Monday, April 25
There and back again
So I went to the Pikes Peak Writer's Conference in Colorado Springs over the weekend. It was my first writers conference. It was, as you might imagine if you know anything about writers conferences, very interesting and enlightening in a weird, strange sub-culture sort of way. Perhaps emphasize the cult. Turns out conferences are one of the two primary ways writers find agents; the other being the much-rejected query letter. But to find an agent at a conference you either have to be a tremendous person of sales (the conference was probably 75 percent female), or have a wonderfully pitch-perfect story hook.
Overall: it was a pretty good experience. I think it met my expectations in some ways. I got what I wanted out of it. I have a lot of good, concrete things to do to move forward in my attempts to find and agent and sell a novel.
There are a lot of genre writers, I learned. A lot. More than I expected, I guess. There are a lot of people who have published 20 or 30 or 40 books who I've never heard of. Chick-lit wanna-bes were in abundance (it's a hot market, I guess), although by sheer numbers they didn't outcount the traditional romance or suspense/thriller or mystery-series writers. There were also of course plenty of D&D type sci-fi/fantasy writers too. The chick-lit writers learned that 'paranormal chick-lit' is really hot right now. As is paranormal romance. "Imagine Bridget Jones meets Harry Potter."
Oh, and there's "no market" for horror or westerns right now. Or literary novels. They're hard to sell. "Do you know what a literary writer is?" asked one panelist, a genre writer. "They get awards instead of royalties." (Big laugh).
Every single casual conversation started with one of three lines: "So what are you pitching?" "Did you pitch yet?" "What's your book about?" The answer? Some version of: "It's an 80,000 word coming-of-age fantasy/chick-lit/romance/thriller where the arc of the protagonist…. think Jaws meets Titanic meets Desperate Housewives."
There were some very nervous/desperate people in the hallways, people who probably thought this was there one shot to corner (literally in many cases) an agent and pitch their manuscript. I sat in sessions with agents, mostly, to learn how/what/when query/pitch/hook/log line they want/need.
The second most common hallway scene featured one of the seven identifiable agents at the place who made the mistake of slowing down or stopping: seven or eight people quickly standing in a circle trying desperately to pitch. (Three of the meals featured tables with the agent/editor/author's name on a stanchion (and, later, if they saved a chair, the agent/editor/author as well) and a mad rush from the door to nab one of the seven remaining chairs at that table).
I learned to say I've written a commercial novel, rather than a literary one, and I learned that if you can bend your literary novel into a genre many thought (but I disagree) that was even smarter.
I learned a lot about the business of landing an agent, which was my primary goal when I went. I learned about how (some) agents work, what they look for and the complete and total reliance of the industry (agents, editors, publishers, sales force, marketing force, book buyers, stores, chain) on the hook/pitch.
Here's my pitch, for one of my older novels: "Messiah's Sneaker is an offbeat, fast-paced comic romp through doomsday cults, garage bands, suburban America and the Norwegian mafia".
And I got to pitch that novel during my carefully timed/orchestrated by conference planners eight-minute scheduled pitch with an agent. There were seven small round white-table clothed cocktail tables crammed into a smallish seventh floor hotel suite. Agents sat on one side of the table and nervous 'this is my one big chance' writers sat facing them. Seven more desperate writers sat or paced in the waiting area, another dozen in the hallway pacing, practicing, murmuring their pitch.
So my pitch was either successful (despite my fumbling descriptions, the agent said my novel sounded different, interesting, kind of quirky or weird, and "while it's not really for me or what I tend to sell go ahead and send me 30 pages anyway") or not successful (I get the sinking feeling every writer with a scheduled eight-minute pitch was offered the chance to send pages to the agent, so perhaps it wasn't my pitch but just a standing offer, which makes sense from the "let's boost the writer's confidence/feeling of success/happiness with the conference so they come back again and ensure future conference ($$) attendance) depending on whether I'm feeling optimistic/happy or my normal cynical/glass half-empty.
There was also plenty of writing advice ("craft workshops," in the lingo) for the beginning writers. I skipped most of those. I'm not one to take advice. I think I know it all. Apparently I'm a snob, too.
Still, I'm glad I went. But I'm not sure when I'll go to another.
Overall: it was a pretty good experience. I think it met my expectations in some ways. I got what I wanted out of it. I have a lot of good, concrete things to do to move forward in my attempts to find and agent and sell a novel.
There are a lot of genre writers, I learned. A lot. More than I expected, I guess. There are a lot of people who have published 20 or 30 or 40 books who I've never heard of. Chick-lit wanna-bes were in abundance (it's a hot market, I guess), although by sheer numbers they didn't outcount the traditional romance or suspense/thriller or mystery-series writers. There were also of course plenty of D&D type sci-fi/fantasy writers too. The chick-lit writers learned that 'paranormal chick-lit' is really hot right now. As is paranormal romance. "Imagine Bridget Jones meets Harry Potter."
Oh, and there's "no market" for horror or westerns right now. Or literary novels. They're hard to sell. "Do you know what a literary writer is?" asked one panelist, a genre writer. "They get awards instead of royalties." (Big laugh).
Every single casual conversation started with one of three lines: "So what are you pitching?" "Did you pitch yet?" "What's your book about?" The answer? Some version of: "It's an 80,000 word coming-of-age fantasy/chick-lit/romance/thriller where the arc of the protagonist…. think Jaws meets Titanic meets Desperate Housewives."
There were some very nervous/desperate people in the hallways, people who probably thought this was there one shot to corner (literally in many cases) an agent and pitch their manuscript. I sat in sessions with agents, mostly, to learn how/what/when query/pitch/hook/log line they want/need.
The second most common hallway scene featured one of the seven identifiable agents at the place who made the mistake of slowing down or stopping: seven or eight people quickly standing in a circle trying desperately to pitch. (Three of the meals featured tables with the agent/editor/author's name on a stanchion (and, later, if they saved a chair, the agent/editor/author as well) and a mad rush from the door to nab one of the seven remaining chairs at that table).
I learned to say I've written a commercial novel, rather than a literary one, and I learned that if you can bend your literary novel into a genre many thought (but I disagree) that was even smarter.
I learned a lot about the business of landing an agent, which was my primary goal when I went. I learned about how (some) agents work, what they look for and the complete and total reliance of the industry (agents, editors, publishers, sales force, marketing force, book buyers, stores, chain) on the hook/pitch.
Here's my pitch, for one of my older novels: "Messiah's Sneaker is an offbeat, fast-paced comic romp through doomsday cults, garage bands, suburban America and the Norwegian mafia".
And I got to pitch that novel during my carefully timed/orchestrated by conference planners eight-minute scheduled pitch with an agent. There were seven small round white-table clothed cocktail tables crammed into a smallish seventh floor hotel suite. Agents sat on one side of the table and nervous 'this is my one big chance' writers sat facing them. Seven more desperate writers sat or paced in the waiting area, another dozen in the hallway pacing, practicing, murmuring their pitch.
So my pitch was either successful (despite my fumbling descriptions, the agent said my novel sounded different, interesting, kind of quirky or weird, and "while it's not really for me or what I tend to sell go ahead and send me 30 pages anyway") or not successful (I get the sinking feeling every writer with a scheduled eight-minute pitch was offered the chance to send pages to the agent, so perhaps it wasn't my pitch but just a standing offer, which makes sense from the "let's boost the writer's confidence/feeling of success/happiness with the conference so they come back again and ensure future conference ($$) attendance) depending on whether I'm feeling optimistic/happy or my normal cynical/glass half-empty.
There was also plenty of writing advice ("craft workshops," in the lingo) for the beginning writers. I skipped most of those. I'm not one to take advice. I think I know it all. Apparently I'm a snob, too.
Still, I'm glad I went. But I'm not sure when I'll go to another.
