I love the phrase "cargo-cult activity." That's exactly right.

Posted April 23, 2007 7:18 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Agreed. Very good term.

Posted April 23, 2007 7:26 PM by abi

The absolute most an unpublished novelist can get out of a pitch session is to be told to go ahead and send the manuscript: an outcome that’s hard to distinguish from the normal submission process.

The one time I pitched a novel, the person I pitched to asked me to send exactly the same package I would have sent as an unsolicited submission.

Once I stopped congratulating myself for not fainting, farting or collapsing on the floor in a puddle of flop sweat, I realized that the only thing I'd done was risk being turned down for what I said about the book rather than the book itself.

Posted April 23, 2007 7:32 PM by Harry Connolly

Got it in one, Harry.

Posted April 23, 2007 7:35 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

I realized that the only thing I'd done was risk being turned down for what I said about the book rather than the book itself.

This is one of the big things that makes the novel pitch generally useless, I think. Unlike a television show or a movie, where the content will eventually be communicated to the audience in a format quite different than the script or treatment which gets pitched, a novel is already in the form it will take upon presentation to the audience (sans fancy cover and binding and whatnot).

TV and movie writers need to speak for their work, especially when there's a lot more to their vision than what you see on the page. But novelists can let their work speak for itself.

Posted April 23, 2007 7:38 PM by DarthParadox

It didn't feel right when the first thread came up in January. It still doesn't feel right. It did cause some interesting visitors to come out of the woodwork, though.

;)

Posted April 23, 2007 7:54 PM by Greg London

What do you make of pitch sessions as part of a larger conference, if one doesn't pay extra to schedule them?

I know some folks who were involved in a local conference that did this recently, and while I'm still torn on whether the sessions were actively useful, they didn't seem to do any harm, at least.

Unlike a conference where you only pitch and pay $600 for the privilege. Doesn't that actually violate AAR standards?

Posted April 23, 2007 7:59 PM by Janni

Isn't pitch what people use to caulk their roof with?

Posted April 23, 2007 8:00 PM by Serge

Because really, it is a well known fact that writing a novel and being able to market it -- in person -- to professionals are exactly the same skill.

(Warning, this message contains levels of sarcasm which have been shown to be toxic in humans. Do not read without prior written consent of your doctor.)

Posted April 23, 2007 8:01 PM by Zak

Zak @ 9: Because really, it is a well known fact that writing a novel and being able to market it -- in person -- to professionals are exactly the same skill.

Precisely. It's why we're all actors and don't need agents.

Posted April 23, 2007 8:20 PM by Aconite

Not Ideas about the Book,
but the Book Itself

At the NYC Pitch Conference,
In March, a scrawny cry from the author
Seemed like a sound in her mind.

She knew she had heard it before,
A writer's cry, over latte at Starbucks,
Where the smell of sweat and stale muffins mingled.

The light was fading and flickering,
No longer a gem shining out from the slush ...
The news would arrive in an envelope.

It was not an unmixed metaphor
Towering like a concrete cliche with missing teeth ...
The rejection would come in an envelope.

That scrawny cry - It was
A scrivener whose s preseeded the spellcheck.
It was part of the colossal first draft,

Destined never to be revised,
Only brandished. It was the sound of
Mary Sue, unmarried, threatening to sue.

Posted April 23, 2007 8:29 PM by MikeB

Janni, speaking here with my often-struggling author's hat on, I'd say that anything that arouses false hopes, or sets up false fears, that distract you from the actual work of writing and submission is an actively bad idea. Even if it's not costing you money, it's costing you attention, and reduced attention feeds directly into reduced craft. Your work and your business need you.

This is where the cargo-cult comparison is so handy. There's little necessarily destructive about setting up shrines to vehicles, and so on. It's just that it's energy that could have been used to build something useful, to study, to learn, to help. Likewise with this sort of activity. Even when it's not bankrupting you or enriching frauds, it's not actually helping you write or sell. So don't do it, and don't think of it as desirable.

My take, anyway.

Posted April 23, 2007 8:36 PM by Bruce Baugh

Oh, hey, thanks for the answer. Glad I was apparently thinking straight about it. I was just reminded of this notion the other day, when I tried to tell my husband about a story I'm writing, and ended up sort of helplessly waving my appendages and sputtering.

Posted April 23, 2007 9:24 PM by Mary Dell

So, in the end, we could take Bruce's idea and rephrase the title:

Pitch Sessions considered Harmful*

*recursive footnote.

Posted April 23, 2007 9:40 PM by Kimiko

Regarding cargo cults, I once had what I expect was the only incorporated cargo cult in NYS. This had been for a freelance art business, where the bulk of my business had been ad mockups for local ad agencies. I figured 'ad mockups:advertising::cargo cults:aviation'. It seemed clever at the time; if I were doing it over again, I would come up with something that required less explanation (also, I was told some people were made nervous by 'cult' in the name, as if any real cult labeled itself).

Full color business cards are not so uncommon now, but were unusual in the 80's when I was doing this business. I did some airbrush art, which a printer friend ran on the margins of another job (saving me lots of money).

It's been more than 10 years since I was running that business.

Posted April 23, 2007 9:40 PM by Rob Rusick

Janni, years ago I participated in such sessions at a local writing conference. I did it twice.

The results were less than promising, to say the least. And I was out $50 each (or was it $25--that was back in the late 80s) for, essentially, nothing.

I've gotten equivalent results (hey, I've got this novel, here's the premise, do you want to see it?) from doing a quick two minute pitch to an editor at a convention party that had a similar result--changing the submission from unsolicited to solicited. That didn't cost me anything, I got to have some fun and interesting conversations with those editors, and I had good food and drink at the same time. Plus I got a look at that particular publisher's new list of books coming out (ooh! shiny! I want! I want! I want! Droool)

My experience is also that writing conventions that feature this kind of activity tend to be a.) incredibly expensive as compared to sf conventions, b.) tediously loaded down with pretentious, self-promoting How-to-Write "experts," c.) and boring as hell compared to sf conventions.

Save your money. Go to a sf con and hit the writing panels as well as the fun panels. Cheaper, much more fun with varied entertainment, and a heck of a lot less painful to endure.

Especially if there's Toxic Waste anywhere around....

Posted April 23, 2007 9:44 PM by Joyce Reynolds-Ward

Let me just say that the Google ads that have started showing up on this thread are interesting indeed. My first thought is that, like the Google ads that show up on most of the writing-related threads here, it's Scam-a-rama over in the right-hand column.

But ... it's a different mix. No ads for PublishAnything. None from Bobby Fletcher's Boca Raton bungalow.

Still: I doubt that "Top Producers Are Scouting New Reality TV Show Ideas Online." And I really doubt that Display Sites work any better for TV shows than they do for books.

Posted April 23, 2007 10:41 PM by James D. Macdonald

Jim, have you noticed that even those disreputable Google ads use "pitch" to refer to selling TV writing, but don't use it in connection with prose fiction?

Posted April 23, 2007 11:11 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Does the "Self-Publish Your Short Stories!" one involve pitching to yourself?

Posted April 23, 2007 11:22 PM by elise

elise #19: That's completely okay, as long as you wash your hands afterwards.

Posted April 24, 2007 12:16 AM by Alan Bostick

Only January that all went down? I'd thought it was last year... I was just thinking in terms of sober aphorisms:

The mill of TNH is slow,
But it grinds fine,
She waits with patience,
And she reveals all.

(Adapted from a Google-crystalized book which points out that the "grinds slow" bit is originally from Plutarch. Old!)

Posted April 24, 2007 2:22 AM by Madeline F

Pitch is another name for what makes a Tar Baby so hard to get offa you.

I'm going to have to sit down at home & read through that post properly. Thanks, TNH

Posted April 24, 2007 3:29 AM by Mez

As it happens, I was just reading the latest Radio Times, and a mention of the movie Total Recall, which is pretty strong evidence for how little the original written story, whatever its format, matters to the final product. There are so many people involved in the process that this shouldn't be a surprise, and those films which are still recognisable as the original deserve some praise.

And you can still see the battered and bleeding body of the original idea, about memory and reality, in the film.

Of course, with all the energy expended on making a movie, it's debatable whether spinning the author in his grave is going to make a net positive contribution to the California energy markets.

Posted April 24, 2007 3:45 AM by Dave Bell

Thanks for this! I'll probably never be able to attend any writing conferences, so the more I can read about them the better.

Just a couple of times in the post/article you used "author" when I think you meant "agent":

You and the author or editor might as well be blowing soap bubbles

and

The authors and editors have been getting paid $500 plus lunch

Posted April 24, 2007 5:27 AM by Madeline Kelly

#25 is both attractive and spamalicious. How can this be?

Posted April 24, 2007 6:31 AM by Madeline Kelly sees pretty spam

It occurs to me that this, as with so much else on the shady side of publishing, is about how one gets an editor to look at a book in the first place.

We here have heard tell of slushpiles. We know how dreadfully, and obviously, bad the writing can be. I would be unsurprised if everyone posting regularly to Making Light comments could write well enough to get past the "first page" test. But there's a general feeling, maybe fed by stories from the world of film and TV, that there are other barriers; that, without an agent, getting published is a hopeless effort.

There are always going to be people with a false idea of the quality of their writing, desperate enough to be prey for the low-lifes of publishing. In an ideal world, it ought to be easier to submit a work with some sense of it being "properly" considered.

But that costs the publishers money. And the whole thing depends on everyone handling unsolicited manuscripts in the same "proper" manner.

Can you say "tragedy of the commons"? It's a distored mirroring of the classic idea of economics, but if a publisher can get enough salable books without digging through the slushpile, will they even want one?

As a pixel-stained technopeasant wretch-in-waiting, I wonder if the ebook phenomenon is an opportunity to bypass the whole problem. But it needs the traditional publishers to be paying attention to what is a virtual slushpile, and the only way that can work is if there are reliable, easy-to-use, measures of the traffic a free ebook generates.

If an editor can easily find the writers who are repeatedly read--not just the one text being downloaded by the bored and curious--that might be a good first-stage filter for writing ability.

Unfortunately, the same people who sell courses in pitching, and extol them with fake identities, are going to game a system like this to hell and back.

Posted April 24, 2007 6:35 AM by Dave Bell

Dave Bell @ #26: it seems to me that the traditional way of getting published works PERFECTLY.

My friend [pro author] spent about 10 years writing short stories. His first few were SF. He got 1. a form rejection, 2. a personal, "send us another" rejection 3. an acceptance. Then he switched to mystery fiction. He published one story after another in Hitchcock and Ellery Queen. One of his stories was anthologized. He wrote a pretty good novel and shopped it to a whole bunch of agents. They all rejected it. He kept publishing short stories and he wrote another, better, novel. A well-known agent who had read his short stories contacted him and he sent her the new novel. She asked for several editing passes on the novel, and because he agreed with all of her suggestions, he made the changes. Eventually she decided to represent the novel, put it up for bidding, and got him a three-book contract from a major press. His first book got a bunch of good reviews, including a mention in Entertainment Weekly. He's just finished his tour for his second book.

He published his first story around 1994 and he got the book deal in 2004. Talent, time, and hard work--it takes all three. But there's a whole industry designed to prey on people who may have talent but don't have the patience to develop it into something lasting.

Posted April 24, 2007 7:05 AM by Mary Dell

There is only one meaningful way I know to pitch a novel manuscript and that's with your hand. Not that I would recommend that to a writer unless the manuscript is suitably horrid. As for editors ... well, that's their rightful province.

Posted April 24, 2007 8:02 AM by Jack Kincaid

Jack Kincaid @ 28... Lousy aerodynamics too, eh? (Hmm... That sounds like something for the MythBusters to test. They still have the air cannon with which they launched turkeys.)

Posted April 24, 2007 8:15 AM by Serge

Serge and Jack: Works best if you put some spin on it, like throwing a Frisbee.

Posted April 24, 2007 8:26 AM by Megan Messinger

Careful with that frisbee-throw. If you catch the web of your thumb with the corner of the manuscript, you can pick up multiple parallel papercuts.

MikeB (11), I neglected to tell you how much I liked that, though the second-to-last stanza puzzles me.

Posted April 24, 2007 8:32 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Woo! The addition of the post above (Mary Dell, #27) that mentions short stories and novels added Google Ads from BookSurge (vanity press), Novel Writing Software (100% Guaranteed To Have Your Finished Novel In Only a Month), and someone with a list of Writing Contests.

(Writing contests are, generally, worthless. Every publisher out there holds a contest every day: the cost is "submission" and the prize is "publication." Unless it's a contest whose name you've seen on the cover of a paperback edition, stay away from contests. And please note: The contests that you've heard of (National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.) are all for already-published books.)

Posted April 24, 2007 8:35 AM by James D. Macdonald

Megan and Teresa... And the manuscript had better be held together by very sturdy rubberbands.

Posted April 24, 2007 8:55 AM by Serge

Another Google ad: "Book Coaching Especially for Women: Delight in Writing - and Finishing!"

Delight in finishing is something every woman should strive for.

Posted April 24, 2007 8:56 AM by Mary Dell

I presume that the art of grading final exams by throwing them down the stairs can also be adapted to manuscripts:

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/12/a_guide_to_grad.html

Posted April 24, 2007 8:57 AM by Dorothy Rothschild

Mary, I think it's a question of perceptions. Not just whether you think you have talent, but whether there's a way to get that talent within sight of an editor.

Your friend wrote a pretty good novel and shopped it to a whole bunch of agents. They all rejected it.

That doesn't sound perfect to me. And I can see naive authors hearing stories like that, and falling prey to the snake-oil salesmen who claim to know the secrets that this guy, obviously, didn't. Not the secret of good writing, but the secret of selling.

Self-publishing is becoming so easy: why do you think the snake oil is about editing and selling to the "real" publishers.

Posted April 24, 2007 8:59 AM by Dave Bell

Mary Dell: Delight in finishing is something every woman should strive for.

This is true. The satisfaction one gets from setting-in a fully-fashioned sleeve, picking up stitches for the neck, and binding off in pattern should never be underestimated.

Posted April 24, 2007 9:08 AM by TexAnne

If I may gently and respectfully (yeah, right, coming from a shark) point out why a pitch is even more meaningless in publishing than in H'wood:

In publishing, the "product" being provided "on paper" is the final product. Sure, it will get editorial attention; hopefully, it will get attention from a decent designers, too, but I never get my hopes up. (Yes, in fact I am a bit of a snob on interior book design.) The point, though, is that the final product is words on the page.

In H'wood, the "product" being provided "on paper" is, at best, the blueprint for the final product. One can make a bad film starting from a good script (Exhibit A: the wretched DeCaprio/Danes adaptation of R&J), but it's almost impossible to make a good film starting from a bad script (Exhibit B: ScriptWhores, Episode One: The Phantom Screenplay). The point is that the pitch — or whatever means of sale gets used — is at a much earlier stage of the creative process in H'wood than in publishing.

This is the precaffeinated way of saying "paying money to learn how to apply one industry's sales techniques probably won't help in a noncomparable industry." And these days, the script is usually — at least, in terms of the order in which things get paid for — only the third or fourth item in the H'wood production system anyway.

Posted April 24, 2007 9:40 AM by C.E. Petit

It's funny... I belong in that target audience (unpublished fiction writer) and when it comes to the world of publishing I consider myself fairly naive... but a "pitch workshop" would have absolutely NO appeal to me whatsoever. Why? Because nobody would read my writing!

I guess that's the first time my innate narcissism has saved me from being ripped off. My understanding is that it usually works the other way around.

Posted April 24, 2007 9:47 AM by Christopher B. Wright

Dave Bell @ #36: If I spend my hard-earned money and my scarce time reading a novel that's just "pretty good," by an author with no track record, I will probably never want to read another book by that author. I expect books to be wonderful, terrific, superb. As a reader, I'm glad that agents and editors are choosy. I don't want writers to feel encouraged to produce anything other than superlative work.

Posted April 24, 2007 10:06 AM by Mary Dell

TNH:

How is it possible to be any more useless than that?

• Braille driving maps?
  
• a perfectly secure computer?
  
• a black-ink-and-black-paper writing kit?
  

Well, maybe not; but I'm sure I'll come up with something, even if no one tries to explain the phrase "rhetorical question" to me.

Posted April 24, 2007 10:22 AM by Lowell Gilbert

doing a quick two minute pitch to an editor at a convention party that had a similar result--changing the submission from unsolicited to solicited.

How valuable is it, getting a submission from "unsolicited" to "solicited"?

Posted April 24, 2007 10:25 AM by Sandy B.

TexAnne @37
Delight in finishing is something every woman should strive for.

Indeed.

Posted April 24, 2007 10:25 AM by abi

(To explain: in bookbinding terms, finishing is the application of gold and other metals to the cover of a book.)

Posted April 24, 2007 10:28 AM by abi

Still thinking about this--it occurs to me that pitch sessions might theoretically be useful in cases where one is unagented and the publisher won't even read at unagented queries (meaning a "sure, send it to me" actually is better response than one would hope for if querying cold, since a cold query would be ignored as a matter of policy).

Otherwise ... the idea that the problem is that you're just giving the publisher an extra chance to reject your work, only on the basis of something other than the actual writing, makes much sense to me.

I do get the impression that pitch sessions are much more the norm in, say, RWA, where they're a regular part of larger conferences; it'd be interesting to see what RWA members' take on their usefulness is.

I suppose one could use a (no-additional-fee, part-of-the-conference-anyway) pitch session to simply learn more about an editor and feel out whether you'd want to work with them, rather than actually pitching (or rather than having that pitch as your main reason for being there).

Posted April 24, 2007 10:42 AM by Janni

Rejection via mail is bad enough, rejection in person is cruel.

Heck, if I want rejection in persion, I shlep down to Tor and let TNH slap me upside the head with my MS in person.

Posted April 24, 2007 10:49 AM by Christopher Turkel

#8 Serge, no that's what you use to water-seal boats. Or used to. Caulk goes between the planks, pitch goes over the whole thing.

#28 Jack Kincaid, I think that was the old process of grading term-papers. Whichever hit the bottom step from the pitch off the top step got the A. But if you add sufficient spin to that pitch, you can get a curveball, or something like that.

Posted April 24, 2007 10:51 AM by Steve Buchheit

Steve @ 47... I stand corrected.

Posted April 24, 2007 10:52 AM by Serge

abi, 43: I was quoting Mary Dell.

Steve, Serge: My ancestral method of grading papers (handed down from my father's father) is that one stands at the bottom of the stairs, and the papers that reach the top receive an A.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:02 AM by TexAnne

#26: I think it's a matter of education. Sometimes, not making it past the first page is a proper consideration of the work. Yes, this is not a happy realization. Also, I don't know about other people, but I find it very hard to write a useful critique of anything I wouldn't read past the first page. So I doubt a "proper" consideration would actually satisfy anyone.
(This is part of why I was thrilled that my rejection from Strange Horizons came with terrific and useful crit of my story. An editor thought enough of my story to use some of his valuable time to write to me about it. Whee!)

Until everything everyone writes is highly sellable and there is enough demand for all of that writing, there will always be a slushpile. The question is where you have moved it. I guess publishers can get enough salable books without digging through the slushpile by accepting only agented submissions. But that just moves the slushpile over to agents. We've already tried e-books ventures which publish all comers. That just moves the slushpile to the general public. What we discovered is that agents and publishers serve a useful function. We want someone to tell us, "We think you'll like this book." Readers, as a whole, do not like sifting through slush. So whoever does this is not a typical reader.

I don't know that I would say that the current system is perfect. But everyone's attempts to improve it thus far has resulted in something worse. So rather than trying to improve the system, I would focus on innoculating novice writers against scams.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:05 AM by JC

So, TexAnne, the grading curve is actually a parabola?

Posted April 24, 2007 11:05 AM by Niall McAuley

#49 TexAnne, that works as well. The weight of the submission, I mean the term-paper, would also enable the pitch to go further. Although I think in that case you need to pitch them singly, instead en mass which would work better going downstairs.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:06 AM by Steve Buchheit

I'm astounded anybody would actually plunk out hundreds of bucks for this kind of thing. I paid just $60 to attend NorwesCon 30 and got FOUR DAYS of panel after panel after panel of ESTABLISHED SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS AND EDITORS discussing the trade, the craft, the whole thing. People who knew WTF they were talking about and had no desire to snow us. Funny, not a one of them had anything to say about pitching. To the last, they all said pretty much the same things:

1) There is no replacement for good writing.
2) To write well, you must work at it.
3) There is no replacement for working at it.
4) There is no replacement for sending the work out.
5) There is no magic bullet for rejection.
6) This is true even among established writers.
7) Those who can't deal with rejection are encouraged to quit, and soon.
8) Those who can handle rejection, can handle the work, and who have a little talent and are very patient and persistent, will eventually find some measure of success.
9) Few writers ever get fabulously rich or famous writing SF or F exclusively.
10) Agents are useful only for new writers who have already been offered a book deal.
11) Agent land is replete with frauds; writer beware!
12) Never, ever, ever PAY MONEY to anyone for representing you. DON'T DO IT!
13) Violate advice #12 at your peril.
14) Self-publishing is the fool's gold of the industry; so eschew it and get back to work on something that will sell to a real publisher.
15) Never take any advice from anyone lacking a proven, observable publishing or editorial record.

Most of us in wannabe-land ought to already know all these things already. But it's good to have them re-affirmed in an intimate panel setting where you can see the seriousness on the faces of Those Who Know and take comfort in the fact that there is no easy way to break into print, nor any easy way to stay in print once you are there.

Writing, apparently, is not work for the timid or the lazy.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:07 AM by BRT

Steve, 52: Pitching them singly destroys the system's elegant simplicity. Also, it interferes with the ceremonial Holding of the G&T in one's non-grading hand.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:12 AM by TexAnne

TexAnne @ 49... My ancestral method of grading papers (handed down from my father's father) is that one stands at the bottom of the stairs, and the papers that reach the top receive an A.

So, aerodynamics do make a difference. And the strength of your arm. Or do you use a catapult?

Posted April 24, 2007 11:12 AM by Serge

I have a related question, about editing.

Where do editors (or slush-pile readers) draw the line between "This manuscript is not worth taking the time to edit" and "This manuscript would be good with a little editing"?

Or to put it another way, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a manuscript that doesn't need editing. But why?

Posted April 24, 2007 11:13 AM by Laurence

45 Janni:

I do get the impression that pitch sessions are much more the norm in, say, RWA, where they're a regular part of larger conferences; it'd be interesting to see what RWA members' take on their usefulness is.

The reaction varies -- there's certainly a tremendous amount of chaff in the pitches, but I do know some people who've managed to get an editor interested in something that doesn't quite fit the current norm and have it requested. If they'd gone through the regular query/slush pile, they would have stood a much higher chance of getting rejected flat out.

The big advantage of getting a request is that it can now go in as "requested material." Also, if your pitch is good enough, editors and agents have been known to request a full manuscript, allowing you to bypass the partial stage altogether.

It's certainly a mixed bag -- but the way my particular RWA chapter looks at it, going into a pitch session is as much about getting a sense of what interests the editor or agent and what doesn't as trying to tell them your story. The meeting after National in July is dedicated to disseminating information gained at the conference, which is a big help.

No one that I know of has ever sold directly off a pitch, though a pitch has started the process by which some people have sold.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:19 AM by Caro

Laurence @ 56: This may not answer your question, but is a place to start (if you haven't already read it): Slushkiller.

Read it all the way through. Read the comments, as well.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:20 AM by Aconite

#53, I'm choking a bit on number 10 of that list--I'm a newish writer, sure, but my agent actually GOT me the book deal (and at about three times the advance I would have ever dared to ask for...) and got me the gig after that, and will hopefully continue to do so in the future, and was furthermore invaluable for things like sitting on the editor's head saying "Why hasn't the contract been mailed yet? Where is that check again? C'mon, let's get this show on the road!" which I would never have the nerve to do.

So I would balk at the analysis that agents are only good for new authors who already have book deals. In my limited experience, they're definitely worth their weight in gold for those of us who are shy and polite and hate to bother people.

I grant you, though, it was for a kid's book, not a straight SF&F kinda thing, so maybe there's a significant genre difference...

Posted April 24, 2007 11:22 AM by UrsulaV

Ursula,

I think the panelists were just trying to warn all us wannabes away from getting suckered by a scammer who would prey on our hopes as unpublished folk, and string us along. They were also telling us that even a beginner can get better money running an existing offer through an agent, as opposed to just taking the house boilerplate contract.

Yes, it's the old chicken/egg conundrum, presented anew: how to get a good offer without an agent, and how to get a good agent without an offer.

But it made sense at the Con.

=^)

Posted April 24, 2007 11:47 AM by BRT

Slushkiller. Read it all the way through.

By the time you've finished, your work will have sat in the drawer for the requisite three months, and you'll be able to go back to it and fix a lot more problems. ;)

Seriously: Slushkiller was my introduction to this blog, a couple of years back, and took a long time to read even then. It hasn't stopped growing yet.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:49 AM by Jules

TexAnne, my grandfather graded by throwing them against a wall, with whatever stuck to the wall getting an A.

Posted April 24, 2007 11:59 AM by Nancy C

in #50 JC wrote some excellent things about "moving the slushpile." Two thoughts:

(1)It's probably right about where it needs to be: in the hands of people who have a financial incentive to get good work published.

The only contrary example I can think of is webcomics, and there the (non-advertising-based) model is self-publishing via pre-orders. In other words, incentive has been moved onto the fans. Who then act as half the publisher, and the cartoonist acts as the distributor/packager. Not a scalable* model for most people in cartooning.

(2) JC Wrote
I don't know that I would say that the current system is perfect. But everyone's attempts to improve it thus far has resulted in something worse.

Agreed, but I have a suggestion anyway. It would be helpful to authors if we knew you had rejected our mss as soon as possible, so we could speedily submit it to someone else. Serial submissions are...well, they just are. I can think of a number of ways to do this that are...
Impractical:
- such as bar codes on the cover page that link to a internet accessible database like LibraryThing.
Or would be the same speed as getting a form letter:
- an enclosed postcard:
check one; ( ) rejected ( ) considered ( ) we lost it

*Even if you can afford to spend a small car's worth of money for each print run, eventually your garage will run out of room for the boxes. Plus, distribution is a pain. Multiply this times 6-20 volumes over the course of 10 years and the capital outlay doesn't match up well against the velocity of income. Needless to say, some people have been able to get this to work anyway, (E.g.: Girl Genius by the Foglios) but they seem to have a lot of practice.

Posted April 24, 2007 12:03 PM by Kimiko

My publisher had a booth at the Philadelphia Book Festival over the weekend and invited some of their authors to spend a couple of hours signing books. In the two hours on Saturday that I was there (a fraction of the two-day event), three authors came up to the booth and attempted to pitch their novels. I should point out that this company publishes no fiction, and even if they did, the young ladies working at the booth were marketing and publicity managers, not editors of any description, but that didn't stop our intrepid pitchers. I wanted to shake them and ask, "What are you thinking?" It's not like the information about which publishers would be at the festival, with links to their Web sites describing the type of books they publish, was not available before the festival, and all these people got for their trouble was a postcard with the company's URL on it to read their submission guidelines. It was the real-life equivalent of spam and it was positively painful to watch.

I'm sure the pay-to-publish press with several booths across the way (fortunately not one of the scammy ones, but still) was delighted to hear all about their "fiction novels," however.

Posted April 24, 2007 12:06 PM by Mags

Nancy C, 62: I believe that was my maternal grandfather's system as well. Of course, for most efficient use of the professor's time, both methods require a graduate student to collect the detritus.

Posted April 24, 2007 12:55 PM by TexAnne

Janni: An author without agent or extensive record who finds that a particular publisher looks only at agent-handled submissions should thank the publisher for this info and submit elsewhere. This is a free and quick transaction, and nobody needs to pay money for an elaborate session built around it.

Seriously: Good editors are giving away all the info anyone needs to make sales to them, adn they rejoice publicly and privately when they get to make new discoveries. Notice that it's the folks handling the world-class successes who are giving it away, too, and it's people who may not have any success of their own at all who want to gouge you. Let the people who publish the good writers help you get yourself published.

Posted April 24, 2007 1:03 PM by Bruce Baugh

TexAnne @ 49
Yeah, I know, but I didn't want to steal your credit for punning on it.

Posted April 24, 2007 1:36 PM by abi

Nancy C @ 62... my grandfather graded by throwing them against a wall, with whatever stuck to the wall getting an A

Dare I ask the circumstances under which a school paper could stick to a wall?

Posted April 24, 2007 2:20 PM by Serge

Here's my personal perspective on the right time and place to pitch a novel:

I pitch novels ...

... at my agent. Before I write them.

The purpose of the pitch is not to sell the book. Rather, it's to get my agent to say one of three things: "I can't sell that," "Eh? I didn't understand that", or "I can sell that".

"I can't sell that" isn't automatically the kiss of death, but it does mean that a canny industry professional who's on my side thinks I'd be making a mistake if I went with the book I just described. The highway of literary success is lined with the burned-out wrecks of promising careers that were driven off the road by a driver who refused to read the signs, so I tend to listen up when my map reader tells me I'm heading for a ditch.

"Eh? I didn't understand that" is equally valuable; it means that I need to refine my own understanding of the idea I'm trying to communicate. Something was lost in transmission, and as the whole job of writing fiction is about magically transmitting ideas from the author's brain to the readers', that's another warning signal: not as strong as "I can't sell that", but strong enough to send the pitch back to the drawing board.

Finally, "I can sell that" means that my agent is happy to see me spend six months -- time neither of us will see again -- writing the idea, because if I execute it to my usual standard she's confident that she can turn a profit from it. Because she's on commission, if she mis-calls this verdict, she loses out; she doesn't get to sell the book I spent those six months writing. So she doesn't say "I can sell that" unless she's pretty sure of it. This is about as close to a green light as an author can get.

Once we hit "I can sell that", I then go back to my desk and work up a written proposal that encapsulates and expands on the pitch. (It's like writing a grant proposal, except the synopsis comes first.) Then we kick it around until it's no longer a pitch but a serious business proposal, and she goes and tries to sell it.

All a book pitch does for a neophyte with no track record is give them a chance to have their work rejected before it's even been read. Not recommended. The right stage for the pitch is before the book is even written, and nobody's going to give you an advance to write the book until you've got a track record.

Posted April 24, 2007 2:29 PM by Charlie Stross

So, aerodynamics do make a difference. And the strength of your arm. Or do you use a catapult?

Arm strength affects catapult cycling speed....

Posted April 24, 2007 2:30 PM by Tully

Tully @ 70... Same issue with a ballista?

Posted April 24, 2007 2:32 PM by Serge

#64: Concerning the lunacy of pitching one's novel to a publisher that carries no fiction ... I can reveal that, following God knows what arcane depths of market research, would-be authors regularly submit stories, novels and even poems to Ansible.

A very few provide return postage. The rest get, well, pitched.

Posted April 24, 2007 2:59 PM by Dave Langford

I don't know, Serge. I never attempted to use a ballista for exam-tossing. Maybe someone could develop a specialized polybolos...

:-D

Posted April 24, 2007 3:03 PM by Tully

#65 TexAnne, ah, well, with grad students all thngs are possible.

Posted April 24, 2007 3:06 PM by Steve Buchheit

From the adult/continuing ed school in my town:

Publish Your Book ... Guaranteed!
What's the point of being a writer if nobody ever gets to read what you've written? Get a publishing professional's inside perspective on how to publish your manuscript and get it onto bookstore shelves. You'll learn everything you need to know, from designing your book and getting it reviewed, to arranging your own promotional signing tours. Tuition includes a helpful textbook full of tips and techniques for successfully marketing your own writing.

The instructor is someone named David K. Ewen, who appears to be president of a publishing company named "Ewen Prime Company," which has one book, published in 1997, listed on Amazon, with no sales rank. Ewen Prime subsequently transformed into a consulting company called New England Publishers Association which seems to largely offer workshops.

Posted April 24, 2007 3:13 PM by Alex Cohen

#74 with grad students all thngs are possible

Engineering students demonstrate an alternate method. Still not a ballista, exactly, but then again that's not a term paper either.

Posted April 24, 2007 3:13 PM by Tully

#76 Tully, I prefer the trebuchet or steam-cannon myself. And handling the firing-pin while under tension? My guess is he isn't at the top of the class. Although it looks like they got excellent yardage. I think if you used that for the papers you'd just get confetti. :)

Posted April 24, 2007 3:19 PM by Steve Buchheit

Tully @ 76... Ptoinngggg!!! That is an interesting way of tossing the Great Pumpkin. Meanwhile, I wonder if there are Scottish engineering students who ever built one of those for caber-tossing.

Posted April 24, 2007 3:25 PM by Serge

Re: #53, 59 and 60.

I completely agree with the panelists on the best time to get an agent. I sent out agent queries every year or so while I was waiting for an editor to read my manuscript. 6 to 8 weeks, form rejection, not interested. Then when I got an offer I found the one perfect agent for me in Preditors and Editors, sent him an e-mail and got a call back in 15 minutes. The sale in hand makes all the difference.

And why do you need an agent once you have a sale? You ever see a book contract? Neither had I. I'm so glad I had someone hold my hand through that process.

And Charlie in #69 gives the other reason: the next book. If he says it sounds good, I run with it.

Posted April 24, 2007 3:29 PM by Matt Jarpe

Serge, I wish you wouldn't ask me. I don't know if any ever would. (Which was probably the point.)

Posted April 24, 2007 3:29 PM by Nancy C

#78 Serge, ooo, caber-tossing. Now that's a pitch session I can get behind ('cause I wouldn't want to be in front of it).

Posted April 24, 2007 3:38 PM by Steve Buchheit

Janni (45), I went out of my way to ask a romance editor about the success rate of pitch sessions at RWA gatherings. That's where I heard about Harlequin buying a book or two a long time ago. Aside from that, it's the same set of results: a lot of "Good luck with that," and an occasional "Yeah, go ahead and send me the manuscript."

BRT (53), that's a good list except for #10.

Laurence (56), editorial time is limited, and until you've worked with an author, you don't know how they'll take to editing. It's a costly mistake. Every editor will sooner or later wind up having to quietly rewrite a book on their own time. It's not something you tend to do twice.

Then you get into imponderables: how good will it be with some editing? If you edit this author's first book, will he or she learn to do the same with less of your help on subsequent books, or will you have to do the same amount of work on all subsequent titles? Does the book require a kind of editing you can do well?

On that last question: structural editing usually works out well. Surface editing -- spelling, small punctuation, change all the dipthongs in the names -- is likewise feasible, and can sometimes be done by talented freelancers who don't charge much. Fixing the fabric of the book, the sentences and paragraphs, descriptions and conversations, is a huge pain in the wazoo, and generally doesn't work well. It also can't be bounced back to the author with a set of instructions on how to fix it, the way you can with structural editing. If the author knew how to write better sentences, paragraphs, descriptions, conversations, etc., he or she would already be doing it.

Kimiko (63), if we send back our rejects too soon, a percentage of the authors will send them right back, on the grounds that we couldn't possibly have made a proper decision in that little time, and therefore must have returned their work in error.

Mags (64), I served my time in the Tor booth at the most recent NYC comics convention, and I had people try to pitch me there. I pointed out that Tor has an open submission policy. "You don't need a request; just send us the manuscript," I told them (several times apiece). I'm not sure why, but they were oddly crestfallen after I got that across to them.

Posted April 24, 2007 3:42 PM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

#77 #78

I see on second take that it was the winning freshman team, not grad students. Toss was 580 feet. (It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the guy using nips to cut the "safety wire" from around the trigger retention mechanism is now known as "Stumpy.")

Posted April 24, 2007 4:11 PM by Tully

Tully @ 83... Yeah. I thought that was a rather dangerous way to release the pumpkin. (Probably because my father sliced some fingertips off when a fence wire sudenly sprang back into position.)

Posted April 24, 2007 4:24 PM by Serge

Teresa #82: I served my time in the Tor booth at the most recent NYC comics convention, and I had people try to pitch me there. I pointed out that Tor has an open submission policy. "You don't need a request; just send us the manuscript," I told them (several times apiece). I'm not sure why, but they were oddly crestfallen after I got that across to them.

I think people like to feel they are being proactive (or at least to be perceived as being proactive) on their own behalf. The problem is that publishing doesn't respond to the same strategies in quite the same way as other things and it takes a certain amount of clue to pick up on that.

Posted April 24, 2007 4:41 PM by Suzanne

Thanks, Teresa. It sounds like even after a ms. has been accepted, there's still a certain risk involved, from the editor/publisher's point of view.

. . . until you've worked with an author, you don't know how they'll take to editing.

If I was ever lucky enough to sell anything, I don't think I'd look that horse in the mouth. Not until I was a Rich and Famous Author, anyway, and entitled to as much artistic temperament as I wanted. And of course, if an editor wanted to make major changes, I'd wonder why they bought my version of the story in the first place.

Posted April 24, 2007 4:42 PM by Laurence

Yes, I still have that bit about the Ho-Ho's tacked up next to my workstation. I'd forgotten about it until today. Thank you, oh so much, for reminding me...

Posted April 24, 2007 5:23 PM by j h woodyatt

Teresa (82):
I served my time in the Tor booth at the most recent NYC comics convention, and I had people try to pitch me there. I pointed out that Tor has an open submission policy. "You don't need a request; just send us the manuscript," I told them (several times apiece). I'm not sure why, but they were oddly crestfallen after I got that across to them.

I think they didn't want to be "just like anybody else" they wanted their brilliant networking ploy to get them special consideration. And you dashed their hopes. Cruel, cruel, Teresa.

Posted April 24, 2007 5:27 PM by John Houghton

Teresa @ 82... I served my time in the Tor booth

Serving time? This takes me back to the days of Joe Bob Briggs reviewing the latest women-in-prison movie. Except that it's editors-in-prison.

Posted April 24, 2007 5:40 PM by Serge

Teresa wrote:
Kimiko (63), if we send back our rejects too soon, a percentage of the authors will send them right back, on the grounds that we couldn't possibly have made a proper decision in that little time, and therefore must have returned their work in error.

The mind boggles.
I almost said to myself "how can some people be so stupid/selfish/stubborn..." before I realized that the word I was probably looking for was "monomaniacal."
Still! Always someone ruining it for everybody else!

Posted April 24, 2007 6:07 PM by Kimiko

TNH #82: Drat! And here I was thinking of pitching my great novel to you. It's about a solitary mongoose who falls in love with a chicken, but can't overcome the suspicion of the farmer or hope to dodge being shot forever. The sfnal element: It's set in the 27th century....

Posted April 24, 2007 6:25 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Kimiko @90: many successful (and unsuccessful) writers -- especially of novel-length fiction -- are obsessive to the point of monomania. (Outs self.) It's what sustains them through years or decades of failure. Sane individuals would give up trying after a couple of years or a couple of novels.

Sadly, there is no correlation between monomania and literary quality.

Posted April 24, 2007 6:43 PM by Charlie Stross

Laurence #86 writes: If I was ever lucky enough to sell anything, I don't think I'd look that horse in the mouth. Not until I was a Rich and Famous Author, anyway, and entitled to as much artistic temperament as I wanted.

This progresion is sometimes labelled as an attack of the Brain Eater. Early work is taut and focussed, later work is rambling, vague and verging on the pointless. Who ate the author's brain? No-one: they just stopped caring what their editor might say.

Posted April 24, 2007 7:02 PM by Niall McAuley

#92 Charlie Stross "Sadly, there is no correlation between monomania and literary quality."

Damnit, been working on the wrong thing, then.

Posted April 24, 2007 7:20 PM by Steve Buchheit

that should be
Damnit, *I've* been working on the wrong thing, then.

Posted April 24, 2007 7:47 PM by Steve Buchheit

Charlie Stross @92

Kimiko @90: many successful (and unsuccessful) writers -- especially of novel-length fiction -- are obsessive to the point of monomania. (Outs self.) It's what sustains them through years or decades of failure. Sane individuals would give up trying after a couple of years or a couple of ia and literary quality.

Aww, but you're such a nice monomaniac*, not like those people!

*Seriously, you're a friendly, sensible, and brilliant person online and in writing**. And no slander against writers in general was intended.***
**I'm not flirting - my orientation is not compatible with yours, sorry.
***And if I'm triple footnoting, I guess that makes me, uh...

Posted April 24, 2007 9:11 PM by Kimiko

Teresa @ 82: "You don't need a request; just send us the manuscript," I told them (several times apiece). I'm not sure why, but they were oddly crestfallen after I got that across to them. My take is that they want you to be requesting the MSs; that makes them solicited submissions, rather than something they're just sending in cold. The MSs won't end up in the usual slush pile, because the cover letters will state that you asked for them, and they'll go straight to your attention.

Posted April 24, 2007 10:22 PM by Joel Polowin

Lowell 41: Some blind people can drive (with hi-tech experimental cars), and I have a black t-shirt printed in black letters. It says "None. We just sit in the dark and scream."

Posted April 24, 2007 10:27 PM by Xopher

Teresa, Patrick, Janni, and anyone else who is a pro and is interested in knowing why these things might seem legit to us--I have an observation.

One reason that we the striving unpublished turn to such events as the Pitch Session conference is that we see "pitch" emphasized so much by agents who are trying to help us online. At least that's what the trend is lately. Miss Snark has the CrapOMeter and Rachel Vater (lj ID rvater31) has the pitch analysis posts. They take people's "pitches" (the one/two paragraph blurbs meant to go in the query letter) and analyze them as to whether they'd request a partial. They turn down stuff entirely on pitch. This makes us feel that "pitching" is now the way that queries are weeded out. If we can't get in the door via a query, we're out of luck, after all.

That's why writers are studying those pitch/query paragraphs so closely these days, I think.

Some of us might feel that perhaps novelists are now just like screenwriters in that the product is not the ONLY thing any more, because first we must sell the idea of sending the manuscript in at all. Screenwriters rely on charm and a pitch. That has started to sound plausible to novelists.

The reason I think novelists like to have pitch sessions with agents (usually no such thing happens with editors, unless you win a contest) is that you have a chance of being allowed to write "SOLICITED SUBMISSION" on the front of the envelope. That seems like a quantum leap to some of us, because we are so far away from everything. When you're on a raft in the middle of the ocean, any boat looks pretty good.

I don't think that people expect their stuff to be bought on the pitch. I think they just want to have the chance to send the partial in. It's really tough to get agents to even let me send a partial any more, because the market has tightened up. (Or they've found out about me, which is a distinct possibility.) A year ago I would get six requests for a partial when I sent out twelve queries. Now I'm just getting the "didn't love it enough" or "it didn't engage me the way I hoped it would" rejections. And this is the same query letter as last year. That's why we grasp at straws.

Is there any merit in going to a writers' conference at all, other than getting pepped up by hearing all the panel discussions? I can't really tell you. I write things other than just SF/fantasy, so I think the general writers' conferences are inspirational. And some agents will say, "Because you were here at my panel discussion, you may send me a partial and write on the outside DINGBATS CONVENTION ATTENDEE, which will get you out of the slushpile." This can be a big motivator, because many agents now say they are not even taking queries.

And we tend to lose hope when a book as good as S. K. S. Perry’s novel _Darkside_ doesn't sell and goes out on the 'net as a free download, even for Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Week. *sigh*

Posted April 24, 2007 11:03 PM by Shalanna Collins

BRT, #53: a couple of thoughts...

1) I think people who want to write science fiction have a serious edge over people whose interest is in other genres. We can indeed go to conventions -- primarily-social events -- where we can get to know Real Live Authors And Editors as people, and where (as you note) programming frequently includes items on the commercial aspects of writing. Mystery fandom has started to do something similar, but not yet nearly to the level at which it happens in SF fandom; and AFAIK, there is no other genre that has these kinds of gatherings.

2) Even in the world of the SF fan, there are an amazing number of people who are long-time readers but who either don't know that conventions exist, or have been taught to equate fan-run conventions with CreationCons crap. These people are in the same position as people who want to write in other genres; the method by which they could gather real, valuable information just isn't there for them.

I should note also that there's a certain amount of snowball effect. I've met Writer X, and at some point we're chatting when Writer Y comes up, so now I've met hir as well; then sie introduces me to Writer Z and Editor A; and eventually it reaches the point where even someone like me, who is not a writer and has no significant interest in that direction, ends up with 18 writers and editors on their LJ friendslist. Which is sometimes mind-boggling to contemplate, but it all happens thru the networking that occurs at cons.

Posted April 25, 2007 3:28 AM by Lee

Re braille driving maps, what about aerial navigation charts?
Blind pilot to head for Darwin as part of quest: "Miles Hilton-Barber has flown more than 230 hours on his journey from London to Sydney so far..." (Sunday, April 22, 2007) and also, earlier, Blind pilot makes outback odyssey (October 10, 2004)

Posted April 25, 2007 4:45 AM by Mez

Tangentially connected:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6582955.stm

Check out the comments thread!

Posted April 25, 2007 5:44 AM by Andy brazil

Charlie Stross at #92 wrote:

> Sane individuals would give up trying after a couple of years or a couple of novels.

A friend of mine sold the first novel he wrote - but *not* until after he'd written eight or nine more.

As for sanity - well, he was a furry, so no further comment needed.

Posted April 25, 2007 6:26 AM by Steve Taylor

Niall McAuley at #93 wrote:

> This progresion is sometimes labelled as an attack of the Brain Eater. Early work is taut and focussed, later work is rambling, vague and verging on the pointless. Who ate the author's brain? No-one: they just stopped caring what their editor might say.

Generally yes, but in the case of Larry Niven I've always suspected that Jerry Pournelle ate his brain.

Posted April 25, 2007 7:05 AM by Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor @ #104

Generally yes, but in the case of Larry Niven I've always suspected that Jerry Pournelle ate his brain

I haven't yet been inspired to read any of their collaborations, but I've read all of Niven's known space stuff and I thought Ringworld's Children (the latest one) was terrific--on-point and snappy.

Posted April 25, 2007 7:30 AM by Mary Dell

Mary #105: If you are tempted to read any of their collaborations, make it The Mote in God's Eye which is far and away their best. Oh, and There Was No Sequel.

Posted April 25, 2007 8:41 AM by Niall McAuley

Steve Taylor @ 104... in the case of Larry Niven I've always suspected that Jerry Pournelle ate his brain

Meanwhile in the most recent issue of Asimov's, the intro to Turtledove's story quotes Larry Niven as saying it is very foolish to determine an author's politics from his stories. Sure, Larry. Does that mean that your buddy Jerry really is one of those awful wicked liberals who hate America?

Posted April 25, 2007 9:27 AM by Serge

many successful (and unsuccessful) writers -- especially of novel-length fiction -- are obsessive to the point of monomania. (Outs self.) It's what sustains them through years or decades of failure.

There's an established link between bipolar disorder and creativity - see "Strong Imagination", Daniel Nettle, 2002.

Posted April 25, 2007 9:34 AM by ajay

Steve Taylor #104: So, you're saying that Jerry Pournelle is a zombie?

Posted April 25, 2007 11:00 AM by Fragano Ledgister

#107: Maybe it depends on the author. A *good* author might make it difficult to tell their politics from their stories because they don't have rock-jawed Mary Sues overcoming all obstacles by their steely individualistic determination, or monarchs that are infallible, incorruptible paragons of virtue, or anything like that. In short, a good author doesn't write their personal politics into their books, and therefore it can't be pulled back out of them again.

Obvious political hackery like Empire is, well, obvious. But it's not always that clear-cut. If an author writes several series of books where people/societies are thrown into desperate circumstances and accept uncomfortable (to readers from wealthy high-tech societies) levels of authoritarianism to survive, does that imply that the author is endorsing that reaction, or merely describing it? And what, if any, relevance does that have to the author's opinions of present-day fearmongering?

Posted April 25, 2007 11:56 AM by Chris

Chris @ 110... a good author doesn't write their personal politics into their books

On the other hand, there are people like Kim Stanley Robinson and his recent global-warming trilogy, which I still have to read. He gave an interview in a recent issue of Locus and the views he expressed in there do match with what reviews lead me to believe are the trilogy's politics. And the mag's cover showed him holding an "Inconvenient Truth" coffee mug.

Posted April 25, 2007 12:20 PM by Serge

Regarding politics in SF....

I think it's impossible for a good SF author to not inject their politics into their work. KSR's recent books certainly qualify, and KSR is one of our contemporary best in hard SF. John Varley certainly injects politics into novels like "Steel Beach", Heinlein's work still stands as the bedrock of all conservative/libertarian SF, and Ursula LeGuin carries water for Socialism/Anarchism with books like "The Dispossessed".

Since its inception I think SF has been the playground of most frustrated social engineers. It's part of what attracts us to the genre, I think. We see our own political ideas about society writ large, through eutopianism, dystopianism, cautionary tales, etc, etc.

"1984", perhaps the most famous SF book of all time, has been held up by Right and Left both as the king of cautionary tales, where statist totalitarianism is concerned.

I think any SF writer will always be tempted to tell these kinds of stories, and to tell them well requires having passion about the subject, either from a Leftist or Rightist perspective, and an ability to show compelling individual characters and how they struggle against the larger wrongs imposed upon them by the overarching machinations of whichever political Bad Guy a given author choses to target.

Regarding #100 (Lee),

It's remarkable to me how accessible even the big-name SF writers are to their fan base, purely because of the Cons. I'm not sure you can go anywhere else in professional fiction and find the same sort of egalitarianism as you'll find at the Cons, where authors have a seat of honor, true, but they also get to be fans again, and interact with the other fans and the wannabe-writers and the whole milieu without putting on airs or being above-it-all.

It's a shame that too many people have the wrong idea about Cons. Especially new writers. Yes, Cons have their geek quotient. No getting around that. But for a serious SF or F writer who wants to learn and doesn't want to shell out hundreds or thousands of bucks, buying a pass to a Con in their area can be money well spent. Most regional Cons (like NorwesCon or CONduit) try to set up a lot of panels specifically devoted to successful authors and editors discussing both the craft and the business. A new writer can get invaluable insight and information, even from a single hour of this kind of discourse, and it's mostly because panels tend to be intimate affairs and anyone can ask questions and get honest answers from several reliable sources.

And like you said, even for one who is not a writer, Con attendance invariably leads to networking among a range of artists, editors, writers, etc. Attend your local Con every year, and pretty soon you will know people, and they will know you, and this can lead to all kinds of unexpected avenues.

Posted April 25, 2007 2:02 PM by BRT

Getting invited by an editor, in a face to face meeting, to send in a proposal does not necessarily move one out of slush into "solicited." Sometimes editors will tell someone "send it" because they are having a moment of weakness, because they zoned out on the pitch halfway through and are feeling guilty, and for other reasons, including getting the pitcher out of their hair. In formal pitch sessions, I make notes; when mss. or proposals come in, I know which ones I really want to see and which are still slush (though they might get a newly-generated formlike rejection rather than a photocopied form letter).

Pitch can be useful when the parameters of what a specific editor is looking for are fairly narrow. As I've begun wandering around at romance conferences, I've had lots of people pitch me lots of things that are not the sort of story I'm looking for (for instance, I have often been pitched erotica, Celtic historical, and Regency). So I tell them no. I feel that it's better for the wrter to hear No after 10 minutes and not have to wait 4 months for the same answer.

SF conventions and romance conferences (which is where a huge amount of pitch is done) work differently. At SF cons, editors, writers, and readers mingle freely; there is an ongoing exchange of ideas and people can shift from one role to another, depending on the context and the conversation. Editors are routinely invited to participate in panels on writing and publishing business. At romance conferences, editors are somewhat isolated from writers. They are rarely invited to speak on panels or participate in workshops. Editorial participation at many romance conference is limited to the "what are you looking for" panel, the "what are you publishing this year" panel, and pitch. That's no way to find new writers and it's not really a productive use of an editor.

The flipside to this at romance conferences is that writers are sent the message (sometimes directly, but often indirectly) that they are not to pitch to editors outside of the formally organized pitch sessions. In other words, if a writer bumps into you at the bar, you can chat, but it's a violation of protocol for her to pitch to you.

Which just seems weird to me.

Posted April 25, 2007 2:38 PM by Melissa Singer

Regarding #105, 106, 107...

I am lukewarm on the Niven/Pournelle collabs. I adore virtually everything Niven has done solo, but the Motie books sorta left me flat. Not sure why. Intellectually I could recognize why the first Motie book was considered a classic, but there just was not a lot of emotional oomph there for me to latch onto. Maybe it's just personal taste?

On the other hand, the Niven/Pournelle/Barnes collaborations for the Grendel books are outstanding. Great stuff, great world-building, good characters, and a terrific alien menace. I loved both of those.

And I think Niven is partially correct. It is not a guarantee that a writer who appears to write praisingly about, say, constitutional monarchy, in fact favors constitutional monarchy as a viable form of government. Niven covers this in regards to the Motie books and Pournelle's whole interstellar monarchy backdrop. Allan Cole and Chris Bunch certainly fooled everyone with the STEN series. For most of that series they worked up their empire as this terrific place with a terrific, though not infallible reader. It was almost impossible not to be sold on the idea. Then they ripped it all apart through the last three books; showed you the horror of fascism when an ostensibly benevolent and wise autocrat turns bad, and sews ruin for all.

The lesson? If you'd only read the first four books in the STEN series, you might think Bunch and Cole were in love with Empire the same way Pournelle and Niven are often accused of being in love with Empire. But you'd be wrong, because in the final book and its afterword Bunch and Cole essentially explain that the whole series is one huge lesson in autocracy; its appeal, and its single greatest weakness.

Posted April 25, 2007 2:39 PM by BRT

BRT @ 114... Point taken. The thing though is that Niven said it was foolish to make any assumption about an author's politics from his/her stories. My own opinion is that it is a reasonable assumption. Heck, I'm married to a writer. Still, who am I to argue with Niven? Well, just because he's smarter doesn't mean he's always right.

Posted April 25, 2007 3:06 PM by Serge

My favorite Carl Sagan quote of all time:

"Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong."

=^)

Posted April 25, 2007 3:13 PM by BRT