January Call for #Submissions

Hi Everyone,

As one of my New Year’s Resolutions of blogging more, I thought I’d start off simple, by passing information on. Here is some news regarding what publishing houses are asking for. If you have a manuscript completed and ready for submission, then these might just be the right opportunities for you!

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Compiled by Louis Bacio used in the January 2012 Issue of Orange Blossom, newsletter for Orange County Romance Writers

JANUARY SUBMISSIONS

Western Witches … Calls for Submission

Want to start the new year off with some creative inspiration? Why not kick it off with a short story? Here are the latest Calls for Submissions … perfect for helping meet those resolutions.

Hex Appeal

Ellora’s Cave is casting a magical spell for all things Wiccan. Charm readers with stories about wanton witches, lusty warlocks and sizzling spells! 18K – 70K words Deadline for internal submissions: June 15, 2012. Deadline for external submissions: May 15, 2012. Stories will release in October 2012. For more information, http://www.jasminejade.com/t-writerscircle.aspx

Western Escape

Decadent Publishing is accepting pitches for their new series, Western Escape.
If you have a tale of a hot cowboy, or a cowgirl who can hold her own in a man’s world, we want to hear about it. Give us lariats to tie up desire, a beautiful sunset over an open prairie to weaken inhibitions, or even the slow rocking of a horse to spark things off. Decadent Publishing’s Western Escape follows the lives of Freewill’s residents and visitors. Heroes and heroines can be locals or tourists, but they must all pass through or connect to Freewill in some way whether interacting with the town ghost or locals, attending a conference at the Misbegotten Gaines Ranch and Resort, or something only you have thought of.

All submissions must have a Western theme. Tell us of the city boy roped by the hottest cowgirl in the West. Show us the wild or simple joys of a trip to the rodeo. Offer a plea to the ghost of Pierre Dauville and demonstrate the power of believing in what you cannot not see. For more information about Freewill look around the blog and make yourself at home or contact us.

Due to the somewhat conservative nature of the setting, all stories should focus on heterosexual relationships with a satisfying HFN or HEA ending. If you have a wilder cowboy in mind, please send it through general submissions.

Genre: A Western connection is a must, but we are open to any sub-genre including but not limited to Historical, Time Travel, or BDSM, as well as some paranormal elements such as psychics or reincarnation themes. No sci-fi or extreme fantasy please. Although a little implied magic is acceptable, we would prefer our cowboys on horses rather than riding dragons or space ships. 12K -50K (We will consider longer works on an individual basis.) Sensual to Hot (2-4) See submissions link below for taboo subjects. Remember this is romance so no straight erotica please. For more information, visit http://westernescapedecadentpublishing.blogspot.com/p/submission-guidelines-for-decadent.html

Coming Out Stories

Loose Id wants Coming Out stories — Thoughtful, authentic erotic romances featuring men and women who come out. The coming out theme must be integral to the story. All stories must follow Loose Id submission guidelines. Final deadline for full submissions will be June 15, 2012 but the earlier, the better. Those accepted may be included for release in conjunction with Coming Out Day.

Coming out refers to the expression “coming out of the closet” meaning to tell others about your sexual orientation.
http://www.lasionline.org/the-issues/coming-out.html Note: Coming Out Day is observed in many countries, usually on October 11. In the UK it is celebrated on October 12. For more information, visit http://www.loose-id.com/submissions.aspx

Faery Rose

The Faery Tales at Wild Rose Press are not for children. The Faery line is a fantasy world where you can allow your imagination free rein, a place to enjoy romance with mystical or mythical characters. We are looking for a sensual hero who knows what he wants and who goes after his leading lady. The heroine should always be a female we can identify with—someone we want to see achieve her dreams with strength she draws from inside.

Here are some possible scenarios:
– Dragons in the mist that turn into mortal men and women while overcoming obstacles to their love may have a little lust on their minds as well.
– Elves with challenges to their emotions could be looking for love with a bit of mischief thrown in.
– Ghosts may come back for the love of their life—or serve as the conflict keeping hero and heroine apart
– Wizards, warlocks, and witches crank up the romance like they spit out a spell.
– Futuristic worlds reveal heroes and heroines capable of wielding a sword or a laser, who fearlessly go after what their hearts desire.
– Time travels moving through centuries with the hero and heroine seeking not the secrets of the ages but of love.

And because our line is limited only by your imagination, if you have any other mystical creatures you think might be a fit, we will certainly look at those also. For believable romantic interaction, the hero and heroine must be of the same species or both humanoid. Your work should be a Romance above all, and every story should have clear goal, motivation, and conflict no matter how long or short. “Show” us the trials and tribulations of your hero and heroine—make them suffer. We want to “see” their emotions, don’t tell us; put the reader in the story rather than telling a “bedtime story” to a friend. For more information, http://wildrosepress.us

Recent #AskAgent Sessions

Hi Folks,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of the transcripts from #AskAgent on Twitter. And the reason is probably because many that cross into the Romance genre are at RWA 2011 in New York, so they are not necessarily going to have the time to answer all the questions. But here are the ones that they have answered.

NOTE: This time various agents have answered the question, so I didn’t list everyone. And the text is just how it came from Twitter, no corrections or changes made to them, so don’t blame me for any missed spaces or spellings. 🙂

Q: Are vampire romance novels still hot? How about Zombies?

A: It’s hard to break in as a newbie. There’s already plenty avail 4 readers to buy so pubs aren’t starving for more

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Q: How does one submit a completed series? Do you submit for the first book only or as a whole?

A: most agents seem to be consistent that they only want the first book. Sell it and the series will sell itself.

Q: There just seems to be a lot of series books lately. Word count is at 200,000 and is too large for a single book. But thanks for the help.

A: bring it to a nice conclusion and try to sell it as that first.

Q: That’s the hard part because it all leads to a final conflict. Will have to mull this over. Thanks.

A: as long as there is some kind of climax you can break it there. I can’t speak for agents but from what I have read 200k 2 long

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Great Questions that no agent has answered yet:

–         When a writer is sent their file for revisions, what do you feel is a reasonable amount of time for turn around?

–         Should you put writing experience in a query if it’s not book-writing experience? (ex: magazine, poetry, short story)

–         If one query/MS is rejected, is it a good idea to query again w/ a different project?

–         So what does it take to become an agent? Like college major, job experience, etc.?

–         Some writers post excerpts from their WIPs on their websites/blogs hoping agents will visit. I’ve done it myself. Silly? Too risky

–         How often do agents engage in publicity and editing? Are authors on their own more or less once the manuscript is sold

If I do read any of the answers, I’ll post them here. If you have heard of any answers to these, please feel free to post as well.

Thanks,

Suzy Kue

Editor Leis Pederson – Notes on the Publishing Industry and Marketplace

Hi Folks,

This is my last round of notes from our May RWASD Chapter meeting with Leis Pederson. She gave us a lot of great information. This next section relates to the Publishing Industry and market information about it. Again, these were from my own handwritten notes and I did my best to take them accurately. Hope they are useful to you. 

Printing Machine

How important are titles to selling a book? Not hugely important. If a manuscript is submitted with a bad title, it wouldn’t deter Leis from acquiring it, nor selling it. It’s up to the marketing department to come up with something different.

 How much input does an author have on the title of a book? Leis said that she can only comment on how things are done at Berkley Books. But what she asks the author is, “How attached are you to this title? Can we change it?” If the author thinks that it’s very important, then they go back and forth on the exact element of the title that was proposed to see what they can keep and come up with options for Marketing to choose from. But all in all, she wants the author to be happy with the title and doesn’t want it to be forced on them.

Is there a type of book that you wish someone would send you right now? Nothing at the moment.

How much promotion is done for debut authors? It depends on a lot of factors, how many books are coming out that month, if there are back-to-back releases scheduled, etc. No set dollar amount. Berkley Books has a publicity department that handles the print ads (if any), blog posts and social media in general. But they appreciate it when an author does their own promotion as well. It helps everyone.

I have a friend whose book was only on the shelf for 1 week, is that the industry norm? Leis had never heard that. A book on the shelf for only one week wouldn’t be enough to obtain adequate sales. It could be on a kiosk, perhaps, for a week and then moved to a regular book shelf, but none of the books coming out of Berkley would be on the shelf for only one week.

How do you feel about series? She likes them

How is the market for Historical Romances? Leis publishes historical romances and likes them. There are also other editors at Berkley that also publish historicals. They are becoming more difficult to acquire or sell because the readers are becoming more picky about what they buy.

There’s no special time period that they are requesting more than another. If it’s an amazing book, time period doesn’t matter. World War II is the latest they’ll go and still consider it a historical. After that, it’s considered “Retro.”

How has the trend towards eBooks affected BerkleyBooks? Berkley Books’ new policy is to release the eBook at the same time as the traditionally published book. They have an entire legal department that searches out pirated copies of books regularly, but the piraters are pretty smart and change their websites all the time. Authors can also submit websites where their books are pirated and send them to the legal dept to shut down as well.

 What is a Scheduling Board? At Berkley, they have a giant board where they slot books. There is no Bell Curve saying that they can only buy 3 paranormals in a year. Once a book is acquired, it is usually published one year later. That date can move forward or backward depending on if others meet their deadlines or not. It’s a moving target that’s updated regularly.

Do you have any interest in Gothics? Yes – if it’s well written. A Gothic is one of the first books she’s ever edited. They are hard to do well, but a great book is a great book. They want great books.

Why is Chick Lit out of style? Because the market became over-saturated with them. They were so popular that everyone was doing it, and then supply suddenly overwhelmed demand. They are now referred to as Women’s Fiction.

With the economy as it is right now, are publishers steering clear of hard back books? The industry is definitely taking a hit, but it’s changing daily. It really depends on the author whether or not they’ll put it out in hard back.

 What are Sell-Throughs (Sell-Thrus)? They are the percentage of books sold, gross versus net on a book. So if 60,000 copies of a book were printed, and 30,000 copies were sold, that’s a 50% Sell-Thru rate. Publishers want at least 50%. These numbers are not in the contract. Remaindered books are also counted in the Sell-Thru.

 What is Remaindering? It is when the printed books are overstocked in a warehouse and they want to clear it out. They’ll sell them at a discount to stores like Dollar General.

How do you feel about multi-book pitches, and do all the books have to be completed at pitching time? It depends on the book proposal. If it’s a series or a trilogy that’s fine, but the concept needs to grab her. The rest of the books do not need to be completed, but there would need to be a synopsis on them.

How do you feel about Social Media for unpublished authors? It’s a good thing to social network so that you know the ins and outs of the publishing industry. Get tips and hints for submissions and queries. It’s not a good idea to post samples of your work. Create a fan base that will want to buy your book as soon as it’s published.

What books are hard to publish right now? Romantic Suspense – it’s harder to sell because the readers are very picky.

What are your thoughts on Light Romance or Humorous Romance? It’s very hard to tell someone that you’re funny and have them believe it. What you find funny may not appeal to a wide audience.

 What is the difference between BerkleyHeat and Sensation? Heat contains graphic sex and lots of it throughout the story. They tend to push the envelope in terms of bondage, multiple partners, etc.

Sensation has a small element of the same thing, but considered more “normal” sex. When submissions come in, editors will shuffle between the two lines depending on the story.

I’ve never written a synopsis, do you have any tips for how to write a good one? Find a good chapter contest and read through their score sheet. If you can answer every one of those questions well, then you’ll have a good synopsis.

Leis Pederson, Berkley Heat Editor – The Editor Life

This is a continuation of my notes from our recent RWASD chapter meeting. As you can probably see, I am a copious note-taker.

Editor

THE EDITOR LIFE

These questions were related more to Leis as an editor than to submission/query questions.

When reading a book, who would you rather be the heroine or her best friend?

Greatly depends on the book. Haven’t you ever read a book where you thought, “Wow, her best friend is really more fun than she is?”

What are your favorite and least favorite things about being an editor?

Her favorite part is the fact that she gets paid to read.

Her least favorite thing is when she likes a book and wants to buy it and isn’t able to for a number of reasons, such as a) someone
else bought it b) the rest of the committee doesn’t agree c) someone else just bought something similar, etc. It makes her very cranky.

What’s your opinion of romances written in the first or third person?

Depends on the book and the writer. If a book is done well, either works. It depends on the Voice and POV changes.

Someone from the crowd said: I heard that readers like to see the development of the romance from both the hero’s and the
heroine’s perspective. Leis agreed, but again, it all depends on the book and if it’s done well.

Which do you read first, the sample chapters or the synopsis?

The sample first. If what she reads intrigues her enough, then she’ll read through the synopsis. And she’ll usually read the entire
thing, unless it’s awful.

What’s a typical day for you?

She works in an office, so considers it a normal office job. She doesn’t do her reading or editing at the office; that happens at home.
A typical office day for Leis consists of filing, emailing, calls, meetings, etc. She sits at her computer all day long.

What was your path to where you are now at Berkley?

She was enrolled in the NYU Publishing program where she had to intern at a publishing house as part of her graduation requirement. She ended up interning under Cindy Hwang and the “rest is history.”

Who is your favorite among all your authors?

She adores all her authors with equal love and affection and could not choose one over the other.

With your psychology background, how much does it come into play while you’re reading a manuscript?

Not that much, unless it has some sort of psychological element to it. She has been known to call out a couple of inconsistencies or red flags in a couple of novels, but not much.

What is the ratio of what you review to what you actually acquire?

Off the top of her head, she supposes that if she sees 100 manuscripts, she will acquire only 2 of them.

Do you acquire Inspirationals?

No – she does not personally acquire Inspirational romance novels, however there are some books that Penguin has put out that fall into that category. It depends on the acquiring editor. There is no line at Penguin that’s slated for Inspirationals at this time.

Next time – I’ll have my notes from her on the Publishing Industry. IMHO, those were really interesting. Stay tuned . . .

Publishing

Submission Notes from Leis Pederson – Berkley Heat Editor

I was lucky enough to attend the morning session of my RWASD’s monthly meeting. Our speaker was editor Leis Pederson of Berkley Books – a division of Penguin.

Her topic was “What Not to Do in a Book Proposal,” however much to our delight, instead of speaking to us lecture-style, she gave a brief introduction of herself and of Berkley Books and then opened the floor up to questions. Later that afternoon, she also took a few pitches.

What follows is a hodge podge of questions that the membership asked and I did my best to take notes on the answers. I was able to lump them into different groups, but my first blog on this will mostly be what people find the most interesting . . .QUERIES & SUBMISSIONS.

NOTE: I was handwriting notes, and did the best that I could to take them accurately. Please do your own research before submitting to her or to any editor or agent.

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 Berkley Books

  • They print around 700 titles a year
  • Leis personally edits 20 authors currently in romance (all genres) and womens’ fiction.

Overall Submission Mistakes

  • Sloppy proposals – the manuscript needs to be clean. Have it edited for punctuation, grammar
  • “Spell check is your friend”
  • Know the gender of the person you are submitting to, no “Dear Sir or Madam.”
  • Do your research on the editor that your submitting to, “Know the line.” Don’t submit mystery to a womens’ fiction only editor

 NOTE: all cases are individual, “It depends,” was a common response from Leis.

 Question: What happens after a book is acquired?

When she finds a book that she wants to publish, she sends it through to others for a second or multiple reads. Basically they buy by committee, the board (not sure who it consists of) makes a decision on if they want to publish the book or not. Once they receive the green light . . .

  1. Offer for acquisition
  2. Schedule when the book will come out (usually within a year or sooner) – This date can move forward or backward depending on other authors deadlines (if they are met or not).
  3. Edits – sometimes there are many, sometimes not. But there is a back and forth process where the editor redlines things and sends it to the author, etc.
  4. Copy Editor – who checks for grammar, punctuation, word choices, etc.
  5. Type setter – checks for typos and sets how the book will look in print.
  6. Production, Cover, Copy – These typically happen simultaneously

 QUERIES

 Question: When querying you, how long do you want the synopsis to be?

2 to 7 pages. If she wants more, she will request it.

Question: What do you want in the synopsis?

  • A general sense of where the story is going
  • What are the major plot points
  • Where does the romance go – how does it develop
  • You can give away the ending
  • Give enough detail but don’t give too much. She has received a synopsis where it said something like, “On page 2 the hero takes a bath.”

 Question: Which do you prefer Electronic or Hard Copy?

  • Electronic, definitely. Save the baby trees. Hard copy goes in the slush pile to be read at a later date.
  • Send the requested synopsis and sample chapters as an attachment, NOT embedded in the email.

 Question: On books you pass on, do you provide feedback? And do you accept resubmissions?

If she reads a book and thinks that it can be fixed, then she’ll make some revision recommendations and will ask for it to be returned. Sometimes she’ll make notes as to why it didn’t work for her, but that’s NOT the same thing as asking to see it back. Always ask before resubmitting.

Question: Do you ever buy on less than a full manuscript from a debut author? What about established authors?

For debut authors, she never buys on less than a full manuscript because she needs to know that the author can finish the entire book and that it’s as strong as the first 3 chapters.

For established authors, especially from her own line, then sometimes all that’s needed is a proposal/synopsis.

More to come on Leis Pederson and her thoughts on the industry, her life as an editor, etc. Stay tuned.

Pitching Notes from editor Debs Werksman of Sourcebooks

NOTE: I have a chaptermate – Linda Wisdom who publishes with Sourcebooks. They are phenomenal, a house that really works for the authors that they bring on and the largest independent women-owned publishing company.

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Deb Werksman

From Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks (Sourcebooks.com)

Here’s what I’d like to see in the [in-person] pitches:

1)       First, tell me what the book is (example: single title light paranormal romance OR historical fiction set in Civil War Texas OR commercial women’s fiction)

2)    Give me a hook that I can sell the book with in 2-3 sentences  (example: A light paranormal romance series; each one has a witch sister as a heroine, and a preternatural hero who’s the perfect foil for her witchy powers. Fun, funny, sexy and a refreshingly entertaining cast of secondary characters.)

3) Give me a very short plot summary (Example: Our feisty witch heroine and hunky shapeshifter hero can’t seem to
get it together, in spite of their red hot mutual attraction. Then his pack leader does something terrible, and expects him to pay the price. No way is our witch going to let anyone mess with her soon-to-be boyfriend, even if he does shed on the furniture!)

4) Tell me about any previous publishing history and your future career arc.

5) Ask me questions!