Writing and Selling the YA Novel Read online

  If you'd like to include a self-addressed stamped postcard with a line written on it that says, "We have received your manuscript," feel free to do so, although I'll warn you, at times your entire submission will end up on a pile until it's ready to be reviewed, so your postcard might not be returned to you until the package is opened. Also, be sure to include an SASE for the agent's or editor's response to your work. Make sure there's enough postage attached if you'd like your manuscript returned, otherwise it will most likely be recycled. Finally, when you put your package in the mail, write "Requested Material" on the outside so it can easily make it into the correct pile.

  One question I was asked often when working at the literary agency was, "What do I do if the agent requests a certain number of pages and that page count leaves off mid-sentence or mid-scene? Is it okay to send more pages?" In this instance, yes. Including an extra page or two in order to complete a sentence or scene is generally fine. You might want to politely mention that you've done so in your letter. What's not acceptable is sending out far more material than the agent or editor asked for. He knows what he'd like to see, and it's up to him to decide if he wants to see more of your work based on the sample you've provided.

  Another common question is, "When is it okay to follow up once I've sent my manuscript?" This question is a bit trickier. In my opinion, it's fine to follow up on your work as long as you do so politely and you wait an appropriate amount of time before your first and subsequent inquiries. If you haven't heard back from an agent or editor in one month's time and you want to call and verify receipt of your manuscript, ask for her assistant and keep your inquiry succinct. It's rare that an agent or editor will have read your book within one month, so you don't want to imply that you're being impatient.

  If you then wait another two months after verifying receipt and still haven't gotten a response, it would be appropriate to call again, or to write a brief note asking if she's had a chance to review your work. Remember, you should always be professional during these interactions because how you present yourself will make an impression as to what kind of author you'd be to work with. Difficult as it might be to believe, I used to receive rude, disgruntled follow-up calls, and they almost inevitably prompted a rejection of the author's work. Following up too soon or too often shows a lack of understanding of the publishing field, and who wants to work with a client who is already demanding and difficult?

  Should you receive a request for your manuscript from another agent or editor during the time you have it on submission, hold off on sending it until you've heard from the first one, or until you've notified the first one that you're withdrawing your submission. If you've been waiting on that first response for a while, a brief note or a call letting the agent or editor know that there is other interest, and inquiring as to when he might have a response for you, should prompt some action. Avoid submitting your work to multiple agents or editors without letting all parties know—you might find yourself in a sticky situation if more than one agent or editor expresses interest. Every connection is important in publishing, so don't burn any bridges.

  NEGOTIATING A CONTRACT

  The ideal end result of all this hard work is that an editor decides she loves your book and wants to offer you a contract. If so, congratulations! You've earned one of those few coveted spots on a publisher's list. But before you can proceed to working with your new editor, there's the small matter of a contract.

  If you have an agent, it's his job to negotiate the advance, royalties, and terms of your book contract with your publishing house.

  What generally happens is that an editor, when interested in buying your work, will approach your agent with an offer that includes the details of all the terms listed above. Your agent will then contact you and discuss the offer. He should take the time to explain what these terms mean and which parts of the offer can be improved. Don't hesitate to ask questions or offer your opinions! This is your book and your future.

  Once you've had this discussion, your agent can then return to the publishing house and ask for modifications to the original offer. This process can go on for several rounds of negotiation before the final details of your contract get ironed out. Contracts might then take an additional four to six weeks to get drawn up and mailed to your agent for review.

  But what happens if you don't have an agent? Negotiating your own contract is not something I would recommend, even if you have a spouse or a friend who is a lawyer. Unless he's specifically a publishing lawyer, there may be unique aspects to your contract he won't be familiar with. He may not know the industry standards for YA and might make unreasonable or too lenient demands. More than one editorial relationship has become strained before it even started by difficult contract negotiations between an editor and author, or an editor and an author's spouse.

  Still, if you do decide this is the best option for you, I highly recommend reading as much about the subject as possible. There are entire books devoted to the subject of contract negotiation. The SCBWI once again provides related material for its members. Look on their Web site (http://www.scbwi.org/) for their eight-page document entitled Answers to Some Questions About Contracts and their Sample Children's Book Contracts.

  The Authors Guild is also a great resource (http://www.authorsguild/. org). They offer their members a free sixty-four-page reference guide to negotiating contracts called Authors Guild Model Trade Book Contract and Guide, along with seminars on contract negotiation and free contract reviews.

  I won't attempt to cover all of the relevant information in one small section of this book, but I will provide you with a primer so you're familiar with the terms used in contracts and you'll know what points you want to pay special attention to. Even if you have an agent, it would be worth your time to familiarize yourself with these definitions so you'll be able to understand what's happening throughout the negotiation process.

  Here are some basic contract terms every author ought to know:

  Grant of Rights. This clause specifies who controls the rights to your book. The copyright to your work should almost always belong to you, unless you're negotiating a work-for-hire agreement where you sell all rights and have no further say over how the publisher uses the material. Otherwise, you control the copyright and you grant the publisher specific rights, such as the right to print, publish, and sell your book. Rights can be exclusive—meaning only one party can control them at a time—or nonexclusive, meaning you can sell them to multiple parties. Most publishers want exclusive rights. Rights can also be relegated to certain territories. For example, a publisher might ask for exclusive world rights, but you might only agree to sell them exclusive rights to publish the material in the United States, Canada, and their territories. Rights can also be limited by language. You can sell English language rights or specific foreign language rights. Which rights you grant to your publisher should depend on who has the best opportunity to exploit those rights to your benefit.

  Subrights. Subrights refer to all the forms your novel might take other than a traditional hardcover or paperback book. Think of all the formats stories take in our society. There are movies, plays, TV adaptations, audiobooks, book club editions, foreign editions, magazine excerpts, electronic downloads, reprints, merchandizing. These rights can be licensed to outside parties, either by you or your publisher, depending on who controls the subrights as stated in your contract.

  Advance. Your advance is the amount of money your publisher will pay you up front, either upon signing of the contract or in some other split that your contract specifies. (Often contracts state that the advance will be paid with one portion on signing of the contract and another portion on delivery and acceptance of the final edited manuscript; sometimes a third portion will be paid on publication.) It's important to note that the full term is "advance against royalties," meaning that whatever you've been paid up front will be deducted from the profit you make on royalties later on. You'll need to earn back your advance before you recei
ve any royalty money.

  Royalties. Royalties are a percentage of the retail price (or net price, depending on what your contract specifies) you'll receive for each copy of your book that is sold. Generally, royalties escalate slightly, so as you sell more copies of your books you also receive a higher percentage of the sales. Not only will different royalty rates apply to hardcover and paperback sales, but there will also be specific royalty rates for books sold through nontraditional means, such as books that are exported, sold at a "deep discount," or ordered through the mail.

  Accounting and Audit Clauses. Your contract should specify when you will receive your royalty statements (for many publishers it's twice a year) and should provide you with the right to have an outside party audit the publisher's books if you suspect a discrepancy in their bookkeeping.

  Option Clause. This is a very important clause in any contract and most people try to strike it out entirely if possible. The option clause says you are obligated to submit your next work to your publisher. This does not mean your publisher has to buy it. What makes this clause so dangerous to authors is it can tie up your work so you can't freely submit it to another publishing house, and if you are unhappy with your original publishing house it makes it that much more difficult to leave. If you cannot get the option clause removed from your contract, be sure to use language that only refers to one book, and at the very least try to limit this to the exact type of book you're obligated to submit for your publisher's first refusal. For example, you would want to be sure the option only applied to your next book for teens, and not a picture book or adult book you might decide to write later on.

  Author Copies. Believe it or not, authors do not get unlimited free copies of their own books. It's sad, but true. Your contract will specify exactly how many copies of each format of your book you're entitled to, and after that you'll have to purchase copies, usually at a discount. Most contracts offer ten free copies, but you will probably want to negotiate for more since you can imagine how quickly those copies disappear, especially if you're using them for promotion.

  Approval and Consultation. These terms exist in some contracts and grant the author the right to be consulted on issues surrounding cover art, subsidiary rights sales, or grants of permissions.

  Warranties and Indemnities. This clause has to do with legal responsibility in the event that you are accused of plagiarizing another writer's work, or should a legal suit be brought against you and your publisher for any reason (for example, libel). Usually the clause states who will pay for the legal costs of such a proceeding (generally a percentage split between you and the publisher, provided you're not found guilty).

  Publication Date. This is more important than it might sound. Although your contract won't include an exact publication date, it should include language that says that the publisher must publish your book within a certain amount of time (often eighteen months after delivery and acceptance of your manuscript). Without publication language, your publisher could tie up the rights to your work indefinitely, always promising to publish your book but never delivering on their promise. And if you have an option clause that says something about submitting your next book "after publication," you could be in trouble!

  Is your head spinning yet? Contracts can be overwhelming, and it's important to be as detailed as possible so the language used within them can cover any circumstances that might arise. The definitions above only scratch the surface of this topic, but the good news is there are plenty of resources available to help you out. In addition to The Authors Guild and SCBWI, check your local bookstore for titles that will further your knowledge. Be sure to read reviews on Amazon.com or ask for recommendations so you get the best possible information on the subject.

  How many of you took some version of shop class when you were in school? In ninth grade, I took a computer class, meant to give us hands-on experience with programming DOS (how dated is that?!). I'm sure my teacher would be dismayed to learn that my most vivid memory from this class is printing out long sheets of scrolled paper with lists of the nicknames my best friend and I used for all the boys in our grade. My memories of wood shop have fared a little bit better. Here, I recall using the skill saw to cut puzzle shapes and building model bridges that could hold our body weight. But really, what I most remember from both of these classes—and from every other class I took that fell under the elective category of "shop"—was the opportunity they provided to interact with an entirely different set of kids than my normal schedule allowed.

  Shop classes have always been great levelers. Kids on the honors track and kids pursuing technical careers worked side by side, learning

  the secrets that skilled trades have to offer. There was always an air of the real world to shop classes. The teachers seemed different—less concerned with philosophy and more focused on the practical, everyday concerns of their subject matter. Shop class wasn't about theory, it was about facts. Here, you learned the way the world really worked and made decisions to apply this knowledge accordingly.

  When it comes to writing books for teens, it's important that authors understand both the philosophical aspects of creating quality literature for teenagers and the practical realities of writing and marketing your books for this age group—realities like varied expectations from kids and adults, and the difficult choices authors have to make about content in teen fiction.

  When you're writing for teenagers there are plenty of "rules" that others are ready to impose on your books. These range from literary rules, like keeping abreast of slang and technology in order to keep your books sounding current, to moral rules, like avoiding swear words or sex scenes in order not to corrupt impressionable young people. Break one of these rules and your book is apt to be shunned or banned, at least by a certain percentage of your audience.

  On the other hand, there are those who might avoid your books precisely because you keep the rules! Can you realistically portray teens today without swearing or alluding to sex? Will teenagers want to read books that don't accurately reflect the world they live in? Won't your story suffer if you modify it in a false way to please other people?

  And at the end of this whole process will it be the parent or the teen who picks your book up off the shelf? Should you appeal to the high school librarian or the high school student? How can you reach actual teenage readers with your work?

  Shop class is our chance to turn theory into practice before our time together comes to an end. It's time to talk directly about sex, drugs, swearing, and every other hot-button issue you'll confront as you write and market your book to young adults. And then it's time to get that book into the hands of teen readers, which is what you've intended all along.

  WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE, REALLY?_

  By now we've come full circle—back to the question of audience. Remember when we defined teen literature as books written for and marketed to teens? How, then, can there be any question now as to who you're writing for? On one level, there isn't. Your audience is exactly who we've said it was all along: teenagers. But on another level, when you write for teens you need to deal with the dual nature of who buys, stocks, promotes, reviews, and possibly bans your books. Most often, these people are adults.

  Many times adults act as gatekeepers to what teens read, watch, and listen to. This is true for several reasons. For one thing, teens are usually still at an age where they're living with their parents or other family members who take care of them. They have not yet achieved independence either financially or emotionally. Since parents or guardians are responsible for guiding teens into the adult world, they often limit what they can experience either in real life or vicariously through TV, movies, and literature.

  At the same time, if you think back to first-period history class, you'll remember that teens have often been on the cutting edge of change-challenging the boundaries adults set for them, pushing the limits of their freedom and independence. Many teens are looking for books that reflect the world as they see it, and that
world is increasingly complex.

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  So how does an author navigate these waters?

  This is where our definition of literature becomes very important. Literature is usually defined as writings that are valued for their form in addition to their content. When referring to literature we tend to think of classic novels, poetry, or plays as opposed to journalism or technical writings.

  Many authors also come up with their own definitions of literature. We each have our intent as novelists, and that intent might be to make people laugh, to entertain, or to illuminate. I would argue that if your intent is to inform, you come dangerously close to producing work that falls outside the boundaries of literature. Not that there's anything wrong with journalism or technical writing—both can be written exceedingly well—but as a novelist, you need to think about form, not didacticism.

  What this means to me is that decisions about the inclusion of controversial issues such as sex, bad language, character drug use, or negative behaviors need to be made in the context of the story itself, looking first and foremost at what is necessary to write the best possible book rather than looking to promote either a moral agenda or controversy for the sake of controversy.

  What makes something the best possible book?

  Everyone gets to answer this on their own, but for me, the very best books shed light on human nature and show us some corner of ourselves that we either never knew existed or have long ignored. These books illuminate our world so we see it as it truly is, even if that truth is shown by contrasting reality with fantasy. The best books draw us in and make us feel something—we laugh or cry, and maybe we do both at the exact same time. The best books teach us something about our lives, but this kind of learning doesn't come as a lesson or an informational tract. It arrives through vicarious experience as we accompany the characters in a book through the world the author has created.