Tag Archives: Writing Career Tip

Literary Agent Search Savvy – Words to the Wise Writer

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Literary Agent Search Savvy. Where have all the agents gone? A writers’ conference organizer contacted me recently to ask why they were having so much difficulty finding participants for their annual agents’ panel. From what I hear, this is not the only group having that problem. In fact, individual authors experience the same scarcity.

Agents are selective. A difficult species to pin down, even back when I wasa member of that species (check out the above visual). Literary agent accessibility has always been a thorny issue. Agents, and their mother ship companies, have always been selective regarding who goes where in terms of conference participation, which is an investment for them after all, even more so now than in the past.

Traditional Publishing has become an almost totally bottom-line business. For agencies, that means they must justify each investment they make of time and resources. Not only the time and effort spent on being at an event, but the time and effort required to address the cascade of manuscript submissions that result from every such appearance.

Bottom-line thinking, agent style. The essential consideration for any agency worth its AAR membership is this. How many author contacts are we likely to make at this event that will lead to taking on a client who attracts a publisher and sells lots of books for that house? The viability of any agency depends on its ability to scout out authors who will satisfy publishers.

This concern has to do with commerce. Many authors, and authors’ organizations, make no pretense of being commercial in focus. Others claim otherwise. Their primary goal is not necessarily to sell the work, or so they say. They are instead all about freeing the writerly voice, exploring the writerly self, and encouraging that voice and self to define and speak the writer’s personal truth.

A worthy aspiration for sure. But, to the publishing establishment—agents, editors, publishing houses—that focus reads as not particularly marketable, whether this is entirely accurate or not. All of which puts writers’ groups, and writers, at a definite disadvantage when it comes to attracting agents, either to attend author events or to represent an individual writer’s work. But do not despair. I have a couple of suggestions.

My first and most sweeping suggestion is to modify your target search. Seek out, in addition to literary agents, people who know a lot about the publishing business and how to succeed there. Let’s call them Mavens. A writers’ event has a better chance of mounting a successful panel when there are mavens in the mix. An individual writer gifts herself with access to wisdom and experience when she cultivates a maven mentor.

Thus, value is added. These mavens know the world of writing and publishing like it is, as we used to say, and they tell it like it is. They shoot from the hip and are, frankly, much more forthcoming with the real skinny than most agents can afford to be. Another agent bottom line is that she must not risk alienating publishers.

Still, almost every writer wants to get up-close with agents. More specifically, you need to find agents who will actually be willing to show up for a panel and/or read your work. So, here’s my second suggestion. Identify established agencies and target the young, the talented and the hungry on their staffs. In other words, don’t pursue the headliners. They already have a stable of authors and are far less eager than their newer colleagues to go trolling for more clients.

Contact agents who are lower on the agency totem pole. Go to the agency website. If they don’t have a good one, that’s a heads-up that they’re not very deep into the publishing game. Find the assistant editors and associates. Check their credentials. Each should have a bio on the site that details the submissions they prefer. Google them too. Any agent worth that designation has an online presence.

Choose the ones that suit your interests and needs. Don’t worry that you shouldn’t be scouting the second string. Successful agencies hire talented new agents they believe can bring in authors that will attract publishers. These agencies groom and train their recruits and closely supervise their work. The top dogs prepare their pups to become champions – your champions.

“Hungry” means these starlets don’t yet have a full stable of clients and are eager to find good writers with good work. Let’s face it, that means marketable work, books that will sell. If you want a stall in that stable, my words to the wise are these. You must adopt the bottom line too. If you need to find out how, return to my first suggestion. Ask a maven. That’s real Literary Agent Search Savvy.  Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

A Wrong Way Home – Alice Orr’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – is a FREE eBook HERE. Enjoy!

Alice’s latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving–Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5– is available HERE.  Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

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http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
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Conference Connection – How We Bond with Our Writers’ Tribe

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Alice Orr Books at Liberty States Conference Conference Connection. How We Bond with Our Writers’ Tribe. I am just now emerging from the fog of a writers’ conference. Why a fog? Because that’s what the misty airlock feels like between conference world and my daily world. A sweet fog of adjustment before re-entry. Why sweet? That is a more complicated question. The sweetness of the fog is a carryover from the sweetness of the experience and the many nectars of its ingredients.

We leave our daily world behind. This is the essential first step toward making the Conference Connection. My personal sweetness recipe begins with the hotel stay. I’ve long maintained that room service and maid service are among the supreme triumphs of this or any culture, with the twenty-four-hour lobby snack corner running a close third.

We open up from our solitary selves. Writing is a self-on-self pursuit. We sit in a room and commune with our muse. As fiction writers, we converse with folks who only exist inside our heads. Sometimes we stare at the wall, and we do it all alone. Thus, we can become a bit in-grown. Like musty bedding, we require occasional airing to remain fresh. There are few more refreshing opportunities for a writer than making a Conference Connection.

We fall in among our Tribe. Which brings us to the sweetest ingredient of conference ambrosia. Writers, writers, and more writers. In corridors and workshops. At informal get-togethers and more formal ones. Talking, laughing, debating, sharing. Writers everywhere, on furlough from the trenches, encouraging one another to fight through the obstacles we all inevitably encounter. This is the beating heart of the Conference Connection, and it is Us.

We celebrate ourselves and one another. My entrée into Liberty States Fiction Writers Conference 2018 was an impromptu gathering in the hotel lounge. I had been invited to join by my old friend, Sandra Barone. She introduced me to Christine Akins Clemetson, who immediately became my new friend, as often happens at writers’ gatherings. Christine had huge news to share. She’d just signed with a literary agent. Joy and wonder shone from her slightly dazed smile, encouraging and inspiring us all with a magical Conference Connection.

We learn. We learn. We learn. From workshops, keynote talks, forums and, most of all, each other. Author, teacher, maven Chris Redding took time from her busy day to share her marketing expertise. Amazon algorithms are incomprehensible to me, but Chris pierced that darkness with enough light to set me on a more fruitful track. She also reminded me of my own mantra, Do It Anyway! She didn’t have to bother with any of that, but she did it anyway. Such generosity is the gold which is mined for each of us when we make a Conference Connection.

We Book Fair. Book signings can be humiliation hell. I once signed next to Nora Roberts. R for Roberts, O for Orr and OMG. The Ps and Qs knew enough to stay away. But at Liberty States, the O section sat me with long-time author friend L.G. O’Connor. Sweet indeed. Because book signings can be heaven.

We know that these events aren’t about selling books. These book signings are about being there, showing up, sitting behind a propped-up copy of your latest publication. Or dreaming of the day when you’ll have a propped-up copy of your own to flaunt. Either way, we smile ear-to-ear and heart-to-heart amidst our tribe, linked to one another by our Conference Connection.

Is there a downside? Maybe the case of Crammed-Brain Syndrome many of us take with us from hours and days of workshops and panels. Or the soft brace you wear on your wrist after scribbling like crazy in your notebook to capture every morsel of information. But we can handle that and then some, in return for establishing a Conference Connection.

We re-enter our individual writers’ lives better off for the experience. We have shown our shining faces to the writing world. We have hugged old friends and discovered new ones. We have been embraced by the spirit of our community and participated in a powerful ritual of our tribe. Plus, last but far from least, we’ve had fun.

So, here I am, post-fog. I made another solid Conference Connection, and, best of all, I bonded yet again with how blessed I am to do this writer thing.                                                 Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com

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A Time of Fear & LovingConference Connection and her writers’ tribe have a lot to do with Alice’s joyful experience of her career and her novels. Don’t miss her latest, A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

 What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving. “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career

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Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career. Both are created from scratch out of whatever might be hanging around your house or your office or your imagination. In our family, the handmade ornament tradition began with our daughter in law, back when our granddaughter was too young to handle anything more dangerous than scissors and glitter.

Her mom took over where a hot glue gun was required. The gold and purple stocking at the top of the tree in the photo is an example of one such project. Our grandson joined the glue gun gang a few years later. I dearly love every one of their homemade ornaments.

Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career. In anybody’s career tradition, if we want to reach our goals, most of us start out handmade, doing it on our own, beginning with the Business Plan. My long experience has taught me Step One of that plan must be this. Work Your Butt Off. Again, you start with whatever you already have, hiding in the corners of your work space, tucked away at the bottom of your skill-set bag.

For example, if you have a mailing list or the makings of a mailing list, start there. Google how you can use a mailing list to grow your career. Meanwhile, give your best effort and brain time to your true focus, your writing project, or whatever your project may be. Then, like I said, work your butt off, all the way down to the bone.

Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career. I’m kind of a nut about Christmas. Maybe because my birthday is December 26th and something in me imagines the Christ child, sharing a tiny bit of his thunder with me. Friends and family are aware of my yuletide obsession, plus the tendency to over-decorate that goes with it, and have gifted me with many tree ornaments.

In fact, each ornament on our tree came from someone we love. But the homemade ones are all from our grandchildren, who eventually graduated from scissors and glue to dough and paint and the era of the home-baked tree began.

Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career. Back to the Career Creation Tradition. Business Plan Step Two is as demanding as Step One. Do Everything Right. Please, don’t panic because, the truth is, nobody can do everything right. Here’s a more realistic guideline combo of Steps One and Two. Work Your Butt Off Trying to Do Everything Right. You’ll fall short sometimes. We all fall short sometimes.

For example, in terms of doing something crucial very wrong, there was my first lunch with a book editor. Thank heaven she was a compassionate soul, or I’d have made an even bigger fool of myself than I actually did. BUT, I never let myself play the fool with an editor again. BECAUSE, when you fall short of doing everything right, you learn.

Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career. We were living in the Pacific Northwest when the era of the home-baked tree began, and every year new ornaments arrived. Carefully crafted and even more carefully wrapped, they nestled under the tree they would soon adorn, waiting for Grandma and Grandpa to un-swaddle them with a full hearts and glistening eyes.

The Santa face and the flower on a blue background and the brightly colored sun, all in the branches of the photo tree, and many more. They accumulated, and the boughs hung heavier and more precious to us with each passing year. They are precious to us still, and always will be.

Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career. Which brings us to Step Three of the Business Plan. Which, in turn, takes me back to my beginning as a literary agent, my previous profession before becoming a full-time writer, and the origin of the bright-light epiphany idea for this final step, or maybe I should say, this final leap. I’d had a good run as an in-house book editor, but I have the heart of a writer and had been uncomfortable serving the interests of a publisher. Becoming an agent was an obvious next move, but how would I do that?

I needed a Business Plan. I bought how-to books. I did a lot of research, but what I found were basically templates that didn’t tell me much about what I might want to accomplish in my career. Nothing was telling me that. until a single sentence popped into my head. “Let’s see how far I can go.” I wrote it down, hung it on the wall, and those six words turned out to be the bright-light epiphany that made everything afterward an adventure. I share them with you. Just See How Far You Can Go.

So this, my darlings, is the two-fold tale of Homemade Ornaments Handmade Career, and it ends with five more words, these from the immortal Charles Dickens. “God bless us, every one.”  Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

– R|R –

A Time of Fear & LovingAlice’s new novel, homemade and handmade by her, is A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Book 5. Available HERE. You can find all of Alice’s books HERE. 

What readers are saying about A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.”
“Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.”
“The tension in this novel was through the roof.”
“A budding romance that sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
“I never want an Alice Orr book to end.”
“The best one yet, Alice!”

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

TAGS – Holiday Season, Storytelling, Career Help, Career Discipline, Career Attitude