The Importance of a Literary Agent

So I've been reading some blogs about getting published and it looks like the word on the street is that you definitely need a literary agent. From the little research I've done I'm convinced anyway. I know I want an agent. Without an agent I'm really just floating around at sea. I'm sure that once I get an agent I'll have a million and one things to worry about, and a whole of problems will suddenly appear, but right now I can't even see what those might be. I have one goal, one plan, and that is to get an agent. I feel that if I can get a good agent, I'm on my way to getting published and things will start moving. 

So you might have noticed that the steps I've been taking to get published have all got one thing in common. They are all designed to help me attract an agent's attention. 

I'm completely confident in my writing. I know no one has had a chance to read Ramona yet because it hasn't been published, but it's a good book. It's a great book. It is worth publishing and it is worth reading. I know this.

But no one else knows it. And the thing I' most afraid of is that no one else will ever know it because it's hard to know much about unpublished books. It's hard enough to know much about published books. They take a lot of time and effort to read and not everyone always has time and effort to give. So I'm trying to help. And that is why I wouldn't for a second consider just sending an agent some sample pages and a covering letter. 

Because what if she doesn't read it? Or if she rushes it? Or if she is not in the right mood? It's possible that the agent will look over my application and completely miss the genius. And I only have one chance with each agent so I can't afford for them to miss it. So I created the little brochure to throw in the envelope with the rest of the application. It'll make the application stand out just that little bit more and help the busy agents to see genius where it truly lies. It's the same with the website. The address is there and just maybe they'll take a look. Even if just one agent takes the time to look at the site or the brochure, and they help her to get into the right mood before reading my sample chapters, then all the work will have paid off.

Because right now, the only thing I'm trying to do is get the agents to take a look, grab their interest, because at the end of the day, my book can't talk for itself. 

My Brochure

After I made my website I straight away made a printed version of it. The five main pages of the site: welcome; biography; career; ramona; and contact; became the five pages of the brochure. I created high resolution slides of the five pages and brought them to a printer. I picked out some nice paper, showed them the size I wanted, which was about the size of a greeting card, and asked them to print up a sample and staple it all together into a little book. It looked great. I couldn't resist. 

I had them print off a hundred copies of the brochure, which gives a little information about me and Ramona and how you can contact me. It wasn't that cheap, probably about $500 to get the brochures all printed up and assembled. But they really do look professional. 

Now when I write to agents, which is the next step in my campaign to take over the publishing world, I'll be able to slide a brochure into the envelope. And while I can't be certain that the agent will read the sample chapters of the book that I send, I can be pretty sure that they'll have a look at the brochure. It's short, it gives some good information that I want to get across, and it's full of nice photos. Fingers crossed this little investment will pay off. 

Get your own website

There's nothing like having your own website to make you feel like a real writer. And lets just say it now, if you feel like a real writer, and you're writing, then who's to say you aren't. And besides, a website costs almost nothing and is really easy to make. There are a million ways to get your own website, I use iweb from apple, and they host it for me. I just make a page, click on publish and there it is. 

Incidentally, my website is available at www.soulvariations.com

I'm not sure, but I'm hoping that the website comes in useful when I contact agents. I've written some letters to agents and at the end of the letter I've given them the link to my website. Then on my website I've got a bit about me and my book, what a cool guy I am, what a cool book I've written, and it's really easy for them to visit the website. Maybe no one will visit the site. But maybe one or two agents will, and that means I've had a few extra minutes of their attention for free. And I'm going on the assumption that a minute of an agent's time is worth the hours it took me to make the site. 

So that's my next piece of advice. The next step I took. I've made my own website that makes me look and feel like a real writer. Only time will tell if it helps. 

I just took a look at the hit counter on my website and it's at 57. That's a lot of visitors! Only thing is I keep visiting it myself so I'm sure about 50 of those visits were me, and the rest were probably my mom. I love you mom. 

Some good writing competitions to consider

As an addition to my previous post, I thought it might be helpful to suggest a few writing competitions that you can take a look at. Most of these are listed on the Poets & Writers website, www.pw.org. I have just listed those competitions that are not limited to writers from a certain location or background, and that are interested in fiction, rather than poetry and theatre. I have also concentrated on competitions that are good for unpublished writers, rather than those that judge published works, such as prizes for the best novel published this year. 

The Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers: www.richardburgin.net/boulevard.htm

This offers a prize of $1,500 and publication in Boulevard for the best short story by an unpublished writer. 

Crazyhorse Poetry and Fiction Prizes:

www.crazyhorse.cofc.edu

A prize of $2,000 is offered for the best poem or short story entered. 

Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown - Seven-Month Fellowships:

www.fawc.org

This prize gives 10 writers the chance to live for seven months at the Fine Arts Center in Provincetown MA. 

Fish Publishing Short Story Prize:

www.fishpublishing.org

A prize of 2,500 euros for the best short story. You are also invited to the West Cork Literary Festival in July 2009.

Glimmer Train Press

www.glimmertrain.org

They offer a number of competitions each year for short stories and fiction. There are different categories for published and unpublished writers.

This is just a selection of the competitions that are out there that give you a few deadlines to work towards as well as a chance to make something of a name for yourself. I'm going to look through the contest rules for most of these competitions and try to get a few entries together of the next couple of months. Who knows? 

First writing competition

Last October I decided to enter my first writing competition. It was for River Styx, a small print journal which publishes fiction and poetry and is based in St. Louis. They ran a micro fiction contest which means it is for stories of less than 500 words. That's pretty short. First prize was some money, I think $1,000, and a crate of beer. My story, Auntie Maim, came third which didn't get me any money or beer, but got my story published. Since then I have entered a number of other competitions none of which have one anything yet. 

Entering that contest was very important for me. Getting that first entry published was a huge boost to my confidence and helped me push through and finish Ramona. It also means that now when I write to agents and publishers, I can say "my short story, Auntie Maim, was recently published in the River Styx journal". I think it counts for a lot to put something like that in a covering letter or email, especially for me because I'm new to all this and otherwise wouldn't have anything else I could put in there as a writing credential.

Since then I sent off some stories to a few other magazines, Glimmer Train and Narrative. They were also for competitions which have prize money and publish the winners. I didn't win and I had to pay a few dollars to enter the competitions so it wasn't much of a success. But I have no sent the same story to RTE Radio in Ireland for a competition they're running, and sent a short play to the Prague Post for a theatre competition they're running. 

I think these competitions are important for aspiring young writers for two reasons:

1. You might win, which gets you published and looks good in letters and emails to agents and publishers.

2. They keep you writing. The competitions have deadlines that you have to meet and these give you small targets to meet and ensure that you keep behind the keyboard and get a few stories or other pieces completed every couple of months. 

So if you're just getting started like me, check out the Poets & Writers website which has a list of upcoming contests and get a few entries in. It can't hurt and getting published like this can do a lot for your confidence and reputation. 

Writing a novel

My name is Ardin Lalui. I'm twenty-seven. I wrote most of Ramona in three months. I was inspired after I broke up with my wife in August 2007. I felt very guilty about the break up, we had only been married for two years and she had a daughter. I know now that it was for the best and was what we both wanted, but at the time I felt real bad about it. In my intense guilt I wrote about Art, a guy who kills a girl called Martha, and then finds out that nobody in the world gives a God damn. Not even Martha cares. And that just drives Art crazy. He's wracked with guilt, and the book follows his journey from Mexico to California and then across the US through small towns as he tries to leave behind the memory of what he did. His journey was pretty much the same as my own, I've been traveling ever since I broke up with my wife. His resolution was my resolution. 

So the book just poured out of me. I had about 40,000 words within three months. This first draft didn't have an ending because I didn't have an ending for myself and my own guilt. I travelled in the Czech Republic, Spain, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia before I was finally ready for Art to finish his journey. That took about a year. So very recently I completed my second draft of Ramona, complete with the ending. The final draft is now 52,500 words in length, which I found out qualifies it as full length, adult fiction. 

So that's it. Getting over the break up and getting that novel out were the same journey for me. It feels great to have written it and I'm already working on my next book but this blog is going to follow Art's next journey. That is, the journey from word document on my laptop to published novel on the New York Times best seller list. I hope you follow the journey with me.