Welcome to Talking Agents Literary E-Zine, the free successor to the hard copy/subscribers-only-online Talking Agents newsletter we published ten times a year for ten years. 

CAPITULATION

Very well, the votes are in and you win. In a landslide.  From now on every issue of this e-zine will include the snail mail contact data of the agents we mention.  We are, however, going to refrain from giving the agents’ e-mail addresses.  For that you have to check around the web.  If they want e-mail queries they’ll say so and make that information available, probably on a site of their own.  Addresses at the end of the newsletter. 

If you're a writer, most especially a novelist, those words make you smile.  A corpse here or there livens up any plot, and can often help you over the story telling hump whatever your genre.  As for genuine mystery, it's one of the most popular categories we see among books being written by clients.  We also see a lot of thrillers.  And though the two categories are frequently expressed in writing with a slash between them, they are not really the some thing.  That said, telling the difference can sometimes be tough.  One explanation is that while a mystery is a whodunit, a thriller is a howdidit.  Or a whydidit. 

Maybe.

A better criterion is probably that in a thriller the stakes are higher.  Mysteries classically begin with a killing (though they seldom stop at one body).  True whether the book is a cozy with Agatha Christie  DNA, or a noir with Raymond Chandler bloodlines.  Thrillers, said to trace their modern origins back to John Buchan’s 1915 THIRTY-NINE STEPS,   are more likely to begin with an explosion, or some eerie puzzle, or a bit of both.  One of the best thriller debuts we've seen in years is Matt Richtel's HOOKED, where a guy is in an Internet café, gets a note in the handwriting of his dead girlfriend telling him to get the hell out of there, and when he does - chasing after the mysterious deliverer of the note - the place blows up behind him.  Now that's a thriller opening.  The book, was sold by Laurie Liss, and went to Jonathan Karp's new house Twelve for six figures. (Incidentally, HOOKED is at your bookstore now.)

Liss, was with Aaron Priest back in 1992 when she made her bones by discovering Robert James Waller's THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, spent the next eight years at Harvey Klinger, and has been at Sterling Lord Literistic since 2001.  Like a fairly small handful of the really successful agents Liss bucks the trend by being a generalist.  (In the main, doing a lot of what you do best is what puts you in the fast lane - true of writers as well as agents.)  She certainly isn't a specialist in the kind of romantic mainstream represented by Waller - no longer a Liss client - though she also represents the heartstring-tuggers of Richard Paul Evans.  Richtel and his thriller appear to be anomalous on her list, but so does the literary fiction of Michael Morris.  Further, she does as much non-fiction as fiction.  From the let-it-all-hang-out angst of such writers as Dave Pelzer, who did his first two books with Jeff Herman - who got him $800,000 for the second - then moved to Liss and learned what a really big advance looked like, to the business advice of Sam Horn.     

Both mysteries and thrillers can run to a series hero or heroine.  Witness master thriller writer Robert Ludlum's creation Jason Bourne, with a third movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, just about to be released and Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Betrayal  by Eric Van Lustbader currently making the lists.  The movie deals were all made by Ludlum's agent Henry Morrison, who also sold every book R.L. ever wrote, and all of the spin-offs since the author's death in 2000. (Incidentally, the spin off notion began when Ludlum was alive, though he did not conceive of Bourne as a series hero.)  Lustbader has been a Morrison client since the early 1980s when he was producing such bestsellers as The Ninja, and Black Heart.  Morrison does fiction almost - though not quite - exclusively.  Always commercial fiction, and - full disclosure - he's also been Beverly's agent since the '80s, and as a writer of historical fiction she is - yes - anomalous on his list.

Okay, enough of the seasoned war horses (never mind if they're still winning the big races), who's new or newish in this area?  Jacky Sach at BookEnds was an editor at Penguin until 1999 and sells pretty much what she used to buy:  news you can use, and mysteries that tend to be cozies.  A good example is Heather Webber's Lucy Valentine series where the sleuth is a psychic matchmaker.  Latest sale was to St. Martin's, three books for something under $50k.  That's not great money - we haven't seen many six figure deals in Sach's public record - but this is not an easy area in which to get great money.  At least not until the books break out in a big way.  Think Sue Grafton (agented by Molly Friedrich) or Janet Evanovich (Robert Gottlieb).  Sara Crowe has spent the past few years building a terrific kids' list with an emphasis on fantasy, but she's been slipping in mysteries and thrillers right along.  The latest sale we've seen for her is a pair of noir mysteries for Dave Zelterserman.  Apparently nothing special by way of an advance, and the books went to small press Serpent's Tail.  Crowe has also just done a three book deal with St. Martin's for Bram Stoker Award-winner Jonathan Maberry, with the books being billed as thrillers rather than horror.  Again, no mention of money which means, if nothing else, that the advance did not get near six figures. 

Which illustrates the painful lesson you have to learn if you're looking forward to quitting your day job.  First calculate the amount of time it takes to write three books - even shorties in the ilk of cozies, much less big hefty thrillers - divide that by an advance of five, ten, or even fifteen thousand per book.  Now look at what 15% of those numbers represents, and figure out why the big agents get to be big agents by getting top dollar, and why you can't live on a $50 thousand advance.

And please don't fall prey to that nonsense about major agents not taking on new clients.  It is not true and we've got the data to prove it.  Neither is the stuff about them not even reading the queries sent by new writers, or the myth that says they won't talk to you until you're a best seller, even after you have a few published books.  It's all rubbish.

FREE STUFF

Really.

We’re running a survey on the site.  As AR&E heads into our second decade we want to know what you think and find ways to serve you better.  You’ll find the survey indicated in the left hand navigation bar on the home page, or simply click here. In return for answering our questions we’re offering a free agent report.  Just give us your e-mail (we can’t send the report otherwise, and as you already know, we don’t share our lists with anyone ever) and tell us the name of the agent whose report you’d like to have. 

Thank you.

KNOCK AND IT SHALL BE OPENED UNTO YE… QUERY LETTERS THAT WORK

Here’s a subject about which we’re asked all the time.  Writers who get our Customized Fingerprint Reports get a detailed memo from Beverly that, as well as talking about their particular project, gives highly specific information about how to compose a dynamite query letter.  Of necessity anything we say in a piece like this has to be much more general, but in a nutshell here’s our 1/2/3/4 rule of successful queries. 

• 1/  Start with yourself. 

Number one:  Make sure to include your e-mail address and cell phone number in your letterhead.  Number two:  Recognize that there are no new plots – Shakespeare could not pass that test – nor any entirely new themes on which to write a work of non-fiction.  You, on the other hand, are unique.  In a few pithy and tight sentences tell who you are and what you’ve accomplished.  A published writer (and we don’t mean self-published unless your book has sold very, very well) starts with her or his credits, book title and publisher.  If it’s been longer than five or six years since you’ve brought anything out, skip the date.  The agent will find it, but you don’t have to make it that easy.  If your work has appeared in magazines, list them, or – if the list is lengthy – enough of them to give a flavor of the level you’ve achieved.  If you have no publishing credits tell what else you’ve done in your life that has proved you’re a serious person, one tough enough to withstand the sometimes soul-destroying process of going after a major publishing contract.  This, trust us, is not a game for wimps.  Agents are not paid to hold your hand.

• 2/  Tell something about the book.

This should be an abstract – a few sentences that tell in as grabbing a way as you can manage what the book is about.  If you’re describing a novel (and never, please God, will you call it a fictional novel since by definition a novel can be nothing but), remember that we need first to have people we care about.  The wildest most perfectly rendered chase scene matters not a wit if we don’t give a tinker’s damn about pursuer or prey.  But you also want to show that you have a first, second, and third act.  And you have to do all this in a short paragraph.  Yes it’s tough.  But you’re a writer, aren’t you?

• 3/  Explain why you are approaching this particular agent. 

Generic query letters are insulting.  This is a highly personal, almost an intimate, relationship.  Why are you willing to pay this particular person a minimum 15% of your projected income when you’re the one who sweat the blood to make the book happen?  Certainly not because the agent can put it in a pretty box for delivery to an editor who actually happens to buy books like yours.  That’s good, but not good enough.  You could probably do as well with some persistent squirreling around on the Internet and a visit to a first class stationer.  You are hiring someone to negotiate for you, to help you decide if it makes any sense to agree to a multi-book contract, to advise on which rights you should hold (and stand a chance to hold) and which you should happily sign away, to select the Hollywood film agents who should see a copy of the ms – possibly before it  goes to a publisher, to step into your corner if down the pike there are problems with the editing, and some time in the future, represent your literary estate.  Why this someone and not that?  You don’t know?  How can you possibly survive in a milieu this tough if you’re not smart enough to make it your business to find out?

• 4/  Say you’re enclosing a one page overview of your book as well as the first few pages, and offer to send the entire ms or proposal on request.

 The single page can be single or double spaced, so you’ve got some wiggle room.  But essentially you’re not doing a plot summary of a novel or a sterile list of chapters for a work of non-fiction.  You are telling, very briefly, a short, short, short story of what you’ve written or are proposing to write.  And incidentally, proposals are the sales tool of choice for non-fiction.  You will probably be required to produce one even if you’ve already written the book.  They are not usually done for fiction.  

The opening pages which serve as a writing sample must be exactly that, especially for fiction, a demonstration of how you can grab the reader from the very first sentence.  

And finally tell the poor agent, who must get through many dozens of these things every week (always praying that, please God, there’ll be something that can be sold in this pile of, yes, slush), that it is not necessary to return anything in the event of lack of interest.  You can skip the SASE.  It came into being when we all laboriously typed these things, and were hoping maybe we could recycle a page or two.  Now that we can have as many copies as we like with a keystroke; the SASE is as useful as spats.  An agent who loves what you have to say will get back to you as soon as the material is read, probably by e-mail or telephone.  He/she does not need a box to tic on a self-addressed postcard.  As for your copyright, it’s protected whether or not the material ever gets back to you.  In the highly unlikely event of plagiarism you will have the same burden of proof – with or without the coffee stained pages that went to one or another agent.

Thank you.  Sincerely yours.  

There are a few more things to say about killer queries, including whether you should send them by e-mail.  Next time.

THOSE ADDRESSES YOU WANTED:

Laurie Liss

Sterling Lord Literistic

65 Bleecker St., 12th Floor

New York, NY  10012

Henry Morrison, Inc.

105 S. Bedford Rd.

Mt. Kisco NY 10549

Jacky Sach

Book Ends

136 Long Hill Rd.

Gillette NJ  07933

The Friedrich Agency

136 East 57^th St., 18^th Floor

New York NY 10022

Robert Gottlieb

Trident Media Group

41 Madison Ave., 36^th Floor

New York NY 10010

Sara Crowe

Harvey Klinger

300 West 55^th St., Suite 11V

New York NY  10019