Industry info (long)

Hey Guys,

I was at a panel discussion yesterday at the Liberty States Writers meeting that included Stephany Evans of Fine Print and an editor from Penguin, Jessica Wade. Here are the talking points:

Stephany Evans:
--Does NOT want anything involving disease, child abuse, or anything too edgy or gritty. Prefers to laugh. Her example of a "don't want" kind of story is Jodi Picoult type.
--She's a native Pennsylvanian and responds well to stories set in the country but doesn't get many. (Presented this as insider info, so keep it on the DL!)
--The majority of her clients were unpublished before they came to her.
--Janet Reid only pretends to be scary. (Uh huh.) Stephany herself is not scary. (Beg to differ.)
--She pronounces "query" as "qwerry." It was kind of charming. Regarding "qwerries," she looks for them to be first and foremost, clean and error free. Voice is what will grab her, even if the story is not usually one she reps.
--She tends to be very hands on with clients regarding edits and revision, doing them herself if necessary.
--If she offers you advice in a rejection, don't e-mail back asking for more. "Don't take advantage of an agent's gesture of help," was how she put it.
--When you approach an agent, you are essentially asking them to go into business with you. Treat your interaction in that way.
--Be careful, careful, careful about what you say in your social networking on the web. I know we all know this, but she told a whopper of a story that made me cringe. One of Fine Print's clients, previously self-pubbed, had just scored a big book deal with a large house. Either on her blog or Facebook, she wrote a long piece about how she was doubting the deal and wondering aloud if she should have remained self-pubbed. The editor she had just signed with came across it and called her agent at Fine Print to say, "Hey, do you know what your client is out there saying?"

Jessica Wade, editor, Tor and Mira:
--Describes herself as a "young editor building her list."
--Mostly does science fic and fantasy, but has a few romance titles.
--Has pubbed from the slush pile, but not many. Tor and Mira still take unagented subs.
--Vamps are still going strong and look to be for a while. She has vamp titles slated for pub through 2011.
--Cozy mysteries are doing well. Cozy paranormal mysteries are doing well.
--Editors are less receptive to YA fantasy but still looking for YA paranormals.
--More and more houses are insisting on electronic rights as well as print rights, but of all Penguin's titles, only 1 percent are e-books.
--She personally does two rounds of editing on all her titles--a "global edit," for structure and a line edit for style. Copyeditors take care of the grammar and mechanics.

Both talked about being unable to predict trends and when a writer tries too hard to write for a particular market, it shows. (They both used the "book of your heart" metaphor, which is one I am having more and more trouble accepting. Every time I think I've written the book of my heart, my agent sends it back for a transplant.)

When asked how they know if a particular market is "oversaturated," there was silence for a minute and then Evans said, "You always find it out too late."

Enough said! Hope this info is helpful and gives heart to all your paranormal authors!

rr