How Much Do You Have to Know About Publishing?

Isn’t Writing a Good Book Enough?

Hi friends,

I was reading another blog post (ugh, I can’t find it) from another fantastic agent and they were venting a little steam about truly noob mistakes in the slush pile querying more than one book at a time, spelling their name wrong. Really basic stuff, to us agents. And it made me wonder, how much can I really expect an author to know about publishing?

So, you should spell everyone’s name right. (Let me tell you about how I misspelled the name of a VERY successful author in an email to them just last week!) I think there is basic common sense/business communication stuff that's easy to figure out if you pay attention. But then there’s publishing specific stuff that takes more effort to learn (hello this newsletter). At what stage should I expect an author to know what, when I’m considering working with them? Isn’t it my job to teach them?

To me, there’s just so much information about query letters and marketing and royalties available in books and blogs and articles and webinars and classes that authors should come in with a baseline knowledge of the career they’re getting into—the career they WANT to get into. I mean, the amount of research I do to just buy a pair of headphones… If I was querying I’d put in at least that much effort into learning about agents and publishing. Of course, I have the luxury, privilege, and means to do that. It takes forever to write and book (still not done with mine) and by the time they’re all writers just want to get it OUT there and PUBLISHED. I get it. I want that, too.

Because why have an agent or a traditional publisher if you still have to do a bunch of work, amirite? I think that’s the problem, fundamentally. Writers don’t understand just how much they still need to contribute to the publishing process so they don’t know how much they need to know. It’s a team effort, y’all. You can’t just send in a manuscript and wait to approve your book cover and your book tour tickets to arrive. Your job is not just to write the book. Everything in publishing is your job, along side agents, editors, and publishers. (Except for copyediting. God bless copyeditors.)

So, when I see noob mistakes in a query letter, should I hold it against the writer? I mean, I probably do sometimes. I don’t outright reject a query because they said Dear Mr. McQueen. But a poorly written query may get rejected because it doesn’t tell me anything about the book. A book that’s way too long or way too short gets rejected because the author doesn’t know about standard word counts. I can’t afford to teach these lessons from the query pile because I don’t get paid to read queries. But Kate! Your an agent! Of course you get paid to read queries. Nope. I work on commission. I only get paid after I sell a book. Queries by definition are unsold books. See? Another thing writers don’t know about publishing.

That is, of course, why I have this newsletter (which I am paid for, thanks subscribers) and also why I want the real nuts and bolts publishing stuff to be free on Tuesdays. I want to write a whole book about agents and queries and publishing, but we’ll see. (My agent is Michael Bourret if you’re interested in that, publishers).

I think that if you want anything to be your career, then you have to research it, as much as you can. That’s on you, writer. I know some writers don’t think they can even dream of a whole career writing or don’t know where to start. This is me trying to fix with that. If you know someone who needs a hand getting started, send them this newsletter. I hope it helps.

I’m on vacation this week, so enjoy your pre-scheduled content. Im posting this from an airplane! Technology! That’s how much I want you to have it.

XOXO,

Kate