All Your Burning Writerly Questions Answered

Every month agent Jennifer Laughran (Andrea Brown Literary) over on her blog Jennifer Represents creates an open thread where aspiring writers can drop their questions and she will reply to them. It’s great! In fact, in reading the first ten or so comments/questions and her replies, I ended up with answers to many of the questions people have been asking over in the discussion boards on AgentQueryConnect.com. Nice.

So, if you have a few moments on your hands and are lookin’ to git yurself edu-ma-cated, pop over to Jennifer’s open thread. (And if you have a burning question for Ms. Laughran, scadoodle over to her blog at the beginning of February–she might just do another open thread.)

P.S. Scary fun fact: Ms. Laughran interned for THREE years in the business before becoming an agent. Wow! Talk about dedication to the field.

Proprietary vs. Privacy

I know it’s probably not that healthy, but the Kindle has me blowing steam out my ears again. Well, not the Kindle, specifically, but Amazon. I’ll admit, the Kindle sounds like a great device and Amazon is doing a lot of things right with their ereader, ebooks, and generally pumping up the digital book age. However, there are certain aspects of how they treat their customers that just doesn’t sit right with me.

To help you see inside my scary brain, let me paint two scenarios for you.

Scenario one:

Say you pulled up to the gas pumps in your car. There’s a nice dude standing there with a clipboard. “Make, model, and year, please,” he says. You give him an odd look, but you really want/need gas, so you provide that info. He replies, “Premium gas will suit you best.” “But…” you protest as you pull a jerry can from your trunk. “I want to put it in my lawn tractor. I want regular, please.” He replies, “Sorry. Your make, model, and year say premium gas is your best choice.”

This scenario is similar to Amazon asking you what device you want to install your ebook on when you go to buy an ebook on their site. I understand that they are probably trying to streamline things for readers so they don’t get the wrong file format, get frustrated, and go berserk on Amazon. However, is it their business if I want to read it on my PC, Mac, Kindle, Sony eReader, or iPod? No. And for me, that moves into a privacy concern. Or at least a mind-your-own-business concern.

Scenario two:

Sticking with the vehicle analogies… say you purchased a car at a dealership. You decide to trick it out a bit and, of course, replace parts as they go kaput. But let’s say you are like dear old me and a bit of a savvy consumer and you like to shop around. You don’t always need to buy parts straight from the dealer. In fact, often you can get the same part for less at the local parts store. The problem is, whenever you want to add ANYthing to your car that is not purchased from this fictional dealership you have to run it by them first. Nothing major, just a quick okay from them so they can personally ensure that it will work on their car. Sorry, I mean YOUR car. If you don’t run it by them and it is a part from elsewhere, good luck getting it to work on your car. This car is all tied up by the dealership. Even adding homemade seat covers made by Auntie Beth means calling the dealership.

How long would people stand for something like scenario two? I’m guessing, not very long. That dealership would get a lot of “mind your own business” type replies filled with emphasized expletives. Yet, Kindle owners seem to have no qualms about sending their OWN personal Word files to Amazon to have them give it a shakedown so they can put it on their OWN device. Same with anything that isn’t from Amazon, really.

So what is up with that? No, seriously. I want to know. Isn’t some of what Amazon is doing an infringement upon your privacy? What right does Amazon have to keep track of what you put on your Kindle? Because let’s face it, they are. Just because they don’t appear to be selling that information like Facebook has with the information they’ve collected, it doesn’t mean Amazon isn’t collecting it, analyzing it, profiling customers, etc. Why wouldn’t they?

Am I just a paranoid (read that: intensely private when it comes to giving my personal information to a large, faceless corporation) wishing for a level of personal privacy that no longer exists? Or am I cautiously intelligent about what I give up and what I don’t in order to participate in this online world?

Thoughts?

What’s Next After a Bestseller?

Now that is a good question. Say you are an author and you just released a HUGE hit. How do you follow up on that? Think Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveller’s Wife). Think JK Rowling (Harry Potter series). Think Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love).

Pressure. My god, yes.

Expectations. Oh man, yes.

Criticism. Undoubtedly.

While I can dream about how difficult it must be to write a follow up with all that expectation hanging over you and your keyboard, Elizabeth Gilbert stands up and talks about it in this TED Talk (she says people act like she’s doomed–yikes!):

New Awesome Agent Alert: Michael Carr

I don’t usually provide agent updates on my blog–I usually post them on the AQC (Agent Query Connect) discussion board called Agent Updates where all my querying AQC friends can find them. Or in this case, I find out about an awesome new literary agent via someone else’s post. However, I thought I’d give ol’ Michael a shout out as he is rockin’ the socks off some of my writer friends. (They are loving you, Mr. Carr!)

Michael Carr has joined the Veritas Agency and his timeliness is what is dazzling my writerly buddies. Granted, Mr. Carr is new to the scene, so he may have a bit more time at the moment than an agent who’s been around the block a few times and has a stable of writers, but his response time has been phenomenal!! We’re talking less than 24 hours in terms of replying to a query (and asking for a partial), reading that requested material and getting back to the writer. Sweet! (You can read the whole thread here.)

Here’s more on Mr. Carr and his professional preferences:

• In terms of fiction, he’s always looking for lucid writing and good old fashioned storytelling.
• He will consider paranormal and urban fantasy
• He loves to see anything with an unusual locale or historical setting.
• In terms on nonfiction, he’d like to get a couple of non-fiction writers in his stable who are experts on a particular subject, but write for a lay audience. Something with an interesting historical or scientific angle, for example.
  –From AgentQuery.com. Read his full profile here.

“I represent most genres except picture books, romance, and erotica.”

And yes, he reps YA. And yes, he’s done some trolling around on websites to find good writers. He’s got the time at the moment to go looking–help him find you and your well-crafted book. Query him! And good luck!

P.S. Want a little more? Check out this Q & A on Absolute Write.

Later note: AQCrew over on AQC has posted a list of 20 new literary agents open to your queries. They’re hot, they’re new, and they want you!

Be Car full…