Roxburgh Leaving Boyds Mills...


In case you haven't seen the news in PW Daily and PW Children's Bookshelf:

Stephen Roxburgh has resigned as publisher at Boyds Mills Press. He was appointed to the position in February 2007, taking over from Kent Brown, who will serve as interim publisher following Roxburgh’s resignation. Previously, Roxburgh had been associate publisher at Boyds Mills, after the company’s 2004 acquisition of Front Street Books, which Roxburgh founded in 1994. “If anybody looks at our record, they’ll see we’re long-term players,” said Brown, who called Roxburgh a friend and said he respects his decision to resign. “We have a great team of people making books.”

Click here to read the full story on the PW website.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation (and a First Books Update)...

Well everyone, I'm back from vacation. The hurricane didn't put much of a damper on beach going. It was a little rainy and a little overcast (which is fine with me because I sunburn at the drop of a hat), and gas was $5 a gallon when were were driving home. It was lovely seeing the ocean and even lovelier watching Murray dance in the surf and play in the sand. Here's a glimpse of his typical day at the beach.



I also had a chance to read through and contemplate all of the email I got from debut authors and I've picked my First Books lineup for the 2010 CWIM. I emailed four of you this morning. So if you haven't heard from me, I didn't choose you for this feature, but you may be hearing from me for something else, like a Debut Author of the Month interview.

Thanks so much to all of you who contacted me and congratulations again on your debut books. I wish I could read them all and interview each of you.

Authors & Illustrators for Obama Wanted...

Below is an email I got from Bruce Balan. Bruce and April Halprin Wayland are behind the creation of Authors and Illustrators for Children and they're currently looking for published authors and illustrators to lend their names to a pro-Barak Obama ad. Read on and if this interests you and please use the email address below to participate or click on their website for more information and to see the ad.

Hi Everyone,

I just returned from nearly a year away and I’ve been whining about how awful life is in the United States:

The media invades. The pollsters attack. The news overwhelms.
April says to me “It doesn’t matter. We can do it.”
And Barack Obama says “Yes we can!”
I believe them.

It doesn’t matter what the polls say. It doesn’t matter what the pundits say. What matters is what we do, NOW.

AIC can make a difference in this election but first we need YOUR NAME. We want 500 authors in our ad. We have 74.
That means we need 426 more by the end of next week.

It’s time to act. If you want to be included in the AIC campaign to make Obama our next president, do the following:

If you are a published author and/or illustrator, send an email to CountMeIn@aiforc.org. The message body should simply be your name as you want it to appear in the ad.

Send this email to 20 authors and illustrators you know. It doesn’t matter if they might have received it from someone else. Get the word out! That’s the most important part.

In a day or two, check the website to make sure your name is on the list and spelled correctly!: www.aiforc.org/obama/thelist.html.

You can view the ad at: www.aiforc.org/obama

You can donate to our campaign (credit card, check or PayPal). We’re focusing on swing states, we’re creating printable materials that you can hand out, we’re booking online advertising, we’re producing a video. It all takes money. www.aiforc.org/donate.html

That’s it for now. Don’t let this sit in your mailbox. We need 500 authors and we need them now!

Yes we do.

Yes we can!

Bruce

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Heading off on My Hurrication...

I'm getting ready to go on vacation. The plan was a week in Myrtle Beach. Hanna (whether she decides to be a hurricane or a tropical storm) has pretty much the same vacations plans.


So whether we make the beach or stay somewhere way more inland, I'll be gone for the next week or so and there will be nothing new on my blog.

When I return, I'll be posting some new listings that didn't make it into the 2009 CWIM, so stop back. Now I'm going home to pack my rain boots and umbrella.

My Hour as Prom Queen...

Soon after my latest newsletter mailed, I got several emails from readers suggesting I post pictures of me in the "prom" dress I wore for our 1985 office party last Thursday. Since I feel occasional public humiliation builds character (hence my love for Karaoke), here you go.

This is the pink dress. Too bad there's not a back view--there's a tremendous bow.


Here are my leg warmers (because it's funny) and my yellow pumps that perfectly coordinate with my Billy Idol and Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet buttons.


I won I prize package for best costume--a VCR tape rewinder, a floppy disk, and the Duran Duran poster in the above pics. I love you Simon Le Bon (even at age 49)!

Agent Interview: Michael Bourret...

Michael Bourret, an agent with Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, is interested in a wide range of books, from middle grade and young adult fiction, to arts and entertainment, to serious nonfiction. His clients include the National Book Award Finalist Sara Zarr, author of Story of a Girl; Ellen Klages, Scott O'Dell award winner for The Green Glass Sea; Doug Lansky, author of the hilarious Signspotting and its sequel; Anne Rockwell, the acclaimed author/illustrator; and Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak, whose I Love You Through and Through has sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

You’re open to unsolicited submissions, correct? Are there common mistakes you see in submissions from writers, things that drive you crazy?

I am, indeed, open to unsolicited submissions. Simple mistakes are misaddressing the query, which happens all the time; misspelling the agent’s name; sending the query to more than one agent at the agency (most agencies have a policy that you can only send to one agent within the group); addressing an e-mail “Dear agent,” which tells me you’re sending it to everyone and his brother; sending an e-mail to yourself and BCC’ing the agents, because again, I know you’re sending it to everyone in town; other than that, the only real crime is a boring query letter--make your book sound as unique as it is!

What are the chances that you’d actually find an author in your slush pile? That you’d find an author at a conference? (Do you have any upcoming conferences?)

The chances are good! Sara Zarr, Lisa McMann, Heather Brewer, and Joe Fenton (a great author/illustrator you don’t know yet but will shortly) all came through slush. Suzanne Selfors and Jill Alexander (another one you won’t know yet but will next year) both came through conferences. I don’t have any conferences in the next few months, but I’ll be at the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference at ASU, and I hope to be at the New York SCBWI conference.

In your SCBWI presentation on building a career over the long haul, you said that ultimately an author’s goal should be to become a “brand.” Is there anything a newer author can do to set that in motion, or is it simply the result of publishing a number of books that catch on with readers?

The key, I think, is to establish yourself as a writer of something. I think it’s tough to establish a brand when you’re jumping from one category to another or from one genre to another. You want to give readers what they expect while still satisfying your own muse. It’s a balancing act, but being an author and having a career as an author are two different things.

YA memoirs and middle grade are two areas you’ve said you’re interested in. Are you simply not getting many of these manuscripts or are you not getting good ones? Is there anything else you’re looking for but not getting?

I very rarely see YA memoir, so that's one I’d really just like to see more of. It’s such a great category in adult books, and Tweaked has proven that it can work well for teens. I actually think some adult memoirs, like Smashed, for instance, would work really well in a teen-specific edition. As for middle grade, I just think it’s a tough category to write for, and I’m so picky about it. All I can say is, keep it coming!

Do you have any quirks as an agent—have you ever been on an agent panel and heard all the other agents agree on something that you don’t?

Oh, I have so many quirks, but probably not as an agent. I do disagree with people on panels sometimes, and sometimes vociferously, but not because I’m quirky, just because we all have different ways of doing things and different preferences. That, and I’m one opinionated sun-of-a-gun. That’s a trait that runs through both sides of my family.

Tell me about the DGLM blog.

The DGLM blog is something that we’re really proud of--it’s something we do to give back to the writing community. We pride ourselves on being open and honest about the process, about teaching writers how this process works so that it isn’t some big mystery. The better educated the writer about the business, the better they are as a client. That’s our way of thinking.

Anything to add in the way of advice for unpublished or unagented writers?

Be patient, do your homework, and be open to new things!

Debut Author of the Month: Laurel Snyder...

This month's debut author Laurel Snyder's first two books have release dates just a few months apart. Her picture book Inside the Slidy Diner is an October release from Tricycle, and her mid-grade Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains is coming in October from Random House. Both books were slush piles submissions. Here she explains her almost simulteanous first books; talks about finding her agent, waiting tables, and writing poetry; and offers advice to those seeking publication.

How did you end up with your first books being published so close together?

Oh, it's a funny situation, but for a good reason! Basically, both books were pulled from slush, about a year apart. Tricycle accepted Slidy a year ahead of Random House contacting me about Scratchy. So then Slidy was due to come out last fall, in time for Halloween (it's a spooky kind of book) and Scratchy was supposed to follow about a year later. But the artist working on Slidy threw herself into it like you wouldn't believe. The pages are very involved, hand painted with with collage elements, and some crazy details. There are recurring images like a mouse you have to hunt for on each page, and all sorts of little jokes... it's wonderful, a work of art (that I really can't take credit for at all). So it took a long time, and at first I think the press wanted to speed her up. But when they saw what she was doing, they decided to let her take her time so she could maintain that level of complexity, and they gave her another year!

Please tell me and my readers a little about both of your first books.

Inside the Slidy Diner is a picture book about a little girl named Edie who lives in a macabre sort of diner where the lady fingers really are! Watch out for the Wigglepedes!

Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains is a lower middle grade novel, an old-fashioned fairy tale set in a place called "The Bewilderness"—about a milkmaid named Lucy and a prince named Wynston. When Wynston has to pick a queen, and Lucy is deemed too common for the job, Lucy runs away in search of her mother. So of course Wynston chases after her, and they have all sorts of silly adventures. It has wonderful pictures by Greg Call, and a lot of silly songs. There's a sniffly prairie dog named Cat, a sweet but ornery cow, and some cautionary tales about living life too rigidly.

You started out submitting on your own, but you have an agent now. How did you find her?

When you get pulled from the slush at Random House, it suddenly becomes easier to find an agent! I queried about 30 of them in one whirlwind weekend, got offers from several great folks, and was lucky enough to be able to choose. I'm very very very happy with my amazing agent, Tina Wexler. I picked Tina because she didn't scare me. She talked to me like a person, laughed a lot, and felt immediately like a friend. One of the best decisions I ever made. But I was rejected by a lot of people before that all happened (some of whom sleazily offered to rep me after the book was in committee, but I'll never say who!).

Tell me about getting your first BFYR contract.

They never tell you how long it'll take to get the actual contract, do they? The formal offer came one day while I was teaching comp at a community college in Atlanta, and I actually got the message as I was dashing from school to pick up my son at his babysitter. I must have looked like a crazy lady, screaming my face off in the gridlock traffic all the way home. But the contract came about four decades later, in the heaviest envelope ever, and I just signed where I was supposed to, and sent it back. Maybe that's dumb but I figure that's why I have an agent.

How must inspiration did Slidy Diner draw from your experience waiting tables in several greasy spoons?

It really is a kind of encoded memoir of those years. I guess its a lesson in how anything can be interesting, and how we need to collect details wherever we go. Show Don't Tell, and all that. Rotten grill grease, tattooed waitresses, and sad patrons who sleep in their oatmeal don't sound like things you'd put in a children's book, but somehow it worked. I should say, for the record, that I love waiting tables, and plan to do it again when my kids are a little older. The Hamburg Inn, where I worked in Iowa City, was a second home to me. For me, living in a world of non-writers is important, so I have something to write about.

How have SCBWI, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Class of 2k8 each helped to shape your writing career?

I could write a whole book about the Workshop. I really have a love/hate relationship with that world. I love poetry, and I love Iowa City, and I cannot imagine my life without some of the friends I made in those years. But the climate of that MFA program made me a little nutso. Not the program itself, but the weird competitive stuff that happens among the students. It made me so crazy I stopped trying to keep up and dove into children's books, my touchstones, and that's really how I began writing for kids. So I have to thank them for that! Also, although I didn't share with anyone else, my teacher Marvin Bell was very supportive of Scratchy Mountains. I'll never forget that!

Once I found myself writing for kids, I didn't feel like I could show anyone at the Workshop the things I was working on. And that's where the SCBWI came in. It provided, along with the Verla Kay Blueboards and the CWIM, a community and a set of instructions for how to think about publishing. I don't know how I would have ever found a home for my work without SCBWI. I don't actively participate in the physical world, but as a virtual community it was critical for me.

2k8 is awesome, but that happened very late in the game. I was already into several other books by the time I joined 2k8, and it's a nice way to meet people and get the word out, but I don't feel it had any effect on my publishing career, per se. Though another class member from Iowa, Sarah Prineas, was an early reader for my second novel (Any Which Wall, 2009) and she's become a good friend, so that's wonderful!

You have a lot of experience writing material for adult readers, having published in Salon, Utne Reader, The Iowa Review and others. What led you to write for children?

Children's books are some of the best, most innovative books in the world. I read them myself, and I find that there's a spark of magic in them. I just love them. I'd say that 80 percent of the most important books in my life are things I read before I was 12. I hate the division between children's books and the literary institutions. I just don't think the divide makes sense. Also, writing for kids feels almost political to me. Helping to shape the future--not writing political books and offering "messages," but providing the right stimulus for kids. Giving them something to chew on.

You've said that writing children's books is not as lucrative as you thought it would be when you were in fourth grade. Since (so far) writing for young readers has not helped you buy a mansion or become a gajillionaire, what keeps you interested?

Well, it's a lot more lucrative than poetry!

No, seriously, one benefit to beginning as a poet is that poets don't write to earn. They write to write. I don't think about money or the market when I write. As a result, I have written some books you will never see, like a morbid picture book called, The Boy Who Caught His Death. I always assumed I'd write, and make my money some other way--whether teaching, waitressing, or writing schlock for hire.

You have a book release party coming up and have a string of promotional events on the horizon. What's your plan for engaging your audience?

Oh, I don't know that I have a plan. I just think meeting kids and seeing them excited about books is the most exiting thing in the world. I want to believe that if I work hard, I'll write good books, and that if I write good books, they will find their way into people's hands. It has been explained to me, in so many words, that I'm not a "bestseller" kind of author. I can live with that. It's a great gift to me that I can write the books I most want to write, and I have an editor and an agent who will help them reach people. Especially since more copies have already been pre-ordered than were even printed when I published my book of poems. Poetry really does make you appreciate having a wider readership of any kind. Based on anything I've ever experienced, both of my books have already been successful.

What's your advice for those working toward publication?

I think the trick is a very careful balance--between writing hard without thinking about selling, and then selling hard (by which I mean hunting for a book deal) without thinking about the possibility of failure. I do believe that a good writer who plugs away will someday publish. You can only fail if you set quantitative expectations like, "I'll publish before I'm 30" or "I'll send this to 51 agents and then quit." I do think you have to listen to your most honest readers and friends, and if one books isn't working, try another. But you can't quit. I have about 30 "dead" picture book manuscripts in a drawer and Scratchy Mountains went through draft after draft before it was accepted. In fact, you can go to my blog and see a rejection letter from the very editor who acquired it! I figure if I can have two books pulled from slush by two different editors, it still happens a good bit.

Random House 'Morality Clause' Only in UK ...

I just found a post that sheds some light on the Random House morality clause issue which I mentioned recently. According to GalleyCat, the purported morality clause is present only in UK Random House contracts. According to an agent questioned about the issue,"there's a lot of strange language that goes into UK contracts that has little bearing on the American market."

So US Random House authors...have a good time.

Up for Discussion: Critique Groups...

Today on Jane Friedman's There Are No Rules blog, she posted the following:

This morning, we pitched a book on writing and critique groups. While anecdotal evidence tells us that most writers do participate in some form of critiquing (whether as part of a formal group or not), we don't have hard evidence. So the sales people tabled the project until we could return with information that substantiated our claims. They also disputed whether writers would spend their money on a book about writing groups and critiquing, even if they are an active writing group member.

So we're putting together a survey that will soon go out to Writer's Digest newsletter subscribers, to see what data we can collect. I'd love to hear from readers of this blog as well, if you know of any information/data that would be useful to us. (And if you have a blog, perhaps you can post on this topic and gather feedback too!) Ultimately, I'd love to create a groundswell of discussion that will convince our sales team that this idea deserves realization as a physical book.

I'd love to know your opinion on this issue.

• Are you in a critique group?
• Would you or your group consider buying a book about writing groups and critiquing?
• Do you think such a book is needed?
  

I know a lot of you out there have critiques groups or critique partners. Maybe some of you are interested in joining or forming a group. Please weigh in our our discussion--comment here or on Jane's blog.

Random House Says Authors Must Behave?...

Check out this post on BoingBoing that claims Random House contracts contain a morality clause saying it will take action (up to termination of contract) if authors behave in ways that can damage their reputations and thereby hurt the sales a their books.

I have never seen Random House's contract so I can neither confirm or deny that this is the case. Anyone?

Lots of interesting discussion going on in the comments section of this post (big red pens, badly behaving writers like Lewis Carroll and Shel Silverstein, republican fundraisers, economic considerations, some anti-antisemitism from Roald Dahl...)

The First Books Publishers Lowdown...

This week I've been happily perusing a formidable stack of emails from debut authors (still deciding on who to interview for First Books), and now it's time for my annual lowdown--my unscientific findings regarding which publishers are friendliest to new writers based on the 75-ish emails I received.

This year, the following publishers/imprints were sited by more than one debut author:

• Delacorte (consistently debut author friendly)
  
• Dial
• Feiwel & Friends
• Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Greenwillow
• Henry Holt
• Houghton
  
• Hyperion
• Little Brown
• Putnam
• Razorbill
• Simon & Schuster
• Scholastic
• Viking
• Walker

And this year's Most-Friendly-to-New-Writers Crown goes to (for the second year in a row):

• HarperCollins (publishing five of the debut authors I heard from)

This year's batch of first-timers are overwhelmingly YA authors--just about half. The other half is rounded out by slightly more middle grade authors than picture book authors and illustrators.

And only a handful of the new writers who emailed me mentioned having agents. I did not ask, however--I am sure more than five of you have agents. Don't you like your agents, new writers? I kid--I know you do! If you didn't think to mention them to me, I'm sure you remembered them in your acknowledgments and you'll thank them when you win awards. (Please don't Chad Lowe your agent.)

Upcoming Market Books Bookstore Events...

To celebrate the recent release of the 2009 editions of our Market Books, I, along with editors Robert Brewer and Chuck Sambuchino, will be appearing at two local bookstores to discuss writing and publishing with aspiring authors. Here's the scoop:

• Wednesday August 20 (tomorrow) at 7 p.m. we'll be at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Rookwood Pavilion.

• Wednesday Aug 27 at 7 p.m. we'll be at Books & Co. @ The Greene.

Robert, Chuck and I (with the help of our three assistants) produce 10 Market Books annually, including CWIM, Novel & Short Story Writer's Market, Poet's Market, Writer's Market, Guide to Literary Agents, and the upcoming brand new Screenwriter's & Playwrights Market. We can answer any writing- or publishing-related question you throw our way covering any genre, fiction or nonfiction, children's or adult, agent and queries, etc. (Don't we sound smart!)

If you live in the Cincinnati or Dayton area, we'd love to meet you. (We'll have free beer and free cupcakes. Just kidding. Come anyway.)

Enter Chuck's 'Worst Storyline Ever' Contest...

My editor pal Chuck Sambuchino just posted the first-ever contest on his Guide to Literary Agent's Blog.

If you think you've got what it takes to enter the "Worst Storyline Ever" contest, visit Chuck's blog for contest rules.

Here's the scoop on the prizes to get you interested:

First prize (the grand prize) consists of a query letter critique from Chuck, a follow-up phone call to discuss the query critique, and a plan of action for seeing your work published, along with copies of both the 2009 Guide to Literary Agents and the 2009 Writer's Market (and public praise from Chuck on his blog).

Two runners-up will win their choice of a free copy of either the 2009 Guide to Literary Agents or the 2009 Writer's Market.

First Books Update...

I'm still going through all my emails from debut authors. I'll be in touch with some of you soon, hopefully next week.

Thanks to everyone who gave me info on their first books--and thanks for being patient. There are a lot of you, which is awesome, but it makes my job harder. (And I'm busy busy busy.)