Some folks I've shared it with have already started to wonder about not having any data to cite 😄 so it’s extra useful that you gave suggestions for that. Are comps even more important? It seems like most publishers are in the widget business of moving books as units, so if your thing is like this other thing, they're gonna bite?
I understand re: not having data! I really, really resisted notions of platform, profile, etc for like 10 years. And while other people's experience may be different, my ultimate takeaway has been that writing a book, even a great book, is only half the job here. The other half is the slow, awful work of building an audience or figuring out a market. I really don't like that this is true, but I have found it to be true. The book business is just too challenging for publishers to regularly take chances on books that don't look like sure things from the get-go. Kind of plays to your point about comps, too - I think in general you have to comp yourself against modest successes and not mega-sellers, because the mega-sellers won't look believable unless you've already written one of those. When I look for comps myself, I look for books with at least 150 Amazon reviews, a proxy sort of number that suggests it's sold at least 5,000 or so copies. I've had proposals rejected when I comped myself against authors with huge platforms. Anyway, there is a giant YMMV caveat to put on all this, though I will say I wish I'd leaned into the business side of this long ago instead of waiting. What's your take/experience?
That's some great added detail! I don't know that I have a useful take, really. I probably get too frustrated too easily and also I'm fairly anti-capitalist, so I'm also trying to find other ways to work that don't reinforce the existing power structures so much. It's difficult.
It’s a frustrating line of creative work, I feel you. Up one day, down the next. I don’t know much about the nonprofit side but some friends run a nonprofit press out of Texas and talk a fair amount about that side of this world. They’re called Bloomsday Lit and they have a good free newsletter and an Instagram series. God knows there’s plenty to object to with our time’s power structure. There’s a downside in embracing the business mindset of publishing too—it becomes really hard to turn off, and you talk yourself out of ideas that excite you creatively but don’t have clear commercial potential. Very much a double edged sword, at least in my experience.
I'll check out Bloomsday for sure. I know everyone is in a scrambled feeding frenzy over NFTs and blockchain and crypto, but there are also more leftist anarchist collectives doing things with those technologies, too. I sometimes wish I could make my brain work just a bit better 😄 and maybe anticipate how some of these things could work out for the good. That's always been the promise of science fiction for me, a vision of a better future. It's not easy. Much simpler to write dark familiar tropes over and over again. But, I digress! 😄
New to Substack so late to the party, but fantastic post. I became a full-time writer during the pandemic after wearing several hats in Corporate America for almost two decades. As someone from the business world, the idea of focusing on commercial value in a query letter never bothered me. Figuring out how to do it - especially for fiction (I've queried one novel unsuccessfully) - was another story. What you've done here, for lack of a more elegant term, is make a "business case." Because the query is data- and market-driven, you've shown there's an engaged customer base as well as demand. Bravo.
For fiction, my sense, as a novice, is comparable titles should help hook your agent, but getting them right seems exceedingly difficult. For example, I used Private Citizens as a comp - to capture millennial angst and the San Francisco setting - and one agent told me during a critique it probably killed any interest because it was a polarizing book. I liked the book and using it as a comp was recommended to me by an editor at Penguin Random House. *shrug*
Luck will always play a part, but data is the hard currency of reality. If you've got some, use it.
Hey Amran, welcome to the party! I'm not familiar with Private Citizens, but definitely agree that comps are important. Also really like your thought about data as "the hard currency of reality"... that's well put. I don't have experience selling fiction or successfully querying it, but from what I see out in the world, every writer pitching their project first and themselves second, it seems like the prevailing query advice isn't great. Data a fiction writer might use could be one's newsletter following, Twitter following, freelance bylines, publication in journals or literary reviews, fancy degree, fancy job, fancy connection, or pre-publication blurb. If I were querying fiction right now, it's what I'd be trying. It's like what you say about business cases and data - point is to find the most relevant available facts, which are more likely to be about the author than the project, since the project isn't live yet and there's likely to be no great amount of legit data to present regarding it. The truth I hate about this business is that platform really does tend to be as important as you hear it is. It's not everything, but it's like 90% both for getting an agent and getting to the submission stage, and for eventually selling books. So the business world, the startup world, marketers, etc, probably have at least as much to teach us, if not more, than writing teachers or classic writers or anyone in those leagues. Just wish it'd taken me fewer than about 15 years to figure this out. In any case, wishing you luck with your project! Subscribed to your Substack, too.
I agree with every word of this. As someone new to publishing starting around 2019, I've been stunned at the dysfunction throughout the industry "value chain" and multiple aspects of "how the sausage gets made" are pretty disheartening. That said, the business is the business, while the art is the art. We all have to do both to be successful.
So happy to connect and looking forward to following your work! Thanks for the subscribe! Hopefully you won't regret it...
All of this is good, Catherine, and the first paragraph is a killer. Thanks for a great start to my day.
Thanks so much, Rose!
Super helpful, Cat. I'm passing it on to everyone I know who's a writer
Glad you found it helpful!!
Some folks I've shared it with have already started to wonder about not having any data to cite 😄 so it’s extra useful that you gave suggestions for that. Are comps even more important? It seems like most publishers are in the widget business of moving books as units, so if your thing is like this other thing, they're gonna bite?
I understand re: not having data! I really, really resisted notions of platform, profile, etc for like 10 years. And while other people's experience may be different, my ultimate takeaway has been that writing a book, even a great book, is only half the job here. The other half is the slow, awful work of building an audience or figuring out a market. I really don't like that this is true, but I have found it to be true. The book business is just too challenging for publishers to regularly take chances on books that don't look like sure things from the get-go. Kind of plays to your point about comps, too - I think in general you have to comp yourself against modest successes and not mega-sellers, because the mega-sellers won't look believable unless you've already written one of those. When I look for comps myself, I look for books with at least 150 Amazon reviews, a proxy sort of number that suggests it's sold at least 5,000 or so copies. I've had proposals rejected when I comped myself against authors with huge platforms. Anyway, there is a giant YMMV caveat to put on all this, though I will say I wish I'd leaned into the business side of this long ago instead of waiting. What's your take/experience?
That's some great added detail! I don't know that I have a useful take, really. I probably get too frustrated too easily and also I'm fairly anti-capitalist, so I'm also trying to find other ways to work that don't reinforce the existing power structures so much. It's difficult.
It’s a frustrating line of creative work, I feel you. Up one day, down the next. I don’t know much about the nonprofit side but some friends run a nonprofit press out of Texas and talk a fair amount about that side of this world. They’re called Bloomsday Lit and they have a good free newsletter and an Instagram series. God knows there’s plenty to object to with our time’s power structure. There’s a downside in embracing the business mindset of publishing too—it becomes really hard to turn off, and you talk yourself out of ideas that excite you creatively but don’t have clear commercial potential. Very much a double edged sword, at least in my experience.
I'll check out Bloomsday for sure. I know everyone is in a scrambled feeding frenzy over NFTs and blockchain and crypto, but there are also more leftist anarchist collectives doing things with those technologies, too. I sometimes wish I could make my brain work just a bit better 😄 and maybe anticipate how some of these things could work out for the good. That's always been the promise of science fiction for me, a vision of a better future. It's not easy. Much simpler to write dark familiar tropes over and over again. But, I digress! 😄
This is so good. And that query letter is killer!!!! Thank you!!!!
I await the great multi-agent brawl over Elle Griffin. I’d put money on it 😀
You are FAR too kind.....
Attended your webinar on 27 July and it was so very helpful. Now following up with all your references. Thanks!
Leslie, you’re so welcome! Glad to hear it was helpful
New to Substack so late to the party, but fantastic post. I became a full-time writer during the pandemic after wearing several hats in Corporate America for almost two decades. As someone from the business world, the idea of focusing on commercial value in a query letter never bothered me. Figuring out how to do it - especially for fiction (I've queried one novel unsuccessfully) - was another story. What you've done here, for lack of a more elegant term, is make a "business case." Because the query is data- and market-driven, you've shown there's an engaged customer base as well as demand. Bravo.
For fiction, my sense, as a novice, is comparable titles should help hook your agent, but getting them right seems exceedingly difficult. For example, I used Private Citizens as a comp - to capture millennial angst and the San Francisco setting - and one agent told me during a critique it probably killed any interest because it was a polarizing book. I liked the book and using it as a comp was recommended to me by an editor at Penguin Random House. *shrug*
Luck will always play a part, but data is the hard currency of reality. If you've got some, use it.
Hey Amran, welcome to the party! I'm not familiar with Private Citizens, but definitely agree that comps are important. Also really like your thought about data as "the hard currency of reality"... that's well put. I don't have experience selling fiction or successfully querying it, but from what I see out in the world, every writer pitching their project first and themselves second, it seems like the prevailing query advice isn't great. Data a fiction writer might use could be one's newsletter following, Twitter following, freelance bylines, publication in journals or literary reviews, fancy degree, fancy job, fancy connection, or pre-publication blurb. If I were querying fiction right now, it's what I'd be trying. It's like what you say about business cases and data - point is to find the most relevant available facts, which are more likely to be about the author than the project, since the project isn't live yet and there's likely to be no great amount of legit data to present regarding it. The truth I hate about this business is that platform really does tend to be as important as you hear it is. It's not everything, but it's like 90% both for getting an agent and getting to the submission stage, and for eventually selling books. So the business world, the startup world, marketers, etc, probably have at least as much to teach us, if not more, than writing teachers or classic writers or anyone in those leagues. Just wish it'd taken me fewer than about 15 years to figure this out. In any case, wishing you luck with your project! Subscribed to your Substack, too.
I agree with every word of this. As someone new to publishing starting around 2019, I've been stunned at the dysfunction throughout the industry "value chain" and multiple aspects of "how the sausage gets made" are pretty disheartening. That said, the business is the business, while the art is the art. We all have to do both to be successful.
So happy to connect and looking forward to following your work! Thanks for the subscribe! Hopefully you won't regret it...