TLG Blogpalooza: Interview with Agent Melissa

I find it scary that with each post, and week, we get closer to THE LOST GIRL's pub day! Eeeek. I'm giving stuff away, though, so if this is your first stop, go over here or to the TLG Palooza page to find out what I'm giving away and how to enter.

  

I'm VERY excited today. I have Agent Melissa with us (she doesn't know that this is how I refer to her, always, but I do. But if you must know, her real name is Melissa Sarver and she's my agent (I know! Cool, hey?). She's with the Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency and she's here with me today to tell us about what she does, what she likes, and why she wanted to rep THE LOST GIRL/me.)

 

Hi, Melissa! Can you tell readers a little bit about yourself?

But, Sangu, don’t you know everything about me already?  Oh, ok.  I’m a literary agent and have been with the Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency for 6 years after a brief 3-year stint as an editorial assistant at a women’s magazine.  That was not for me.  I moved to NYC 11 years ago after college in Boston and more than a few internships at magazines and newspapers.  I knew as soon as I started working in book publishing that I had found my “home.”   I enjoy being on the agency side of the business because I can essentially choose the types of projects I work on.  I’m never going to inherit a project someone else took on and left, the way editors often have to.  I represent fiction and non-fiction, so in any given day I’m working on a cookbook, a YA novel, a memoir, etc.  It keeps my job very interesting.  What else do you need to know … I am a musical theatre nut and spent much of my life (age 3 – 22) in a ballet studio.  I love food (but hate the word foodie) and do a fair amount of cooking and baking at home, and eating out at some amazing restaurants in NYC.  I love French and Italian wines that aren’t fruit-forward but a bit dusty and earthy (hint, hint).   Moving right along...

I think we were meant for each other. I love musical theatre! And food! Okay, I can't cook, and I don't know anything about ballet, and the only wine I like is ginger wine... huh. Um, yeah. So what’s an average day like for you?

Hectic!  I think most people have an image of me loftily reading manuscripts all day but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  All that reading is done at home at night or on the weekend.  I like to say I have homework for life.  During the day I’m on the phone with authors and editors, I’m answering emails, I’m vetting contracts, I’m having lunch with editors and meetings with clients or potential clients, I’m occasionally reading queries (though most of this happens at home also), I’m emailing our foreign co-agents to alert them about the exciting things going on with our books, and probably 10 other things I’m forgetting to mention here.

I love words like 'clients' and 'contracts' and 'foreign co-agents'. They make me so happy. (That's me, guys! I'm a client! ME!) And speaking of clients: what made you want to represent THE LOST GIRL when you saw the original manuscript? (obviously apart from the fact that it’s the best thing ever…)

The voice grabbed me instantly, which is priority for me.  Overall the story spoke to me because there are cool fantasy elements but it’s a character-driven story. And that character, despite her special circumstances, is a typical teenage girl dealing with many of the same identity issues as all teenage girls.  That’s what was appealing to me but that I also thought would be appealing to readers, that teenage readers could instantly relate.  I also loved the settings of London and India, as I really enjoy reading about other cultures and places and you don’t see that enough in YA lit, in my opinion. 

A lot of people seem to like the book's settings! What’s one of your favourite—and somewhat spoiler-free!—lines from the book?

“I brought milk,” I say.

And I love when Mina Ma tells Eva she hopes her other dies:

“But if you replace her, you might be safer. So if only for my sake, child, hope this happens.”

“I won’t wish for her to die!”

“Then I will wish it,” she replies, ruthlessly, “Because I don’t know or love her.”

I think Mina Ma is my favourite character, if I do say so myself. THE LOST GIRL was hugely inspired by Frankenstein. What classic do you wish you could have represented?

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN; I adore that book and re-read it every few years.  Makes me cry every time.  I also love Steinbeck’s EAST OF EDEN.  It’s a family saga and big juicy soap opera.

I haven't read either of those books. Is that sad? I think it's sad. But YAY! That's two more for the To Read pile. And finally: name two things you’d take to a desert island. (I know the standard form of this question asks for three things, but as I’m assuming a copy of THE LOST GIRL would, naturally, be one of them, I’m only asking for two.)

My eyeglasses because I am practically blind without them … but if those are on my face already (yes, they are. I'm not that cruel)… I’m bringing Alice Waters’ cookbook THE ART OF SIMPLE FOOD because we’ll need to eat and I can’t for the life of me ever remember how to make a simple roast chicken without her guidance.  And probably my iPod (assuming there is electricity).  I think life without books and music isn’t really worth living. (So true!)

Yay! Find out more about Melissa at the EKLA website or on Twitter (@mjsarver). Huge thanks to her for that awesome interview. And huge thanks, too, for giving me today's

TEASE OF THE DAY 

“I brought milk,” I say.

-THE LOST GIRL 

Reader Request: the Journey

Today's Reader Request post comes courtesy of Saumya, who wanted me to talk about my journey to getting a book deal, from start to finish. This could easily turn into a monster of a post if I let myself yammer on, so I'm going to try and be as concise as I can.

How long did it take me? That depends on which way you want to look at it. I was fifteen/sixteen when I first sent a letter/partial out to a publisher (it was awful, but the editor who replied was very nice) and twenty-two when I got my book deal for a very different book. So I guess it took me six or seven years.

On the other hand, I could boil it down to just A TORRENT OF LIGHT. How long did it take me from starting the first draft of TORRENT to getting the book deal? 

About thirteen months. 

I did it by the book i.e. I researched agents, I wrote the dreaded query letter, I had requests for partials, requests for fulls, ultimately got an agent, who then sold the book. So I probably could be a poster girl for How Hard Work and Persistence/Pigheaded Stubborn Determination Can Pay Off. I could also be a poster girl for How One Agent Had to Read Four of My Manuscripts Over the Course of Four Years and Ultimately Rejected Them All But Was Still Terribly Nice About Giving Me Second Chances, the Poor Bloke.

But anyway, for Saumya and for any other interested reader, here's how a manuscript called ECHOES became the soon-to-be-published A TORRENT OF LIGHT-

Late September 2009

Sangu starts writing a book. (Ironically, she is in Bangalore for the end of her summer break from university and she's writing the first part of her book which is set in England.)

November 2009

Sangu is back at university in England and stops writing the book because she thinks it's rubbish. (By this point, you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear she's writing the part of the book that's set in Bangalore. Go figure.)

January 2010

Sangu starts writing the book again because Steve (then boyfriend, soon-to-be-fiance and eventual husband) tells her it's amazing and she should and, moreover, he kind of wants to know how it ends so could she please stop being such a selfish cow and just finish the damn thing already? (He's the best cheerleader ever.)

February 2010

Sangu finishes her 'first draft', though it's not really a first draft as she's done a lot of going back and editing as she wrote it. She starts to edit, using beautiful red pens and shiny pieces of paper and feeling distinctly proud of Her Editing Tools.

March 2010

She starts querying agents. She probably did this a tad too soon, in hindsight, as the manuscript would be revised several more times in the months to come, but Oh Well.

March-August 2010

She gets a lot of query rejections, a fair few partial requests, and three full requests in these months. An agent called Holly Root finishes the manuscript in August and likes it, but doesn't think it's right for her, so she gives Sangu a referral. Sangu emails the agent she was referred to. This agent, in case you didn't already know this, is Melissa Sarver.

One week later

Melissa gets back to Sangu and wants to talk. After a long chat about the manuscript, Sangu does a few revisions, sends it back to Melissa, and

Mid-September 2010

Sangu HAS AN AGENT. Like, ohmygod.

Late October 2010

Sangu is on her way to Bangalore (funny how these things come full circle, hey?) on holiday when Melissa sends her a text to ask if Sangu is available to speak to an editor. Sangu spends the rest of the trip (a four-hour flight from Dubai) freaking out and annoying Steve with questions like 'BUT WHAT COULD SHE WANT FROM ME STEVIE TELL ME WHYYYYYY'.

Early November 2010

Sangu speaks to two editors in the space of a week, ends up with two offers on her book, talks things over with her agent, ultimately goes with one of the two offers, and HAS A BOOK DEAL OMG FAINT.

Okay, so it did turn into quite a long post after all. But I tried, I promise. Alas, me and concise will never be the best of friends.

And that's how it happened. My journey to a book deal: six years or so, five manuscripts, an awful lot of rejections, and thirteen months of crazy, exciting stuff.

And no, it doesn't end there. That's when the real work started!

Things to Be Excited About

With the weather getting everybody down (it's bleak and cold and snowing in England, it's even cold and grey here in India where I still am, and I expect most of the northern hemisphere is feeling the onset of winter), I thought this was as good a time as any to concentrate on all the things I am happy/excited about - and to ask you to share what you're excited about!

1. I will be back in the UK in eleven days! This might not seem like such an exciting thing, especially because I will be sad to leave Bangalore and my parents and family after having seen them for such a short time, but I am so excited to be back with Steve. 

2. I have a wedding to plan, so I'm expecting a lot of stress and chaos and amazingness in the next few weeks. We're hoping to get married at the end of January, if all goes according to plan, so  Oh. My. God. that's not far away now!

3. WOVEN is going to be published! Sara Sargent, an editor at Balzer + Bray (an imprint of Harper Collins Children's in the US), made an offer about three weeks ago and my agent and I had another offer but we ultimately went with Sara, who is awesome, by the way. I haven't signed the contract yet, which might be why it still feels surreal and impossible - apart from, of course, the fact that it is surreal. 

I've been telling myself to hold off posting about this until it's all signed and sealed, but I couldn't resist! And hey, I've held off for three weeks, that's pretty darn good willpower! I know I need to write up a proper post about it and explain things better, but for now, let that be a bit of exciting news. And let me also say: thank you, Melissa, for making this happen!

4. I bought a pair of gorgeous gold heels the other day. Now I know this is a very frivolous thing to be excited about - and that it's shameful I don't even have a photo to show off yet - but I love those shoes. I bought them for the wedding, but I'm totally going to get more wear out of them afterwards.

So there. Four things I am thrilled about this week. But I'd love to know about the rest of you (though I'm not sure I have to ask Talli what she's excited about)!

What's brightening your winter?

The Query that Won

I've had a few emails recently from people asking me if I would consider posting on this blog the query that ultimately got me my agent. I had absolutely no problem doing that - I know, from experience, how hard writing a query letter is, and how useful seeing other people's successful or unsuccessful queries can be - but I hesitated for two reasons. First, that a query only gets you so far - and like your book and your actual writing, a query is so subjective. 

With WOVEN (which I queried as ECHOES, because that was before my agent told me there was a young adult novel coming out this year with that title), my query got me three partial requests (one of which turned into a full request) and three straight-off full requests (one of which turned into a phone call). 

My query also got eleven 'thank you, but this doesn't sound right for us' responses, which just goes to show that a query can be both successful and unsuccessful.

The other reason was that my situation was slightly different in that I wrote to my agent Melissa after being referred to her by another agent (for more on that, read this post). So the referral would almost certainly have sparked Melissa's interest; that said, if the query hadn't interested her as much, if not more, I doubt she'd have asked me to send her the full.

So it's important to bear those things in mind, especially the subjective part, and to just work like crazy to make your query sound like something you wouldn't dream of rejecting. And get a friend or objective outsider to tell you (honestly) whether they'd request pages. 

And now for the actual query. This wasn't the first query I ever wrote, nor was it the first that generated requests for a manuscript. So I found the general stuff - greeting, description of genre, etc - fairly easy to write. The pitch for the actual book, however, took me days to iron out. It was honestly the hardest thing I've ever written and I still don't know if it's all that good. 

I've cut out a few bits that aren't really relevant (like the part where I mention the referral), but the rest is all here.

Dear Ms. Sarver,

[A single line about the referral redacted]

Echoes are created for a single purpose: they are a safety net against the death of a loved one. Stitched by three Weavers in London, echoes are copies of 'others', real people in the world. From birth, they must learn every aspect of their other’s life and behave like them in every way. They must be ready to step into their shoes as soon as they are needed. They have no name or identity of their own, and must learn to survive in a world that despises them.

The novel explores this concept through the eyes of Echo, a teenage echo who pointedly names herself. There are certain laws that bind her kind, and Echo knows that breaking them can be fatal.

Echoes must not be themselves, which means they’re not supposed to love art when they know fully well that their other does not. They must not fall in love with their guardians, even if he is young, sarcastic and named Sean. When their other dies in a car crash and they travel to Bangalore to replace her, they must love her grieving family, friends, and - most especially - her bitter, handsome boyfriend. They must not expose themselves to persistent hunters, and certainly mustn’t invade the Weavers’ Loom and try to destroy it. And they must never, ever cut and run.

ECHOES is a YA urban fantasy, set in contemporary England and partly in India, and clocks in at 124,000 words. I hope it will be the first of a series of novels. If you'd like to see a partial or the manuscript, I'd be happy to send it along. This is a multiple submission and the manuscript is currently being considered elsewhere.

Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

Sangu Mandanna

Note: I still don't know how I got any requests with that word count, considering it's somewhat high for YA, especially YA from an unknown author. Melissa and I did some revisions before we sent the book out to editors, and the word count has since reduced by about 10,000 words.

I hope that proved at least slightly useful!

(For more on queries, I cannot recommend Query Shark highly enough. Janet Reid may be snarky and sharp - which I personally love - but she knows what agents are looking for and she certainly gets results!)

OMG! I HAVE AN AGENT!

Okay, so I am going to be very uncool and unprofessional and shriek a lot. And faint. And jump around.

*shrieks*

*jumps around*

*faints*

*wakes and jumps around some more*

*returns to chair*

Right, sorry. Where was I?

I HAVE AN AGENT! I think it warrants hitting caps lock. I also think it warrants, nay, demands, a bottle of whatever your favourite beverage is, some Malteser-filled cupcakes, and balloons. Why not? You're never too old for balloons. Especially not WHEN YOU HAVE AN AGENT.

I'll stop. I'm sorry. I'm just excited. I announced it on Twitter last night, but the thrill's not quite gone away.

So how did this happen?

Warning: long(ish) story ahead.

Well, most of you know I've been querying and sending out ECHOES since about March. I was happy with it at the time, and thought it was ready, but as you might have also noticed, I kept tweaking and working on it. Guess I wasn't so happy with it after all. Anyway, towards the end of April, an agent named Holly Root read my query and first ten pages and requested a partial (50 pages). She read those and requested the full.

Fast forward to roughly four weeks ago. I had a couple of other requests in this time, several query and partial rejections, and was generally swamped with Real Life stuff too. Then four weeks ago Holly got back to me to say she was going to pass on ECHOES.

I was disappointed, as I always am when I get a rejection (I'm only human!) but she wrote me such a lovely email. She said she thought I had something there, but it just wasn't quite right for her. She referred me to her friend and fellow agent Melissa Sarver.

This would be the referral I mentioned a while ago.

So me being the busy little bee I am, rattled off my query to Melissa straight away, letting her know Holly referred me. Twelve minutes later, she replied to request the manuscript. I had to do some quick formatting on the ms, so it was seventeen minutes after that that I sent it off to her.

And then I forgot all about it.

Okay, that's a lie. I sort of put it halfway out of my head because, as I've noticed, if I compulsively think about and worry about queries and submissions, I end up fretting a lot. It's much more sensible (and kinder to your sanity) to just try and put these things out of your head. And, you know, not check your email every ten minutes. I managed to reduce my email-checking to once per hour. Given I spend most of my time during at the day at this laptop, that isn't an awful lot of checking.

Well, much to my amazement, Melissa emailed me back six days later. I saw her name pop up in my inbox and thought 'oh, sweet Heathcliff, she hated it and couldn't finish it! It's a rejection!’

Nope, turns out she's a really fast reader. Melissa said she wanted to talk to me about the manuscript. I panicked. I forgot to eat my dinner, ran around the room, and Steve sat patiently by and soothed me long enough to remind me that I needed to reply to her email. So I did, and she rang me the next day (this was three Wednesdays ago). We talked about the book. Like, for forty-five minutes. I expected to be stammer-y and scared, but weirdly enough, the moment I answered the phone and she said hello, my nerves just went away.

The conversation amounted to this: Melissa thought I had a great concept and a great book, but it needed work. She made suggestions. We talked about them. I explained why a certain suggestion might not work, but overall found that she made a lot of sense. She really, really hit the hail on the nead.

(See how excited I am? I am losing the power of words!)

So I went away and worked on those revisions. Like crazy. I had to pop into my job at the care home a couple of times, because although I wasn't due to officially start yet, there was paperwork to fill out. But I had plenty of time to write, which was awesome. I sent the revisions back to her last week, and she got back to me this past Monday to - get this - offer me representation. She also made a couple more suggestions for edits.

I've just sent the revised manuscript back again. And yesterday, I signed with Melissa Sarver of the Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency.

Once the manuscript is ready, Melissa plans to send it out to editors. She even asked me to write a short author bio a couple days ago. Needless to say, it sucked. I do way, way better at writing fiction.

Some reactions from friends and family-

STEVE: See? I told you you were amazing.

Aww.

And my mother, who wins the prize-

MUM: Oh my God! Hooray! You know this is because I lit a candle to St Jude, right?

ME (bewildered because my mother is the most sensible person I know and does not usually light candles for many reasons): Why St. Jude?

MUM: You know. The patron saint of lost causes.

ME: *speechless*

She has a funny sense of humour, my mother. Unless, of course, she was being serious, in which case I probably should be offended.

And that's the tale of How I Got My Agent. It's early days yet, but Melissa (whom I will henceforth refer to on this blog as 'Agent Melissa' because it makes her sound like a mysterious and deadly super-spy) is awesome and I'm really looking forward to working with her.