Habits & Traits 12: Is Writing About Who You Know?
Hi Everyone!
For those who don't know me, my name is Brian and I work for a literary agent. I posted an AMA a while back and then started this series to try to help authors around r/writing out. I'm calling it habits & traits because, well, in my humble opinion these are things that will help you become a more successful writer. If you have a suggestion for what you'd like me to discuss, add your suggestion here and I'll answer you or add it to my list of future volumes -
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That, or pop into the IRC chat and say hello. CLICK ME
Another great community of writers hangs out in the r/writing discord chat. I've been known to drop by here often too.
If you missed previous posts, here are the links:
[Volume 1 - How To Make Your Full-Request Stand Out] (https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/4x9c25/habits_traits_volume_1/?)
[Volume 2 - Stay Positive, Don't Disparage Yourself] (https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/4xt9pa/habits_traits_2_amateur_writers/?)
Volume 5 - From Rough Draft to Bookstores
Volume 6 - Three Secrets To Staying Committed
Volume 7 - What Makes For A Good Hook
Volume 8 - How To Build & Maintain Tension
Volume 9 - Agents, Self Publishing, and Small Presses
Volume 11: How To Keep Going When You Want To Give Up
As a disclaimer - these are only my opinions based on my experiences. Feel free to disagree, debate, and tell me I'm wrong. Here we go!
Habits & Traits #12 - Is Writing About Who You Know?
For those who have asked questions, I'll be getting back to them on Thursday. But for today's post, I had something else in mind.
This weekend I had the valuable opportunity to speak to a local writing group about many of the things we have been discussing here on H&T. Overall the experience was quite wonderful. I got to talk writing and publishing with writers who spanned the gamut from brand-new to been-writing-for-decades and there were many valuable questions and comments that were raised.
One in particular struck me, and I've been stewing on it for the last 24 hours.
A wonderfully well spoken writer brought up the fact that she had recently attended the Dallas Fort Worth Writing Convention, and due to her involvement with a writers guild of some kind (something in the same vein as RWA but it wasn't one I recognized), she was able to attend a cocktail party after the event.
The cocktail party was a closed event, and many agents and editors were there in her estimation. Through her casual conversations, she ended up leaving the room with 3-5 business cards and with the genuine feeling that what she was writing was not only publishable but in demand. Surely this book would get a traditional contract.
Mind you, this book is not yet finished. Furthermore, the author seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that attending such conferences was a great way to get face-to-face time with agents and up your chances drastically of successfully getting published.
You hear it all the time in other entertainment industries like acting and music - It's all about who you know. The idea being, if you are extremely talented but don't know anyone in the industry, you are basically screwed. Is that the case for writing too?
The answer, of course, is a resounding no. Because the way you get noticed in writing is by, well, being a good writer. And since being a good writer doesn't require a good recording studio to make your music sound radio-ready, or a good makeup artist and a solid plot to let you show off your skills, that makes a writers life easier in those regards. There is a very low cost to enter (free) and all you need is to get your writing in front of the right eyes -- and those eyes are open to queries. Heck, even self publishing seeks an audience, and that audience has access (via Amazon) to whichever books they want.
It's important to remember when you are writing that having no credentials is quite normal. In fact, in some ways it's advantageous. Once you've sold/published your first book, you'd think getting another contract would be easy. But when you find yourself looking at that next contract, you're going to hear a lot more questions about why you only sold x number of copies last time around than why your main character is so crazy. Not having that history of sales? Well that makes you a lottery ticket.
An outrageous number of authors have gotten their contracts by simply querying. It happens all the time. You don't hear about it as much because it's not that strange. They went the route that you would expect a new writer to go. If you're someone who lives in Iceland or in a cave on Mars, fear not -- you do not need to attend a writing conference to make your dreams come true. You don't need to know anyone. Are we clear?
Good, because now I'd like to state the advantages of knowing people.
When you get the call and an agent is offering representation, one of the big reasons they are calling you is to make absolutely sure that you would be a good fit. That's a nice way of saying they're trying to make sure you're not crazy. Perhaps you wrote this fantastic book about a global flood that destroys the world -- and then the agent gets on the phone with you and finds out you've travelled back in time from the future to build this boat and publish this book to warn everyone of the impending doom. That might cause that agent to hesitate a bit.
When you meet agents at a cocktail hour, you get some of that out of the way. You get a chance to prove you're not a crazy person. And like it or not, sometimes we do (as humans) make decisions based on whether we like people or not. Sometimes that does move the needle. These are all good things.
A writing friend of mine who had worked with an agent for a number of years had to part ways with their agent. They chose to query all over again, and they spoke to every published author who repped the genre they were writing in. Aside from being a very deft and talented writer, my friend ended up with a 50% full request rate using these referrals and signed with a new agent a month later (and sold her next series a month after that). I have to imagine she would have gotten this far regardless of the referrals she had, and the single sentence she used in each query to say "I know x author whom you also represent and they recommended you." But nonetheless, I'm sure it moved the needle.
I think it's important to take advantage of anything that moves the needle, no matter how little you think it will help. If you meet an agent face to face at a conference and share your query with them, saying something like "Hey, I met you at x conference and we talked about puppies" can move the needle. It's just one more thing that can set you apart from someone else. Heck, if you're not on twitter following agents, go do that now. Sign up. Find agents. Follow them. And talk to them. They want to hear from you. They'd love to know you so that when a query comes in, they have a face to put with the name.
When you meet an agent and they like you, you have a slight edge over the person who didn't. Even if it's only a slight edge, it still can prove useful.
I'm really hoping this post makes sense. Because there are things I want you to take away from it, and things I don't want you to take away from it.
At the end of the day, you still need to write well. You still need a good book. You need a good idea and you need to execute it well. But if for some reason, your book is very close to hitting the mark but not quite there, someone liking you as a person could mean the difference in them taking the risk or taking a pass.
So to answer the question in the most direct way possible - no, you don't need to know anyone to make it in writing. But meeting someone in person or online could give you just enough of a tiny push to make it happen.
Note: For those of you like me who live in Minnesota or another cold wasteland where writing conferences don't really happen, here is a cheap option with some very notable agents in attendance - http://www.manuscriptacademy.com/
I believe it's about $150 bucks and it comes with 1 on 1 Skype pitch sessions that is worthy of consideration.
Posted Sep 19, 2016, 2:06 PM UTC · edited