literary agent blog Archives

The results are in!

November 1, 2018 by Maria

It’s here! The survey is back in, and I had so much fun reading your responses. You guys are such incredible writers, readers, and makers, and I can’t get over how much perseverance and grit you all show every single day.

I know it’s never easy to look hard at the things we want to change in our creative lives, but I also know it takes hard looks to make hard changes. And if it counts for anything, I wish I could make every last day easier on you all.

Speaking of which: the winner of the $20 Barnes & Noble gift card tucked at the back of the survey is Beth! I hope you buy all of the pretty paper goods with it.

So are you curious to hear what others are craving in their creative lives right now?Read More

How to write a book that sells

October 11, 2018 by Maria

How to write a book that sells: a literary agent on how to find and research a book idea that can sell.

In my house, I have one big white bookshelf where I keep all the books I’ve ever worked on, either as a literary agent or an editor. Some have sold well; some haven’t sold well.

My greatest wish? That they were all bestsellers.

Each of those books took 2+ years of my life to work on, and I know that the time and energy and love I put into them is only a tiny fraction of what the author put into them. So with all that hard work, shouldn’t they all have found their perfect readership? Should every author be able to write a book that sells?

It’s heartbreaking, but the truth is: most books don’t find their perfect readership. And most don’t sell as much as they could.

There’s no magic bullet to fix this–in the nearly 10 years I’ve been working on books, I haven’t figured out the perfect algorithm to spit bestsellers out every time. (If you have it, send it to ME @ sell all the books .com.)

But one thing I’ve noticed…

The one thing I have noticed is that there are all kinds of ways–big and small–to inch your book closer to that zone of bestsellerdom. And so very many of them happen before one word is ever written. They happen before I sign an author, or a publisher offers a book deal, or a marketing team brainstorms a campaign.

They happen at the idea phase and at the platform phase. When you’re deciding “what is my book?” and “who am I as an author?” Those are questions no agent, editor, or publisher can answer for you, but those are the answers that will fuel each action you’ll need to write a book that sells.

So where do I tell my authors to start?

At the bookstore.

Nine times out of ten when I’m chatting with a potential author, I ask them to take a field trip to a bookstore and see what’s happening in their category or genre. I do this, too, when I’m researching a book idea or trying to help an author with positioning their book.

So today I’m sharing exactly how I research a book idea and how I tell my authors to research their own book ideas so they can write a book that sells.

How to get a book deal with your blog

September 20, 2017 by Maria

How to go from blog to book–the 3 things publishers and literary agents look for in bloggers!

“Can you give me a number I should aim for?”

I could hear the hopefulness in her voice, the resolution to get started. I shifted in my desk chair and moved the phone to my other ear. I hate this question.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I loved this blogger and her writing. I’d admired her work for a long time, and it had been so much fun to finally talk to her and hear the behind-the-scenes of her blog.

But there was just one tiny problem.

Her author platform wasn’t big enough yet for a book deal.

She was doing all the right things—writing consistently, sharing her work, getting to know her readers and other influencers in her space. But I knew publishers would want her stats to be higher for a book deal, and I knew she would need to have a bigger readership to make a book successful.

I squirmed and gently suggested that she wait a little longer to pursue a book deal.

I knew she had a book in her, and I could just see how beautiful and inspiring it would be. But I also know I’m not doing anyone a service if we put a book out too early in an author’s career, before they have thousands of loyal fans who are clamoring to buy it. It’s worth doing a book at the right time in your career.

But how do you know if your blog can get you a book deal? How can you gauge whether you have enough readers to support a book? What are the blog traffic and social media numbers to aim for?

Why talent is a myth, and the 3 things you actually need to be a bestseller

September 13, 2017 by Maria

Why writing talent is a myth, and the 3 things that can actually help you become a bestselling author.

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed on Monday when something stopped me:

“I’m afraid I’m not talented enough.”

It was a caption on a pretty photo of a journal, and it was by a young writer who wasn’t sure she should keep going.

I could almost picture the real scene. The paralysis and anxiety about opening her manuscript. The embarrassment and self-criticism over what she’d written already. The fear that it was all for nothing. The escape to social media so she wouldn’t have to face those hard feelings.

I know it all, because I’ve been there, too. Who wouldn’t rather watch panda videos instead of doing the hard work? (She says as she Googles for panda videos…)

But anyone who’s ever written anything, from a novel to a blog post to a pitch letter, has had those same sinking feelings.

What if we don’t have what it takes? What if we’re not talented?

This nagging fear crops up everywhere, and it makes us wonder if, no matter how much effort we put in, we’ll just never be any good. We say we want to write, but then life gets in the way. Yet if we’re honest with ourselves, what’s really keeping us from writing?

It’s us. Our own fear.

The fear that we’re not talented enough.

But here’s what I’ve come to realize, after nearly a decade of working with writers and successful authors: that person who seems “talented”? They just have more experience.

It may seem like talented is a natural state for some, but that’s because all we see is the output of today and not the inputs of their entire lives. It’s a totally bogus construct. Most likely, that person began paying attention to writing before you, or maybe, through luck and circumstance, they have more time each day to pay attention to writing. They’ve simply accrued more hours on their experience meter, or they’ve had higher quality inputs. They’re not innately “better” than you–I promise!

What do I mean by inputs? I know we’re not machines, but I’ve always found it helpful to think of the creative mind like a container, one which has both inputs and outputs.

The output—the quality of your work—can only be made with the inputs that already exist in the container. Inputs can be anything. A creative mind is like a sponge, and it sops up anything and everything it finds interesting, even if it has no immediate use for it.

Inputs can be:

Books
Magazines
Art
Music
TV shows
Advice
Classes
Research
Nature
Conversations

See? Anything. But the key is:

The more high-quality inputs you have, the higher-quality your output is.

If you started reading The New Yorker at 7, you will be a better writer than most people, simply because you’ve absorbed the cadences of good writing. If you’re reading US Weekly and corporate memos most days, your inputs are mucking up your mind, and you may have to unlearn some bad cadences and turns of phrase.

Since we can’t see most people’s inputs, we assume their superior output is coming from someplace else: their talent. Instead, it’s coming from their superior inputs.

Which, trust me, is great news: it means all you have to do to up your game is fill yourself with the best writing, reading, and other inputs you can.

But fears are like whack-a-mole. You finally stop worrying about whether you’re talented, and then you start worrying about whether you’re self-disciplined enough. Or smart enough. Or clever enough. Or literally [any adjective] enough. Instead, we need to unplug the game and go get a drink at the bar. Um, I mean…stop letting the moles run the show.

That’s what separates bestselling authors from struggling authors. They know that the fears will always be there, but they don’t let them run the show.

Instead, bestselling authors have 3 deep beliefs about themselves and the world that make them completely unstoppable.

That’s why I believe that part of the work of being a writer, blogger, or creative of any kind is character-building. Without methodically developing these 3 beliefs, just like you methodically develop your writing or photos, you can only go so far.

Tag: literary agent blog