Interview with an Agent: Naomi Hackenberg

Get ready, all you YA writers. I think you’re going to like this one:) Today’s installment of “Interview with an Agent” features Naomi Hackenberg of Elaine English Literary Agency. Enjoy!

KV: How did you get into agenting?

NH: By the time I went to grad school, I had already had some non-publishing-type jobs, and I knew that I wanted to move into the publishing industry when I finished. While I was in grad school, I had an internship at a literary agency, and it struck me as the ultimate intersection of everything that I liked about publishing--working with both authors and editors; having the opportunity to spot and nurture talent and to help find an audience for that talent; and, of course, reading! When I graduated, I became a literary assistant at the Elaine English Literary Agency where I began by selling foreign rights and have since moved into representing my own projects as well.

KV: How would you summarize your personal agenting philosophy? What do you expect from an agent-author relationship?

NH: I believe in tenacity and building good relationships. When it comes to working with authors on maximizing the potential of their manuscripts, I’m pretty hands-on (when the manuscript is completed, that is--I stay out of the way unless requested otherwise during the initial writing process). I expect the agent-author relationship to be one that’s honest and built on mutual respect for the varied talents we both bring to the table.

KV: What client work do you have coming out soon? What drew you to those writers and/or projects?

NH: I’m a very new agent, so I don’t have client work coming out soon. I’m currently shopping some paranormal projects with unique hooks and high (emotional, active, etc.) stakes. (Those vague descriptors wouldn’t stand in a query or pitch letter, but I’m being coy for now--they’re exciting projects.)

KV: What genres do you represent? What genres do you definitely NOT represent?

NH: I represent young adult fiction exclusively, but almost all genres within that category; I especially like paranormals/urban fantasies, dystopias, contemporary, literary, funny, etc.

I don’t represent picture books, and my middle grade interest is limited.

KV: What query pet peeves and/or pitfalls should writers avoid when querying you?

NH: My main pet peeve is receiving queries in which the author has obviously done no research on who I am and/or what I represent. I don’t require or encourage exclusives, but I appreciate queries in which the author makes it clear that they are interested in querying me and having me represent their project.

KV: You only want to see the query letter in a writer’s initial contact, but several respected industry sites have advised writers to include a few sample pages at the bottom of every query, whether the agent asked for them or not. So if a writer goes ahead and adds those pages, do you find that more assertive or obnoxious?

NH: I don’t hold it against an author if they include a few sample pages at the bottom of the query; however, I typically don’t read the pages. If the query doesn’t grab me, I’m not going to read more.

KV: What are you looking for in a manuscript right now?

NH: I’m looking for manuscripts with emotional depth and big stakes. I’d love to see some manuscripts in which the protagonist doesn’t have special powers and is put in a situation with supernatural/paranormal/fantastic elements and threats.

KV: What’s the best way to query you?

NH: Query me at naomi@elaineenglish.com with a query letter in the body of the email--no attachments, please.

Thanks again, Ms. Hackenberg, for these responses. And for those of you thinking about querying her (or for anyone looking for some great writing and/or publishing advice), check out her agency’s blog. Ms. Hackenberg is a regular contributor, and the other bloggers at her agency have wonderful information to dispense as well.

Happy Thursday!

(Work-in-) Progress Report: Bob

Word count (to the nearest thousand): 63,000
Status: Working through chapter-by-chapter edits
Attitude: Totally psyched

Which means I’m STILL totally psyched about this project, and that (sort of) surprises me. I’ve been working on this book for seven months now (eight, if you count the month I spent on the outline), which is about how long I worked on both of my previous manuscripts, outline to query. (Yeah, I haven’t used beta readers in the past. I know. How silly of me.) But I can honestly say Bob is still months away, MONTHS away, from being query-ready. And I’m okay with that.

As for what I’ve been doing since my last (work-in-) progress report, I can sum that up pretty easily: Writing a revision outline. Panicking. Adding a new chapter and some extra scenes. Starting on these chapter-by-chapter edits.

I fully intended to apply the Natalie Whipple Approach to Revising, which involves making the biggest changes first (usually the plot changes), and then the next biggest, and then the next, until you’re down to line-editing the prose. And I sort of did. But then I realized I was using the Approach as an excuse to avoid digging down into the edits and decided to improvise:)

I just work better sequentially, I guess. So I made the biggest changes, and now I’m taking care of everything else on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Tweaking the characterization, adding details, smoothing out the awkwardness. I’m 13,000 words through this pass, and then I plan to give it one last read-through before I send it off to beta readers. (Probably an out-loud read-through--I hope my two-year-old doesn’t think I’ve gone insane…) But I’m getting through it. And I’m totally psyched.

Well, that’s where I am. So where are you?

P.S. Check out Adam Heine’s contest. To celebrate the publication of his short story, “Pawn’s Gambit,” he’s giving away a book. My favorite part? You don’t have to be a follower to enter. The contest closes on May 6, so you have about a week. See you over there!

LDS Writer Blogfest: Temples

These, as you may have guessed, are a few of my wedding pictures. Honey Bear and I will celebrate our sixth anniversary in about a week, on May 7. I remember a lot of things about that day--how heavy my dress felt, and how my cheeks hurt from smiling so much, and how deliriously happy I was--but the thing I want to talk about is that big building in the background, the Salt Lake Temple, and a few other details about my faith.

The Mormon Writer Blogfest is a one-day-only event (I promise), and includes several other Mormon writers around the blogosphere. If you’ve ever had a question about the Mormon Church, today’s your day to get an answer:)

First, a few points of clarification. The Mormon Church, as it is often called, is actually something of a misnomer. Its actual name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sort of a mouthful, I know). The nickname comes from our belief in the Book of Mormon, but I digress.

There are currently 130 temples in operation around the world, including the Manhattan New York, London England, and Sydney Australia Temples. Twenty-two more are under construction or have been announced. (Here’s the complete list.)

To enter a temple, you must be a faithful member of the Church (although anyone may tour a temple during its open house). Within a temple, members perform five ordinances, all of which are associated with specific covenants, or promises with God: baptism and confirmation, initiatory and endowment, and sealing. The first time you go to the temple, you perform these ordinances for yourself. On every subsequent visit, you perform these ordinances on behalf of a deceased ancestor (which is why Mormons are so interested in family history).

Baptism and confirmation Actually, a person may be baptized in any body of water deep enough to fully immerse him or her, so the baptisms and confirmations we perform in the temple are all on behalf of deceased relatives. Members as young as twelve may participate in these ordinances.

Initiatory and endowment I’m not going to say much about these ordinances, because much of what they entail is too sacred to discuss anywhere but in the temple. Boyd K. Packer, current president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (one of the Church’s governing bodies), described it this way: “The temple is a great school. It is a house of learning. In the temples the atmosphere is maintained so that it is ideal for instruction on matters that are deeply spiritual.”

Sealing The sealing power, which seals husbands to wives and parents to children, both on earth and in heaven, is the same power that the Savior gave to Peter in Matthew 16:19. When we talk about eternal marriage, or being married for time and all eternity, this is what we mean. Children born within such a marriage are automatically sealed to their parents, but children born before their parents’ sealing, or children adopted by an already-sealed couple, can be sealed to their parents after the fact. (And the same is true for deceased people.)

For instance. My parents were married in the Salt Lake Temple in December of 1973. A little more than ten years later, they adopted me as an infant. Once the adoption was finalized, I was sealed to them (in the same temple, coincidentally). And four years after that, after my sister was born and her adoption finalized, she was sealed to us as well.

Well, I think that about covers the basics. If you’d like more information, either about temples or any other Church-related topic, check out the Church’s official websites: mormon.org, which is geared more toward people of other faiths, and lds.org, which is more member-oriented. And don’t miss the other Mormon Writer Blogfest posts:

The Book of Mormon and missionary work with Kayeleen Hamblin
Faith in Jesus Christ with Myrna Foster
Families with Charity Bradford
Family history with Laura D
Joseph Smith with Annette Lyon
Restoration of Jesus Christ’s church with Kelly Bryson
Stories from the Book of Mormon with Kathi Oram Peterson

Finally, if you have a specific question, feel free to leave it in the comments. I can’t answer every question (one, because I’m not that smart, and two, because some things are too sacred to discuss outside the temple, as I mentioned before), but if I can, I’d love to.

Thanks for reading.

Interview with an Agent: Brandi Bowles

Morning, all (unless, of course, you’re reading this in the afternoon (or evening), in which case it would be, “Afternoon (or evening), all”). Today’s interview features Brandi Bowles of Foundry Literary + Media. Happy reading.

KV: How did you get into agenting?

BB: I was fourteen when I read THE GIRL’S GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING, which includes a male character who’s a literary agent. I’d never heard of it before, but decided then and there that that was what I wanted to do. When I graduated college I moved to New York and landed an internship at a lit agency, which I quickly finagled into a job at Random House. Though I wanted to be an agent, Random House is not a company you turn down; especially when it means you can quit your other three jobs. I stayed there nearly three years, until I felt I was ready to make the somewhat scary leap into agenting. It’s a much more entrepreneurial world, as you know, and you have to have a lot of hustle to really be a success. That can be very exciting as well!

KV: How would you summarize your personal agenting philosophy? What do you expect from an agent-author relationship?

BB: Right now, I’m really focused on bringing in books with strong platforms, meaning the writer has invested a lot of time into honing his or her writing (as evident by their acceptance in major newspapers, magazines, lit journals) or, for nonfiction, in building his or her personal brand. I put a lot of work into editing, developing, and selling my clients’ projects, and only want to work with people who are just as committed. Beyond that, I consider everything a team effort. I’m very transparent about my side of the business.

KV: What client work do you have coming out soon? What drew you to those writers and/or projects?

BB: Right now my list is heavily nonfiction. I have two books coming out in June: THE BURLESQUE HANDBOOK, by Jo Weldon, and a dating advice book called EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORN, by Erin Bradley. These are projects I pitched to the writers--both had the perfect platform to translate a unique idea and make it their own.

This fall Harper will publish THE WORD MADE FLESH: LITERARY TATTOOS FROM BOOKWORMS WORLDWIDE. This came to me through an acquaintance, and the idea resonated with me immediately. Literary tattoos are a really interesting phenomenon--they turn a medium that’s historically been considered low-class, a bit rough and tumble around the edges, into a platform for publicizing a love for literature and highbrow philosophy. Of course, all of these are a bit counter-cultural, as you can see. I love working on projects that would make my grandmother blush.

Next spring will bring AMERICAN GYPSY (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), a wonderful outsider memoir from a debut writer, Oksana Marafiote. Oksana’s a Romani immigrant--her grandparents were the founders of a famous Gypsy troupe in which she performed for most of her childhood, until her parents moved her to Los Angeles when she was fifteen. I met her when she pitched me an urban fantasy novel at a writer’s conference, but when we got to chatting and I learned of her background, I insisted she write this book instead. It just sounded so fascinating, and I couldn’t recall having seen a Gypsy memoir on shelves.

KV: What genres do you represent? What genres do you definitely NOT represent?

BB: I’ll consider almost anything in the nonfiction realm, with the exception of trauma memoir, political narrative, history, or current events. My tastes really span the gamut otherwise--I enjoy books on sociology, business, fitness and health, sex and relationships. I love narrative nonfiction, pop-culture, humor, and music books too. Memoir is fun to work on, although the author must have that winning combo of truly unique story combined with fantastic writing to knock it out-of-the-park.

My fiction tastes are more limited. I’m looking for really gripping literary fiction, women’s fiction (but nothing that might be called Chick Lit), urban fantasy, and YA. I’ll consider middle grade novels as well, but no picture books.

KV: What query pet peeves and/or pitfalls should writers avoid when querying you?

BB: All I ask is that authors query me with a patient and kind attitude. Please don’t reject my rejection, and don’t ask me for an update unless I’ve had your material longer than two months. It’s rare that I get so behind, but it happens sometimes. I do read all of my query letters, even if I can’t write personal responses to all of them.

KV: What are you looking for in a manuscript right now?

BB: I’ve always been a big fan of apocalyptic and dystopian fiction, a la Cormac McCarthy and Margaret Atwood. I love books that sit on that fence between literary fiction and science fiction, though you’ll notice I don’t list it in my bios because it’s so hard to find (weird agent psychology, I know). I’d love to find something really refreshing in the Urban Fantasy realm; another tough request. And lastly, I’m a huge Ian McEwan fan, and would love to see more meaty, gripping literary fiction, maybe something dark that really delves into the psychology of its characters.

KV: What’s the best way to query you?

BB: I only read e-mail queries, and prefer it when writers attach the first three chapters. If I have to request the chapters, it’s just another step for both of us and creates more delay. With rare exception, I usually answer these in the order they are received. It helps if you can capture my attention with a great platform right up front!

Thanks again, Ms. Bowles, for these answers. And doesn’t she sound like a great agent, everyone? I LOVE that that’s what she wanted to be when she grew up:) If you’re shopping a manuscript in a genre she represents, definitely fire off that query. You even get to include a partial with your initial contact.

Well, that's it from me for the week. Have a great (early) weekend, everyone!

The Silver Lining Award

Thank you, Kayeleen and Stina, for this cheery award. We all need a pick-me-up every now and then, don’t we? (My pick-me-up of choice is chocolate milk--or anything chocolate, really.) And this blog is definitely that for me.

I’m passing this award on to the following five bloggers, who are even sunnier than I am:

A.L. Sonnichsen of The Green Bathtub
Charity Bradford of My Writing Journey
ChristaCarol of ChristaCarol Jones
JustineDell of Justine Dell
Myrna Foster of Night Writer

Give them a look-see. I’m sure they’ll make you smile.

(P.S. And just so you know, I won’t be around much for the next little while. I am fired up--and I mean, FIRED UP--about the revisions I’ve been working on, so all I want to do is write, write, write. I’ll still drop an interview on you every now and then, and a few other posts I have rolling around in my brain, but I will definitely be blogging, and commenting on other people’s blogs, less frequently.)

Interview with an Agent: Amy Tipton

Today’s interview is with Amy Tipton of Signature Literary Agency. I actually discovered Ms. Tipton through one of her clients, fellow blogger Tahereh. So check out the interview, then check out Tahereh’s blog.

KV: How did you get into agenting?

AT: I joined Signature Literary Agency in 2009. I became an agent after working as a literary assistant and office manager at several literary agencies including JCA Literary Agency, Diana Finch Literary Agency, Gina Maccoby Literary Agency, and Liza Dawson Associates. I also worked as a book scout for Aram Fox, Inc. dealing with foreign rights. So, I worked hard and paid my dues! But, really, it was working with Peter Rubie that I got to be an agent. One day, he just asked me if I wanted to be an agent and I said yes.

KV: How would you summarize your personal agenting philosophy? What do you expect from an agent-author relationship?

AT: I am a writer so, as an agent, I also edit. I'm very hands-on. I read and revise and read and revise. I enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth. I want the author to be as committed to the work as I am.

KV: What client work do you have coming out soon? What drew you to those writers and/or projects?

AT: I have several projects coming out and I'm excited about them all! Amy Reed and Courtney Summers have new books coming out. Debut author Victoria Schwab's NEAR WITCH is coming out--a paranormal YA (I normally don't do anything in the paranormal/fantasy/Sci Fi genre). And BIKE NYC by Marci Blackman, Ed Glazar, and Mike Green--an Adult nonfiction tour guide by bicycle (but it's so much more than a tour guide). I love all my projects. What drew me to these ones is their voice--each of these books has a distinctive voice.

KV: What genres do you represent? What genres do you definitely NOT represent?

AT: I like YA and MG; I also rep quirky Adult fiction and nonfiction (if you can't classify it, it's probably for me). I don't rep screenplays, poetry, picture books, or Sci Fi/fantasy.

KV: Say a writer has a YA Sci Fi/fantasy, like Victoria Schwab's NEAR WITCH--should they query you or not?

AT: It's hard to say, but probably not. No. Victoria didn't query me either.

KV: What query pet peeves and/or pitfalls should writers avoid when querying you?

AT: Misspelling is a problem for me--you have spell check on the computer. I also dislike when people don't address me properly--that's rude.

KV: What are you looking for in a manuscript right now?

AT: It's hard to pinpoint what I'm looking for; good writing, a good story. I once heard an agent say, "I want to fall in love!" Yeah. I want to fall in love.

KV: What’s the best way to query you?

AT: E-mail.

Thanks, Ms. Tipton, for these answers. Honestly, if you’re looking for an on-the-ball agent who responds promptly--and I mean, promptly--to clients and non-clients alike, look no further. Ms. Tipton wins the prize in that category, hands down.

Good luck, queriers! And everybody else, thanks for stopping by!

Queries, Darn Queries, and Statistics

I majored in Mathematics Education and Economics in college, so I spent a lot of time with numbers. And as much as it pains me to admit it, some of my favorite classes--please don’t think less of me when I write this--were statistics classes. Honestly, there is nothing more satisfying than doing a little research, running a regression, and seeing those coefficients, with their respective p-values, pop up on the screen. I swear, it’s almost magic. Something very much like finishing that final FINAL draft:)

No regression analysis here today (I wouldn’t want to scare too many of you away), but I do have a lot of good, old-fashioned graphs and charts. Not the graphs and charts I’d like to have, mind you--Excel isn’t quite as robust as it ought to be--but they’ll work well enough. I just hope none of my old professors happen to drop in.

First, a disclaimer (in case any of you happen to be closet statisticians): My bar graphs should be dot plots. I know, I know, I know. But Excel doesn’t do dot plots, so bar graphs it is. And Mr. Gates was too busy, apparently, to program Excel with an actual calendar, so all my calculations assume 12 uniform, 30-day months instead of 12 28- to 31-day months. AND Excel insists on starting at one day instead of zero days (yeah, some agents are THAT fast), so everything is one day off. But everything was already a little off, thanks to those 30-day months, so…yeah.

You should also know that I sent every query by e-mail (or online form). And when I say query, I mean my initial contact with the agent. It doesn’t matter if that initial contact involved a one-page letter, or a one-page letter, five-page synopsis, and first three chapters--I consider all of those to be queries. (Actually, one of the agents I queried wanted to see the entire manuscript in the initial contact.)

All right, here’s the first graph, Response Times (Rejections). This graph depicts the frequency of query response times (how many agents responded in zero days, how many agents responded in one day, and so on), but only for those agents who responded via rejection.


I realize it's a little fuzzy, but the shape of the graph is more important than the numbers themselves, anyway. Encouraging, isn’t it? For the most part, agents respond to e-mail queries rather quickly, especially with rejections:) I cut the graph off at 90 days, as I officially catalog it as a non-response after three months. But I do go back and fill in dates if a rejection comes in after the fact, so there are a few outliers not included in this graph: at 116 days, 122 days, 239 days, and, the big winner, 263 days. Wowsers.

Now for the positive responses, the partial and full requests. This graph, Response Times (Requests), depicts the frequency of query response times for the agents who requested more material.


Now, obviously, there are a lot less data points, but the overall shape remains the same. Again, most agents respond to e-mail queries within a couple of weeks or, at most, a month.

To get an even clearer idea of what’s going on, check out this chart. Here, I’ve broken the data into quartiles. The minimums and maximums are exactly what they sound like--the lowest and highest data points, respectively. The median is the data point in the very middle of the data; 50 percent of the data points are below it, and the other 50 percent above. The quartile Q1 divides the data between the minimum and median in half, and the quartile Q3 does the same thing for the median and maximum.


So how should you interpret this? Well, if you look in the Combined column, you see that the median is 13. So 50 percent of all 59 agents who responded to my query got back to me within 13 days. In that same column, the third quartile, Q3, is 34. That means three-quarters of the agents who responded to my query, or 75 percent of them, responded within 34 days. That really isn’t that long. And it shows that the outliers really are outliers; only once in a very long while will an agent leave you hanging for 263 days.

I’m sure some of you are interested in how long I waited to hear back on my requested partials and fulls. I didn’t create a graph because the data points are much more spread out--hearing back on requested material follows a much less predictable pattern, apparently. Also, I didn’t break it down into partial requests and full requests because that would really involve very few data points. So here’s this chart.

I bet that’s not as bad as you thought it would be. The longest, absolute longest, turnaround time on requested material was (only) four months. And since Q3 is 62, I heard back on 75 percent of my partials and fulls within 62 days, or just over two months.

A few more notes about this project, since I feel like sharing them. Its title is SEE THE SAMELINGS (have I mentioned that before?), and it’s a young adult urban fantasy. Its main character is Eva George (she’s a cabbie), and it’s set in pretty much the only place a book about a cabbie could be set: the quintessential NYC.

Wow. Writing this post has been really…cathartic. Or maybe just nostalgic. Or maybe a little of both. And hopefully it’s been informative for you.

Query Update

It’s been a while since I posted one of these, but I’ve been waiting for the last of the responses to come in so I could do sort of a query wrap-up. Well, the last response came in (another request for revisions!), so you can think of this as the last hurrah for this round of querying.

Total queries: 76
Pending queries: 0 (phew!)
Full requests: 4 (2 requests for revisions)
Partial requests: 10 (1 non-response)
Rejections: 45
Non-responses: 17

I’m planning to dump a whole slew of statistics on you later in the week, so I won’t say much about numbers in this post. I will say that these ones satisfy me (for now), as they far exceeded the bar I set for myself after my first foray into Queryland. That first foray involved a query that broke about every rule of query writing, a second query that wasn’t much better, and exactly one full request (which, to my delight, was an upgrade from a fifty-page partial included in the initial query). It seemed like a miracle to me at the time, and, after looking back on those queries and that word-bloated manuscript, still does:)

What this round of querying has taught me, then, is that partial and full requests--and even offers of representation--aren’t just pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. It really is possible to crawl out of the slush pile and onto an agent’s list. Writers do it all the time (in fact, I can’t think of many writers who did it any other way), and they’ll--we’ll--do it again. So let’s stay positive, keep working hard, and for heaven’s sake, keep writing. We’re only going to get better, right? So why quit now?

And with that, I gracefully hop off of the query-go-round. I do plan to revise this manuscript, just as soon as I get Bob into the inboxes of some betas, but for now, I think I’ll enjoy the view from here. That query-go-round is pretty dizzy-fying:)