?

As you can see, manuscript length for young adult (YA) and children’s books depends on the age of your target audience.

And while there are individual reader exceptions (I bet you were probably reading at a higher age level than your actual age when growing up. Me too.), the above rules are what the agents and the publishers of the world play by, so if you want to play in their world, you have to play by their rules.

At least to for the first few rounds of the game. Once you’ve established a track record with your agent and your publisher by having steady sales, longer manuscripts are more of an option.

Logan: So what are we talking here? Short novel? Kafka length, or longer. Dos Pasos? Tolstoy? Or longer? Robert Musil? Proust? I’m not throwing you with these names, am I?
- Gilmore Girls, “Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out “, 6.8

his heart’s desire

Jim started collecting data in February 2010, and wrapped things up in March of the same year. Then he consolidated, parsed, and re-worked the data when he should have been writing. As much as I want to read more books by Jim Hines, I’m glad he made the time to share this information.

This survey about first novels was a personal project – he wanted to learn how new authors broke into the publishing business. From that data, Jim created many charts, and started busting some book industry myths, such as “you have to know someone” and “self-publishing your breakout novel”.

For anyone interested in becoming a professional author, I highly recommend you check out Jim’s survey. It is informative, enlightening, and should hopefully re-enforce things you have already learned through your own research.

Narrator: Look at this. Isn’t this so MythBusters? Jamie’s truck, flanked by the bomb squad and the paramedics.
- MythBusters

yep

The WSFS also sponsors the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) which is when the silver rocket trophies are awarded to the winners in fiteen different categories, from Best Novel to Best Fan Artist.

The nominees for the 2010 Hugos were recently announced, and have been posted on the Hugo Award website. Some works, like Charles Stross‘ “Palimpsest” and “Overtime” are even available online for free.

Compared to other awards that are based on the criteria of a few people, the Hugo nominations and the awards themselves are based on the votes of fans from around the world. In order to cast a vote for a potential nominee, you must have been a member of the previous or current WorldCon. This means you’ve purchased at least a “supporting membership” to the convention – you don’t have to actually attend. To vote on the final ballot, you much be at least a supporting member of the current WorldCon. For 2010, that means AussieCon 4.

The Hugos are also unique in that the trophy, a shiny silver finned rocket, is always the same, but the base it rests upon changes. Each WorldCon committee is responsible for design the base for that year’s awards. Having seen, and briefly held a Hugo trophy, I can tell you these bases are works of art in and of themselves.

So if you would like to have a say in who is nominated and who wins future Hugo Awards, become at least a supporting member of WorldCon. And if you go to the convention, try and attend the awards ceremony – it is a thrill to see the winners accept their statues. You can even imagine yourself up there some day.

John Locke: Hugo!
- LOST, “Confirmed Dead”, 4.2

blue brings out your eyes

First you need a pitch to practice. A pitch consists of the 1-3 sentences that sum up your novel.

How do you sum up over 80,000 words?

With multiple attempts.

With practice.

With chocolate or cake or caffeine – whatever it takes to keep you working on that pitch.

The pitch for one of my novels has been refining itself for over a year. Another novel’s pitch came out in two weeks. It’s wacky that way.

Once you have a pitch, say it out loud. Pitch to your pets or your furniture. Say your pitch every time you walk through your kitchen or at every stop light.

At first, you’ll stumble over the words. Sometimes they just don’t come out; sometimes they jumble around in your mouth and then spill out in the wrong order.

Break your pitch down into each sentence and repeat it. If you’re still running into trouble, break your sentences down into phrases and repeat and repeat and repeat. Then string everything back together.

If there is a specific place that you always screw up, try some other words.

You should be able to pitch your manuscript as if you were talking to a friend about a book you loved and want them to read.

And be sure to do all this practicing earlier than the night before you meet your potential agent.

Willow: How can you be so calm?
Oz: Long, arduous hours of practice.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “The Freshman”, 4.1

cue the mermaid

You’ve spent a lot of time on this manuscript/house, and care a lot about it. But you have to distance yourself. Other people are going to tell you what you need to fix before they will buy it from you – this is your critique group. No matter how much you love the color purple on the bedroom walls, in order to sell your manuscript/house, you probably ought to change that.

Once you are ready to sell your manuscript/house, you need a real estate/literary agent. Be sure to find an agent that represents your kind of manuscript. If you are trying to sell a single-family dwelling, you would not work with a real estate agent that only represents multi-tenant corporate buildings. Research agents that are selling what you want to sell.

A reputable agent is going to take a cut of whatever the publisher pays you for your manuscript. Just like in real estate, that agent gets paid when you sell your house. Agents who ask for up-front fees are not the kind of agent you want to work with.

Once you an agent agrees to work with you to sell your manuscript/house, trust and follow their advice. They are the experts in their business, which is why you want to work with them. Your job is to write; their job is to sell and negotiate the contracts that conclude that sale.

If you have a question, ask your agent. You and they are partners in this adventure and partners help each other achieve the goal. If you read the acknowledgments at the beginning of a book, it is highly likely that the author mentions their gratitude to their agent.

And while the real estate metaphor holds true for a lot of literary agent aspects, there is one exception that greatly benefits the author: your agent can sell your manuscript multiple times as they make deals regarding the different rights of the property. These include, but are not limited to foreign rights, audio rights, and film rights.

Phoebe Abbott Sr.: You know this house is an unusual house, because there’s three bedrooms, and no bath. But the ocean’s right there.
- Friends, “The One at the Beach”, 3.25

tux take 1

Known as SFWA (pronounced “siff-wa”), these are the people responsible for the Nebula Award. Past and present members include Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Ray Bradbury, Andre Norton, Elizabeth Moon, Pat Rothfuss, and Peter S. Beagle. Currently, there are over 1600 people involved with this organization.

One of the things I like about this group is that you cannot buy a membership to this professional organization – you have to earn your way in. There is a list of qualifying and non-qualifying markets on the membership requirements webpage.

Even if you don’t yet meet the requirements to become a SFWA member, their website is a great resource of writing craft and publishing industry information. These articles are writing by the people who are actively involved in the science fiction and fantasy genres, both on the writing and publishing sides of the fence.

If you are a writer, check out the Author Information Center and Writer Beware webpages.

If you are reader, check out the Member Fiction Online webpage, which has links to entire short stories, sample chapters of books, and links to ebook – some of which you can purchase for as little as 69 cents.

The SFWA site also has three blogs full of great information:

• SFWA Blog
• Craft of Writing
• Business of Writing

So if you are looking for advice on writing, or just some cool stories to read, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) website is the place to go.

Burn Notice: Whoever this guy is, he’s got resources, training.
- Burn Notice, “Seek and Destroy”, 2.12

murderers

Used books, or other editions published by a different company, may be available, but all Kindle versions and paperbacks cannot be bought from Amazon.

If you read any author or publisher blogs, you’ll know all about this.

For those who don’t, the three sentence summary is

1. Amazon wants to sell ebooks for a fixed, maximum price of around $10

2. Macmillan wants to sell ebooks on an agency model for a price range of $15 to $6

3. Amazon removed their “buy” links for all Macmillan books over the weekend

For a more comprehensive history, review, and analysis and debate of the situation, please read the following. If nothing else, you’ll learn all kinds of good, publishing business background information.

• John Scalzi’s “A Quick Note On eBook Pricing and Amazon Hijinx” and “All The Many Ways Amazon So Very Failed the Weekend“
• Jay Lake’s “An open letter to Kindle enthusiasts and ebook activists“
• Scott Westerfeld’s “Zinc Blinked“
• Tobias Buckell’s “Why my books are no longer for sale via Amazon“
• Charles Stross’ “Amazon, Macmillan: an outsider’s guide to the fight“
• Andrew Wheeler’s “More on Amazon-Macmillan“

As with any battle, it will be interesting to see who wins, who says they won, what happens next, and how history will re-write it all.

]]> http://writershelves.com/agents-editors-publishing/amazon-vs-macmillan/feed 0 http://writershelves.com/social-networking/agent-appreciation-day http://writershelves.com/social-networking/agent-appreciation-day#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:04:09 +0000 heidi2524 http://writershelves.com/?p=998 Kody Keplinger, the 18 year old author of The Duff which will come out in Fall 2010, has declared December 11th the unoffical Agent Appreciation Day.

Authors throughout cyberspace heard her call and responded in their blogs and on Twitter.
thanks to karen bc

Negative information about agents is sometimes more prominent than the positive, so I found it wonderful to read all the appreciation that came out for literary agents in celebration of this day. On Twitter, there were even comments by people who were not clients of a specific agent, but tweeted how the agent had helped them out in some way.

Following the #agentappreciationday and #agentappreciation topics on Twitter is also a fabulous way to research agents.

If the agent is on Twitter, you will see their ID (@whatever), which you can then click on to see their Twitter page. Agents often link to their agency or their blog in the top right corner of their Twitter page. Which means following those topics is also a great way to research literary agencies.

Because even if the agent you find on Twitter does not represent what you write, another agent at that same agency might.

Ray Vecchio: Elaine, we really appreciate you.
- Due South, Chinatown, 1.6

]]> http://writershelves.com/social-networking/agent-appreciation-day/feed 0 http://writershelves.com/writing/short-fiction-pay-rates http://writershelves.com/writing/short-fiction-pay-rates#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:46:39 +0000 heidi2524 http://writershelves.com/?p=977 As you know, money flows to the writer. Whether it’s a novel or a short story, authors are paid for their words.

pengi-san slide

In the case of most short fiction markets, you are literally paid for each word at the rate determined by the publisher. While there are some markets that pay a flat rate for a story, a professional by-the-word rate is considered to be five cents a word by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

John Scalzi recently wrote a post about what he has been paid for his short fiction.

Cat Valente also posted her thoughts on the pay rates of the short fiction market.

What does all this mean for you?

It means there are lots of options out there.

You have to decide where you want to submit your short fiction and how important pro-level pay rates are to you.

And a good place to start looking at short fiction genre markets is Ralan.com.

Richard Fish: Make enough money, and everything else will follow. Quote me. That’s a Fishism.
- Ally McBeal

]]> http://writershelves.com/writing/short-fiction-pay-rates/feed 1 http://writershelves.com/social-networking/act-like-a-professional http://writershelves.com/social-networking/act-like-a-professional#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:57:08 +0000 heidi2524 http://writershelves.com/?p=967 People within an industry treat each other with respect. They are there to do business, which, when done well, benefits all parties involved.

you can

Even before you officially become involved with the publishing industry, it can only help you to act as if you were part of it. Treating everyone with professional courtesy shows you are serious about what you are doing and that you are someone existing professionals will want to do business with at some point.

This attitude of professionalism is important in person, and even more so online. Whether you are responding to an email, having a conversation in a public or private forum, or commenting on a blog or social networking site such as Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter – be courteous and polite. As many people as are taking part in the conversation, even more are watching it.

Every now and then there is a small implosion as an author rants publicly against an agent or editor. It never reflects well on the author and from what I have heard, is never forgotten by the agent or editor.

You don’t know who you are going to work with in the future. People often change jobs and sometimes even careers over the course of their lifetime. Someone you meet at the next conference or book signing could be someone that makes a difference in your writing career.

The only way you will know is to act like a professional and treat everyone with respect.

James Bond: Call it professional courtesy.
- GoldenEye

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