Caren Johnson Literary Agency

I do a lot of planning with my authors. For some reason I work better with a deadline than not and I’ve found that they do too. In the past few weeks, as I’ve been getting the new agency up and running, I’ve been chatting with my authors about immediate goals and future goals they have for their careers. We’ve been planning on how to achieve these goals in the least amount of time and with the maximum amount of success. Here’s what we do. I have them draw up a goal list of things they’d like to achieve in the first year they’ve signed with me. Some of the more common goals: get published, understand a royalty statement, and put up a website. Some of the unique goals: lose five pounds, get a pair of awesome shoes without the hubby raising eyebrows at another pair and get teenager into good college with minimal fuss. Now I can help a writer with all of these goals (within reason, they’ll all be achieved). For instance, the get published one: give me a good book and though I can’t give you a definite timeline, I can get your book in front of editors so that they can buy it. For the get pair of awesome shoes: once we sell your book, you can buy yourself shoes as a reward with the money from the advance. Wear them to all of your signings, all of your media appearances and while you’re grocery shopping. Show him that they’re another part of your wardrobe and it’s all because of your book. With the get kid into college, once you’ve gotten the task of writing your book out of the way, you’re free to focus on nagging your kid about writing a brilliant essay. See, it all comes back to writing.

Seriously though, the more you plan, the easier it is to visualize what you want from your career and how hard you’re going to work to get it. For this year to motivate myself to sell, sell, sell, I have these shoes in mind to purchase once I’ve hit five books sold by March. If I don’t get that number sold, then I can’t have them. And I really want them. Here’s to making my goal.

C.

In the January issue of Vogue magazine there was a piece about the cultural highlights of 2007 (go with me on this; it’s not as pretentious as it sounds) and there was a mention of novels being made into films. Yay! This is the perfect excuse to reread the books and then see the movies (okay, I know some of you are just going to go see the movie instead of reading the books, but you’ll really be missing out on good stuff). We’re going to see Keira Knightly, Laura Linney, Scarlett Johansson, Kal Penn, James McAvoy, Michael Pitt and Renee Zellwegger light up the screen in adaptations of popular books including Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Richard Maltby’s Potter, Jhumpra Lahiri’s The Namesake, Alessandra Barrico’s Silk and Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus’ The Nanny Diaries. Now I have to confess that the only book of this list I’ve actually read is the Nanny Diaries. So I have even more reason to read the books before seeing the movies.

And rounding off the list is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. No need to reread this one since I’ve read it a hundred times already, but it’s always fun to.

C.

I’m blogging on Caridad Pineiro’s blog, all week. She’s one of my clients and writes the kinds of stories that I like to curl up on my couch and read. Caridad has been one of my clients since I first started agenting and hers was the first book I sold (two book deal, Harlequin). I like to think that I’m her #1 fan, but someone much worthier has probably claimed that spot. Anyway, I’m answering all of the publishing questions that you want to know and the first was what would make me take a closer look at a romantic suspense author? My bio states that I have an abundance of them already so I’m being more critical than I would normally be. My answer was that in order to wow me enough to ask for more, I’d want to be impressed by not only the content, but also by the pitch. Of course I wouldn’t throw you into deep waters without giving you a life jacket so below is a sample query letter (I’m making it up) that would make me sit up and take another look. I’m using Caridad’s More than a Mission book  as my pitch book.

(Sample Query Letter)

Dear Caren (or Ms. Johnson—I don’t have any preference; just get my name right and don’t address me as Sir/Madam/Literary Agent):

I have an 80K word novel called More than a Mission that I’d like to submit for your review. It’s an exciting romantic suspense novel involving spies, mistaken identity and sexy bartenders.

Elizabeth Moore’s life is like an open book; she owns and operates a trendy restaurant/bar in the small town on Leonia. She goes out with her girlfriends every Friday night. She spends the rest of her time devoted to her job. She also may be an assassin called the Sparrow. Aiden shows up on her doorstep seeking to find proof that Elizabeth isn’t the happy, lighthearted business woman everyone sees. He applies for a job as a bartender and Elizabeth hires him more for his looks than his skill. As the two circle around each other, attracted, but suspicious, things heat up with Aiden’s investigation. Suddenly it’s not just a question of is Elizabeth moonlighting as a killer-for-hire, but who wants Aiden to think this and why?

Please let me know if this is something that would interest you. The complete manuscript is available; I can send a partial or the full at your request.

All The Best,

Author X

This is the kind of query letter that perks up my interest b/c not only does it tell me the particulars of the story (genre, word count,etc.), but it gives me the bare essentials of what the story is about and leaves me wanting more. Now please, please, please don’t take this letter as a template for what your query letter should look like. The last thing I want is a hundred query letters that all look like this one. But I do want letters that make me excited about the book. I want them to be concise. No need to waste words. The best advice I’ve ever heard about describing your book is to model it after the copy found on the back cover of a paperback. It’s usually got a few sentences about the book and then it outlines the journey that the characters have to face in order to solve the mystery/get the girl/save the world. This is a winning formula and one I use when I’m pitching books to editors. Now you know all of my secrets, use them wisely.

C.

There’s only one thing to do when you’re stuck in the airport because your flight is delayed: read. I’m forgoing the magazine until I answer all of my emails and I have one from my author Kelley St. John about the advertisement her ad guy created for her upcoming trilogy with Harlequin Blaze. I love this ad; let this be a lesson in money well spent. I think it’s necessary to spend some money to market yourself and your books, but that isn’t necessarily what will break you out as an author. Kelley spent a lot of time making friends, networking, and giving workshops before she started spending money on getting her career off the ground. Money well spent.

C.

In the movies literary agents are usually identifiable by their affinity for tweed blazers with corduroy patches on the elbows (or corduroy blazers with tweed patches), for reading great canonical literature (Crime and Punishment anyone?) and for being slightly soused. Occasionally they’ll look smarmy. They’re almost always men.

But everyone knows the movies are wrong.

Duh, I’m not a guy. The rest is mostly true. To fill in the blanks I can be spotted wearing jeans and sneakers or cocktail dresses, depending on my mood, listening to Johnny Cash, Jay-Z, and Saving Jane on my iTunes, reading lots of romance novels and drinking endless cans of coke. While I can’t say that all literary agents are like me nowadays, I can say that no matter who we are, we all love our jobs. I’m in publishing because I never got over my insatiable love for reading. I’m an agent because I can combine two of my favorite things to do: read and sell (which is a variation of shopping and just as satisfying).

As part of my New Year’s resolutions I’m cutting back the amount of writer’s conferences I attend. Cutting back on my travel time means I’ll be able to concentrate more on my writers, but it also means I won’t meet as many new ones, both aspiring and published. As a way of keeping in contact with the industry, I thought I’d give blogging a try. Then I can brag about my authors (I love my authors), give tips on how to get published and let you know what’s going on in the publishing world. I can gush about good books and lament about ones that fell short of their potential, talk about books that should be made into movies and vice versa. And now I’m wondering why I didn’t have this brilliant idea a long time ago. Well, here’s to the New Year.

C.