What Agent Jennifer March Soloway wants you to know

Are you sitting at your desk wondering if your story is ready for querying agents? Do you want to know a trick to increase your odds that an agent will request a full manuscript? Do you know why an agent should never be the first person to read your book? This week, on Writers with Wrinkles, we answer these questions and many more. So stay right where you are and we'll be right back. Hi friends, today we are thrilled to welcome agent Jennifer March-Solloway to the podcast. Jennifer is a senior agent with the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. She loves working with writers and illustrators and nothing gives her greater joy than to help an author elevate their story. She enjoys all genres and kid-lit categories, from laugh-out-loud picture books to young adult. A suspense junkie, she adores action-packed thrillers and mysteries. Her favorite novels focus on family relationships, sexuality, mental health or addiction. Jennifer represents literary and commercial adult fiction, particularly crime, suspense and psychological horror, as well as romantic comedies. Regardless of genre, she is most drawn to emotionally compelling voices and fresh perspectives underrepresented in literature. To learn more about Jennifer, follow her on the site formerly known as Twitter at March-Solloway and find her full wish list at wwwandreabrownlittcom. I don't know what to call Twitter these days. I'm like at a loss.

It's a hot mess.

I thought you did a great job.

That's what I'm like, following that you know artist formerly known as Prince thing from way back when. That's what I'm using as a guide.

Well, and I'm not even sure whether I should keep posting or not. I go back and forth.

We were just having that same discussion today. I feel like you know it used to be a big thing where publishers or agents it's like you need a platform, you need this, and it's like everything is so fractured. Now there is no platform, there's nothing, it's just like this landscape of destruction, it's a wasteland.

I see a lot of push from authors and these are primarily, I would say, middle grade, my first impression on Blue Sky. But again, it's just another one. You know threads and Blue Sky and Spoutable and artist, formerly known as Twitter, and et cetera. It's just hard to keep up.

It really is and I can really only do one, so I need to figure out which it is. Yeah, and I'm a word person, so Twitter was good for me. I could just, you know, pop off a writing tip or pop off a query tip or share some query book, query box trends. But, yeah, I'm not an image person, so Instagram is harder for me.

I am terrible. On Instagram I'm like here is a picture of my sandwich. I have nothing to say about my sandwich, but here's our writing tip. It's just weird.

It's different. So I have a funny story to tell you, Jennifer.

Okay.

Beth and I have actually not I wouldn't say met you before, but we were at the NorCal SCBWI conference that you were a keynote speaker at.

And this is years ago, sacramento.

Yes.

Yes, and I got in a car accident before that event.

What, what? Seriously, our story has just taken a left turn. You pulled it off, nobody knew. We had no idea. On your drive, there Is that.

Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't my fault, I swear no. Do you remember? It was a? really there was a huge rainstorm that weekend and I was driving on 80 towards Sacramento actually between Davis and Sacramento, like right on that stretch past the causeway, and I was keeping a good chunk of distance between me and the car in front of me because the roads were slick. It was one of those first rains where everybody forgets how to drive in the rain and all of a sudden I felt just this car slam into the back of me and I was the fourth in a fourth car, four car accident.

No.

But because I had so much room ahead of me, because I'd been concerned about being able to brake and not slide I didn't slide into the person in front of me and also because I was number four, the impact wasn't that bad. So I just had a small bump, like a small scuff on my bumper. But the original car totaled, second car totaled and then third car was okay.

Yeah, and you just like drove from there to the thing and got up in front of all of these needy riders to do you. Wow, I'm very impressed because I would have been like, okay, not coming. Not coming, going to a bar and getting myself a stiff drink, oh my gosh.

Well, I had given myself plenty of time because of the rain and so I had time to get settled and everything. But it was weird because we stopped on the freeway and I was like what do you do when you're a massive accident Like I just didn't even know? Oh gosh.

Oh boy.

Anyway worked out.

I got a new bumper, it was fine.

So, and that's amazing, that, considering the context of the story I'm about to tell, you that that happened previously. So, while, okay, there was two keynote speakers, it was you and another agent, and so I can't remember his name.

And we're not going to say, because it's not a flattering story about him.

Oh, okay Now. Now I have to look it up. I'm going to see if I can put it in my files.

I can't remember who went first, but I will say that when he was speaking and I called him dire Donnie after this because he was everything was doom and gloom. It was, you know, 1% of 1% of 1% will ever see a request from me for a manuscript. And like he was just talking about how hard publishing is and how dire it is, and like nobody gets published and as I was looking around the room I was watching hopes and dreams fade away to the distance.

It was so bad. It was my very first Kiddlet anything. I had written three books for adults. This was my sold. My Kiddlet first series Wasn't out yet and I was like, oh, I'll just go meet some of these Kiddlet authors, you know, see what's going on. And after that I was like I'm leaving.

This is the most depressing experience.

And then I was thinking I signed up three books series. That was a bad idea. I got to get out of this environment, you know.

So then so he finished and people are rocking in the corner crying it's all very sad, and I was just like. I looked at my friend and I'm like it's okay, it's okay, he's just one agent. And so then you came on and you were positive penny. You were so full of enthusiasm and delightful and encouraging and like all of a sudden it was like the clouds parted and Jennifer Mark-Solo, it was there and made everything okay, Cause it was really dark.

Really bad. It was like whiplash. It was like whiplash. It was so funny Looking back on it. It was so funny cause that guy was just. He was like just go home, go home people.

Yeah, give up now. That's so funny. Well, I do think that maybe he was just having a rough year, like things go in waves and some I try to be pretty upbeat and positive, cause I really do believe in the power of revision and the power of getting places. But you know, it's easy to get down in this industry too, like when you get a bunch of rejections and cause we get rejected too.

So maybe he was just having a really rough month, or yeah, he was having a rest 20 minutes, that's for sure, but it was. The whole thing was pretty hilarious in hindsight.

We've been forever dubbed positive penny. Like whenever somebody mentioned you, I'm like oh, positive penny, she's so awesome.

Well, I will say, like you know, just like I said, it can be, there can be so many ups and downs, but and things never happen as fast as we want them to, and I will say that for me as well. Like even things, I think, oh, this is gonna be a slam dunk, and then it is, and I'm like what? Like I had, like I last year in May, I sold a book that I had been on submission with often on for four and a half years.

Oh my God, and then it actually sold. I mean, that's a kind of a miracle and it sold and it sold to big five.

Yeah, and you know, but like there were times for sure where I was like this isn't gonna get old, I guess you know. But my client never gave up. She kept revising, we kept working on it, we tried different titles, we rewrote the pitch, like we tried different editors and we just needed to find that right editor who really understood it and got it. And the irony is that the editor who ended up buying the book is someone that I met for the first time at a conference in California and that's the same conference where I met the author who became my client and then like, fast forward, you know, years later we are now all together, connected on this book.

Oh is it out yet.

It's coming out next year and we just got the cover, which I can't share yet, but it's so good and I'm just so proud of my client that she never gave up. We just kept trying and even like we, she at one point hired I mean I'm very editorial and I work with my clients editorially, but I'd read this book so many times, so at some point she had she hired an editor who used to be a private editor, used to be an editor at Random House, and even that editor was like Jennifer, I don't know why this isn't selling, it's so great and I was like I don't know either. But we just kept trying and finally and finally we did it. And when we did it I, I like, cried on the phone. I called my client and I cried. I called the editor and I cried, and then we were at, while this all happened, when we finally closed the deal. I was at our Cape Cod Children's Workshop that our agency puts on and I went into. I had taken the call while I was in the middle of dinner and I went back into the dinner and then I cried with the entire table and said don't ever give up. I just saw the box for enough years. Like this is amazing, like don't get down, you just like it. Just those who persevere like you. But you have to keep working on your craft. And this is a book that this is a client that I won in a beauty contest when, when I had signed her for this book, like I had editors saying to me like we want this, you know, don't even revise it, send it to us. I thought it was gonna go at auction and then it just didn't. So there's like there's just all kinds of stories like that. And I was talking to another I was an editor friend of mine who she was saying you know, my most successful books are the books that, like, had barely any interest in a very small advance and went on to just blow up. So you just never know.

Yeah, it's. It's a little bit like walking on sand, right, you have no, because I have had, I've published 10 books and every situation is a little different from the situation before. So, even though you have this experience and you think I have the style, I know what's coming, I know how this is gonna go. And then you're like wait, I have no idea how this is gonna go. This is nothing like it was before, and so you're constantly trying to game it, you know, and it's, it's difficult, stressful and difficult.

It really is. Yeah, it's like having children the next one's gonna be all different. And I also think that at every stage that you are, you know, the bar gets higher and changes right. So at first it's like, if only I can get an agent. And then you've got an agent and you're like, if only I can publish. And then you publish. And then you're like, oh, if only I can get. Like, you know, hit this list or get this starred review, or win this award, or have this many sales, like it's. We're always constantly reaching for something bigger and better, as we should. But then, you know, it just feels like it's all perpetually daunting, I suppose.

Yeah, and you never, ever reach the finish line. Maybe Stephen King feels like he crossed the finish line at some point, but the rest of us? I don't know that you ever get there. It's always just you're moving, you're moving the goalposts. That actually leads pretty nicely into our first question, which revolves around the difficulty of publishing for somebody who's querying or out on submission. So how do you approach an author going out on submission? How do you get them? Like this example that you just gave of working with somebody for four and a half years and yes, you referenced the perseverance on the part of the author, but also it feels a little bit exceptional in that you didn't just say we're moving on, my time is valuable, this is never gonna sell, like it's been out to everybody. It's never gonna sell. So I think, in light of that, how do you approach working with these new people who are maybe don't have a lot of baggage and don't know what's coming? So how do?

you approach?

going out on sub with these people.

I guess what I try to do is, first of all, I try to cover all of the possible scenarios, if that makes sense. So I will try and think about, like what do I think this book has? And I have a tendency to be more conservative in my submission process unless I think I've got like the hot thing, and that's not very often because and it's also a risk. So let me explain that. So usually I like to go out to a nice group of editors on my first round of like seven or eight, and I like to try and go to a mix of both seasoned and more senior editors and then also newer editors who are looking to build their list. And then I'm also looking to get a nice mix of all the different houses and I'd like to go out to one imprint at each house so that I can have a good shop but still have plenty of people to go to if it doesn't work out in the first round. So that's a more conservative approach than, say, like going out to 15 or 20 all at once, right, which where you're kind of like shrying everybody and then if it doesn't work, okay, you move on. But that amount gives you a nice opportunity to possibly have an auction but also have plenty of additional rounds. And then I will talk it through with my client about what does this mean? What will we do if everyone says no? If everyone says no, I am there for them. We'll talk it through, and what we'll do is see if we get notes from editors. And the nice thing about being on submission versus being in the query trenches, which I'm sure we'll talk about in just a moment, is that we usually do get some kind of notes not always, but we might get some ideas about why they're passing. It could be that it's just not a good fit for their list. It could be that it's just not they don't have a vision for editing it, and in either case, if that's the case, we don't want to be with them. We want to be somewhere that they have the perfect place on their list for the book. We want to be with someone who has a great vision. However, if they say, like, well, I really liked this, but you know XYZ notes about the story, you know, then that's something that my client and I can take in, think about, sit with the feedback for a while and decide. Does that, what they say, resonate with my client? Does it resonate with me? Is that something that my client might want to then revise and consider? And sometimes we'll get actual, you know specifics like oh, I think if you did XYZ, it would be elevate the book, and sometimes it, you know it doesn't sound right. And other times, especially if we hear it from three or four people, then we'll think, oh, maybe that is something we want to reconsider. And then I also talk them through. If we get two offers or you know which is a competitive situation, or three offers or more, and then it's going to be an auction and I'll step them through that process as well and what that will all mean. And I basically say, no matter what, I'm with you and you can ask me questions along the way and we'll just continue to strategize whatever happens. So in the case that I just said about the, you know four years, like we, you know, would get notes back, we'd get the not right for the list, love the. And a lot of times you get conflicting notes, like oh, I love the voice, but the story isn't quite working for me. Or oh, I love the story, but the note, the voice didn't quite hit, and like those are the hardest. We were like wow, which is it? But again, like when we get feedback like that, they're just probably not the right person for the project and we need to find that right person. But it's hard in the moment. I mean, I'm being very blasé about it, but it's really hard to get a lot of passes, it's daunting and it rattles me just like everyone else.

So yeah, it does make you question everything that you did up until that moment, even if you know it's not logical. It's so emotional to be hammered down like that? I think you're not. It's hard to even think clearly when it's happening to you.

Yeah, and it happens to us a lot. I'm actually really good about when, at this point in my age because I am an agent with wrinkles that I'm I joke that I'm too old to go out with people who are not into me. But if I actually mean it, like, it's okay if someone doesn't. If, like, I offer representation to someone and they want to go elsewhere, it's okay. They deserve the best representation for them and of course I'd love for it to be me. But if it's not me, I still like them, I still like their work, I'm still rooting for them and I always joke around too like, hey, I like you now, I'll probably like you later. So if it doesn't work out, keep me in mind. But if they are passing on me, that I'm fine with and I don't get weird and I don't feel bad about it and I don't get upset, even if I put a lot of thought and put some notes into the offer. Because, again, I want to work with someone who really wants to work with me, where we have great synergy, where it's going to be a great relationship. I hate breaking up, I hate awkward relationships and so I'd rather avoid it. But where I still kind of get rattled is when I go out and submission with something and then we get all passes and especially if I don't understand the passes or I thought it was going to go really well and fast, I will get rattled by that and I'll start to doubt myself. And even though I know in my heart that it doesn't necessarily mean anything, sometimes it just takes a while to find that right person, as it does in dating and in real life and finding the right job, et cetera, everything. It takes time so, but just like everyone else, I want it faster and sooner and instantly.

All this talk about submissions and actually and it's going on submission is very similar to Queer and we always give people the same advice go in small chunks. Don't send out this mass query to a bunch of agents, because then you can't make changes and adjustments and it sounds like you do the same thing.

It's the same. Yeah, it's the exact same thing. Yeah, and I keep a spreadsheet and I watch it, yeah.

And as time authors, the querying process obviously can be daunting. Beth and I have been through it and it is daunting. Do you have advice for those currently shopping their work, because it's one of the things we keep hearing is how like crazy hard the industry is right now, both in querying and just going on submission. So, for example, what common mistakes do you see and what makes a query successful in your eyes?

Okay. Well, first of all, I will say which is, I guess, what would you call them, donnie Downer I'm going to share some like maybe what's going to be perceived to be negative news, but I don't mean it to be that way. This year has been a weird year and people are taking and I would say people across the board, including me, are taking much longer than they normally did, and I'm not sure why. In my personal case, I got injured in February. I injured my neck and I'd never had anything so painful in my life and I couldn't look at a screen for six weeks. It really set me back. But everyone I talked to, they're just all moving more slowly right now. I also think the market is uncertain right now just because book sales are down, especially Kiddlet sales are down. So that's the bad news. So the good news is, if you've been on submission for a while or if you've been in querying for a while, people are moving slowly, and so if you haven't heard yet, nothing doesn't necessarily mean no. For example, I had a project in my box since January I'm hiding my eyes as I talk to you and admit that and this was a project where I'd met the author at a conference and I really loved their writing and I was excited about it. But I just had so many delays and then I finally got back to them what is this month? Are we still in August? It was August and I gave them a revise and resubmit. I love what they're writing. I love the setting. I love the characters, I love the dialogue. I love the story. I love the themes that this author is exploring. However, the story is not ready for me yet. What do I mean by that? The draft is still raw, it still needs some more work, and I'm going to explain that. So I am an editorial agent and I love to help people elevate their stories. I really, really love it, and if I like a book a lot like one that I'm reading right now, that I've been reading all day today, the way I know that I want to work with somebody is I will pick up my notebook and I will start to make notes and I will start to say, oh, I love that line, or oh, I love this character, I love this chapter close, and then I'll think, oh, this, we need to know a little bit more about how she feels here, or we need to know what he's thinking there or we need to know what they are going to do next and the more notes I take, if I can tell that I have a vision for the project, then I know I want to work with them. In the case that I'm just talking about, I had those notes but I realized it was still just too early for me, and the reason I say that is because I have three really good editorial rounds in me. If you're my client, I will do more than that, but I like to tell my clients that I'm an asset that you should use to get yourself ready for submission. So you don't want to use me too early in the process as a developmental editor, because once I give those three rounds, then at that point I know what the author is trying to do. I am emotionally invested in them achieving it. I am not going to see things with fresh eyes. I'm going to maybe conflate versions or forget like wait, what about that? Oh wait, that character was in five drafts ago, and so I recommend that you really use me for those final three rounds to push it over the finish line to go to submission, and in this case I could tell the book needed a lot more work and I want to save myself for those. I would love to work with this author but I want to save myself for those last three rounds. So I gave them a revise and resubmit and I'm really hoping they will send it back to me. I still don't always know. I can't always tell at what point is it ready for me to jump in. But I would say the number one mistake I see in my query box is people are submitting work too early. I can tell even from the opening pages they haven't really thought through their story yet. They haven't really figured out their beginning, they don't really know their characters or if they do, they are not getting all of it on the page. If I have to start filling in blanks or holes or gaps with my brain, then it's not right, not ready yet. The other thing I would say is that when you're going on, when you're starting a query work I say this all the time but give me a really good first line, just give me something I can sink my teeth into. That just pulls me in and makes me want to read more. I've talked about this a lot. I probably talked to this, about this in Sacramento when I was there. But when I first started assisting at the agency, I started to really think about what about a project will make me want to read. What are the dos? Because you go to conferences you hear plenty of the don'ts. Don't start with a dream, don't start with dialogue, don't start with a prologue, don't start with a phone call on and on. But what are the dos? And so, for me, a really great first line that raises a question in my mind, or, better yet, two or three, where I just have to read the book to find out. A first line that gives me context about the story and lays a roadmap for where we're going. Now, sometimes you can't achieve all of that in an opening line, but some get really close and actually many just nail it. One of my favorite examples of a great first line is Everything I Never Told you by Celeste Ng. This line sets the tone and the stage for the story. It gives us a sense of where the story is going and it captures everything, the entire story, in that first line. And the line is Lydia is already dead, but they don't know this yet.

It is a great line. I actually remember that line, being like you gasp when you read it.

You gasp because you want to know. Well, what are they going to do about it when they find out? And how did a Lydia die, and where is she, and how did she get separated from her family, and who is she and who are they? And it just raises all these questions in your mind. It sounds heartbreaking, but it sounds intriguing and deeply compelling On the flip side. One of my very favorite lines is Forever by G Bloom, one of my very favorite authors, and the line is Simple Davison has a genius IQ and has been laid by at least six different guys, so why is that such a great line? So do we know what this book is going to be about? Yes, it's going to be about sex and, furthermore, sex is okay, absolutely Simple. Davison does it and she's a smart girl and she wants it and she's going after it, and that's essentially. Forever is about a girl who meets a guy and they date and she has sex for the first time and it's great, and then they break up and nothing happens to her, and that's the whole thing. That's the whole story. She doesn't get an STD, she doesn't get pregnant, she doesn't get labeled a slut. It's really groundbreaking. It came out in the 70s and I really haven't seen anything like it since in terms of that, Like just the money you know, like hey it's sex, it's okay, and I moved on.

It was very normal.

It was a very sort of normal story, a normal book, and I read it when I was 11, which is much my mother's core and I remembered it being so scintillating and so sexy and so revealing. And then I read it again in grad school when I did a paper on YA in the 1970s YA and I read it again and I was like, oh my gosh, it's all dialogue. She doesn't describe anything. There's nothing.

There's nothing at all.

I had the same experience.

I reread it again, probably a couple of years ago, and I had the same. I was like this is nothing like I remember because I read in my early teens as well, and so I was like, but she's a genius, I mean Judy Boone. Like the fact that you are so in that book and you cannot put it down and nothing is happening, that's like a miracle that she worked there somehow or another.

Well, it's the voice and it's the confiding feelings, and which is all what we really want. So that's another mistake that I think many newer writers make when they're queering. And again, it's not a mistake, it's not terrible. Everyone does it. Everyone does it. Everyone queries too early. So if you are listening to this right now and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm sitting out there like query too soon, I don't want you to worry, we're not going to hold it against you. Everything that I'm talking about can be elevated and can be revised, but I find a lot of early projects in my box. I just don't know what the characters thinking or feeling, and I think part of that is that we're told to show, don't tell, and so a lot of people thinking that they're showing will use gestures to show instead, or dialogue to show instead of just simply telling us how the character feels. So, like a character, their heart is racing. Well, what does that mean? Are they excited, are they aroused, are they terrified? There are so many ways that a racing heart could, so many different emotions or feelings, that or thoughts that could cause that racing heart. It's much more intimate and exciting and compelling if the author or, sorry, if the character says something like I'm really afraid he's not going to like me. That's so much more compelling than, and relatable and universal than my heart is racing when I look at him. So I think those are some. Those are some of the very simple and common mistakes that I see. But again, it can. You can revise it, you can make it great, and if you and if you don't do it the first time, it's okay, take it back, rewrite it, revise it, make it fantastic, stop on a new title, rework the pitch, and I won't know the difference, because here's the thing I will know that you queried me before. I will be able to look back at the old query and see what the pitch was. But I am always impressed with people who are able to elevate their work and who are, who continue to work on their craft and who send me projects again and at the next level. That's the kind of person I want to work with. That's the kind of person that I want, who's going to persevere, just like my client did after four years, who's going to not give up, because this is, as we go back to, my bad news. It's a really hard business and there's a lot of up and downs and there's a lot of rejection and you just need to stay the course and I want someone who's going to trust me enough to work with me to get there.

That's great advice and it's one of those things that when you're new and you're querying you, a lot of times you don't know, and I think people ask that all the time how do you know, how do you know? And it's like, just put it out there, see what happens. And so everyone does that, everyone sends it. I did, I sent some things out. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe I sent that out. You look back and you're kind of cringing a little bit, but that was a really good point, because everyone does it and it's okay, everyone does it. And you can bounce back and you can make changes and you can improve it and you can move on.

And then later, when you do sign with representation, maybe some of us will be like oh, I can't believe I passed on that, but the mistake was mine.

Do you think a way to stop or to help yourself realize that the manuscript you're working on is not ready is by using critique partners or having outside readers? Because I sometimes feel like people are judging it solely themselves and they've been in the story and they've been in the manuscript and they no longer see it clearly. I always reach a point where I no longer see what I'm doing and someone else has to look at it to tell me you know, you have a giant hole here and a giant hole here. It's almost like you want to instruct people. Have that one layer of showing it to people before you even consider submitting it, Because a lot of times you get that feedback where people will say I don't understand who this character is or I don't know why they're doing X, Y and Z. Do you think that would be helpful for people to just try?

Oh, yes, I think for sure that people should have critique groups, absolutely. I think that I shouldn't be the first to see it, I should be the last. Okay, yeah, I think. In fact, one of the things I will ask when I talk to someone about possible representation is I will ask who else is reading your book. Because the thing is is that I think I'm pretty good at editorial, but I'm just one person with my own fine end experiences, and there are plenty of things that I'm just going to miss or not see or not have experience with, and so it's very important to have multiple eyes on your project that are from people who are all coming from different perspectives, who can catch things for you. I think that's very important and you should, in order to get ready to go to query, make sure that you have exercised all of your resources and tried to get it the very best you can be with your resources before you get it to me Now, for those of you out there who are having trouble finding a critique group, I feel you. It is hard, just like it's hard to find an agent, and just like it's hard to find good friends, and just like it's hard to find a partner, it's hard to find a good critique group, and I think that giving feedback is actually an art. Many people have not mastered it. In fact, most people are really bad at it, and so you might have to date a little bit before you find that those readers and those people who can really help you and support you in the best way, the best critique partners, are going to be people who give you honest feedback, but also who have your back and who can give you a hug when you get rejections and who will pump you up. But that's a hard balance for anyone to have to be able to say, hey, this isn't working and I care about you, but it's just not working and you want to rethink this and hear some suggestions, but also like, you're really talented and you need to keep going.

And it can't be relatives. It can't be your mom or dad.

No, not mom, not dad not sibling?

Usually not, I mean, I have some clients who work with siblings and it's actually really great. But yeah, I think, even if you do have a sibling or a parent who's giving you feedback, you should have other people as well.

All right, Beth, you want to ask the third?

question. Well, I think we kind of covered the third question already, which was about how you work editorially with your clients, so I'm going to actually just jump to the last one.

I should probably just add one note about that. As you can tell, I'm very verbose and so if you end up working with me, I write very, very long letters, and so I like to warn people upfront, like usually, if you have a call with me, like I will rattle on for an hour, so they'll know how verbose I am. But my letters also reflect that and a lot of it is praise and then a lot of it is like I just have so many ideas that I want to share with you. Like I have one client that I signed them and we had this big editorial call and then they sent me their book and then I wrote them a 12 page letter and then they sent me a revision and then I wrote them an 18 page letter. Just because I had so many ideas. I could like oh, you could do this, you could do that, you could do that, you could do this. And then I had to like send them the caveat, like don't freak out, this is just because I love your work so much.

I had my very first book, my very first editorial letter. I had never seen one of these before in my life and it was like five pages and I had a full on heart attack because I read it and I thought, oh my God, this is like a totally different book. I don't. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I called my agent and I was like she hates the book. Why did she acquire the book? She hates it. She wants me to change everything. And so we went through it and you know she calmed me down and I highlighted what was actually relevant to me in making my changes, and this is a process I still do. My last kid spoke with SNS and the letter was again eight pages long and I just take my highlighter and I just I highlight the things that I need to address in the next draft and then I cut them out and I make a list, because when you're seeing it as part of this massive document, you're just panicking. You know you're just like I can't even read it. I'm freaking out. The gems are in there. You got to pull them out and make them work for you, and that you know it goes both ways, like a good agent and a good editor is going to tell you all this stuff, and then you have to pick through the field and get the bouquet that you want. So it's a it's a very interesting process.

And I always tell my clients like I'm just trying to help you elevate your story and I'm going to make suggestions and if you like them, great, run with them. But also if they don't work for you, that's okay too. Like this is your book and it's your vision. I had one letter to a client I had written like two pages. There was a character that I thought maybe the book was very long and we were trying to figure it out and I was like maybe this character you know, I don't know if they're really doing enough or adding to the story and I wrote this whole two pages about. They could easily take the character out if they wanted to. And then at the very bottom, because I figured my client really wanted that character in the book, and I said of course, if you want the character in the book, you need to make sure that this, this and this, and of course. Then they came back to me and said I want the character in the book and here's this, this and this. And I was like okay, good, let's go.

But I have found that I would rather have the super long letter because there's so much in there to think about. And, exactly as you said, I think as you go along in your career, you develop the confidence to identify the things that you are. Yes, absolutely. What's being suggested is going to make this better, is going to elevate the book, and then there are things in there that you're just like nope, can't do that, that's not going to work. But it's hard, especially for first timers, to say I don't want to do that. It does not align with how I see this book unfolding, as opposed to saying, okay, I'm going to take every suggestion you made and then I'm going to go and I'm going to go cry in the bathroom because there's no way that I can do all of this Well, I try to tell my clients upfront, like even when I'm offering representation, that's how I work, like you don't have to take my word as gospel.

Then I say it again and again in my letters, so I hope that people feel that way.

Well, you know, us writers are very fragile creatures, so one day we'll be fine and the next day we'll be in a panic. Isn't that how? I think that's how it works, at least for me. So our last question is I like this one a lot when you're scanning through all the submissions that you get from querying authors out there, what is something that makes you go yes, I need to see this. What makes your eyes light up? What makes your heart sing? What makes you excited to respond?

That's a very hard question because there's all kinds of different things that excite me, and sometimes things that excite me that I didn't ever think would excite me, like, for example, I have right behind me If you Miss Me by Jocelyn Leland-Grant. So I really love funny, laugh out loud picture books. I have not really much for sweet, I just really like things that have crowd-pleasing page turning read-alouds. And then I get this beautiful book about a little dancer, ballerina, who's lost her grandmother, and it's heartbreaking and it makes me cry every time. But it's absolutely a beautiful book. But if you told me you're going to do a book about a dead grandma, I was like no, I'm not. Or for YA, yes, for a picture book, no. So I have such a book that I am reading right now that came into my box and it just had a pitch that was that I found deeply compelling. It's a contemporary YA and it just touched on a lot of themes that I really love and hold dear. And then I read the opening pages and the prose were absolutely beautiful, with the kind of sentences that I like to stop and savor. It had very short chapters that just I don't know, just were so emotionally jarring in the best way and I just had to read more. I would say, if you're writing a novel and you're going to send me the first 10 pages, I would end on something that is going to again raise a question in my mind, where I just have to request the book to find out what happens next. I do the same thing if I ever I almost never go on submission with a proposal, but sometimes we do if we're going back to a client's existing editor, and when we do something, when we do with proposal, we'll send the first three chapters and a detailed synopsis. But my goal is for us to always end those three chapters on something on some kind of emotional conflict or emotional cliffhanger that yes, you've got the whole synopsis, you know where the plot's going, but you're going to need to buy the book to find out what happens at the end of that chapter and what happens in the next page. And I would say, do the same thing if you're querying me. I have an addictive personality and if I get something in my mind where I just need to know, I will request it and I will read it. And that's the case with this book. I requested it and I didn't have time to dip in. I didn't have time to dip in and I didn't have time to dip in. And then over the last few days I got into the manuscript and I just think it's. I haven't been able to put it down and I would say I'm at my midway through the book. I didn't even start taking notes really until about halfway through. I was wondering does this even need some work? And now I'm starting to see some opportunities where I feel like I can provide value. But yeah, so something like that. Now that's a more of a literary novel. On the flip side, I love a great thriller, I'm looking for a great thriller. I get a lot of thrillers, but a lot of it feels very familiar. So what's the trick? The trick is you want to deliver something that offers that same familiar pleasure that we've gotten from other stories, but packaged in a new way that feels novel. So the best analogy I can give is if you have sex with the same person all the time. It's still nice, but it's not exciting and new anymore. So I want sex with a new lover.

I like that description. That's what I'm looking for. Okay, this is good. I love the idea of the cliffhanger and leaving. In this case, you're the reader, the agent is the reader, leaving them with no choice but to ask you for the rest of the manuscript. That is so important and doable. It's absolutely doable for somebody who's preparing to query.

I would also say make sure that your opening pages deliver the promise of the pitch. If there is a question raised in that pitch, like something that sounds really great, I want to start there. I want to start with the inciting incident and that's again where I can tell someone it's just not, it's just still too early of a draft. If it's not, you know they're still writing for story and trying to figure it out and they're entering at the wrong place.

These are like bullet point things. People can write this stuff down and get themselves a nice little roadmap to how to do a successful query, or at least stack the odds in your favor.

Yeah. But again, I want to tell everybody if you feel like, if you're listening to this right now, you're like, oh no, I didn't do this, like don't worry, that's okay, just step back, think it through again, figure out like what is my pitch promising? And then, if it's you know, if it's promising a murder like, then get to the murder right away and then let's go from there and whatever it is, yeah, deliver it and don't worry, if you made a mistake, it will be okay, I promise.

That is a perfect place for us to wrap up our time with you, jennifer, thank you so much for being here and sharing all of this wisdom. I think our listeners are going to really love this episode because there's so much to take away from it, so we are grateful for you giving us this hour. Oh, my pleasure, it's been a lot of fun. And, as always, thank you listeners for tuning in. Please visit our link tree or the podcast notes and find out how to support the show by subscribing. And we will see you again next week, september 11th, with a new Top 5 Deep Dive episode. So please be sure to join us for that, and until then, happy reading, writing and listening.