Tip of the Week 7/2/08

Tip of the Week: Do not let pressure overwhelm you.

Last time I posted, over two weeks ago, I mentioned that I had a bunch of deadlines to meet. I'm still trying to meet them. One by one they've started pouncing on me, and one by one I'm scrambling to meet them. This has lead to a rather stressed-out me. The result is that I'm like a lidded pot that's been left on the stove. The pressure is building, and I'm in danger of boiling over.

This is not good.

So, I'm trying to take my own advice, and not let the pressure completely overwhelm me. If I do, I'll become so overwhelmed that I'll no longer be able to function at all, and then nothing will get done. Here are some steps I'm trying to keep myself from caving while under this pressure:

• Make lists. - I know that lists can be daunting. Sometimes seeing everything that needs to be done is worse than just having everything pressing around in my head. But lists are good, even long ones. You can group similar tasks together and prioritize. And there's nothing more satisfying than checking or scratching through an item on a list.
• Keep others updated. -- Let people know where you are on a project. That way if you need help or are running out of time, people know. They are also a lot more understanding about why you're suddenly freaking out about the temperature of your salad if they know that you have 20 pages of catalog copy due in 2 hours and only 7 pages written.
• Do not disappear. - If you're going to miss a deadline, let people know. Don't stop answering the phone or checking email. Just because you're avoiding it does NOT mean the problem has gone away. Sure, no one is going to be happy that you've blown a deadline, but the earlier you let them know, the less upset they'll be. If you don't tell anyone and then become impossible to contact, you'll merely agitate everyone further.

While at work today I made my To Do list for the long weekend. I won't lie. It's daunting. But, there was one item on it that I think might interest some of you. I've downloaded onto my reader all of the submissions I have so far received during the pitch contest. I will start going through those this weekend. I can't promise to get through them all, but I'll get through as many as possible. I can promise to be done with all of them by the end of this month. So, don't exactly sit at home waiting for emails, but I will start contacting all of you again as I work through the submissions. Again, thank you for all of your patience.

Now, I head off to go back to being (start humming the Queen song now) Under Pressure bah dah bum bum Bum bum bum bah dee dum Under Pressure.

Tip of the Week 6/18/08

Tip of the Week: Do not let deadlines sneak up on you.

This would be an example of practice what I preach not what I do. I have let several deadlines sneak up on me and all come crashing together. It means that my postings for the next few days are going to be sporadic at best. I also won't be able to go through my pitch submissions until the beginning of July. So, thank you all for sending those winning chapters in. Now it'll just be a few weeks until I can get back to you.

Time for Democracy in Action

I have 2 similiar covers that I'm considering for one of our fall books:

Cover 1	Cover 2

Which do you prefer? Vote below.

Question of the Week 6/13/08

I admit that I'm cheating a little bit. I didn't have time to answer the actual questions I got because of the pitch contest. But I thought this particular question was germane to our current discussion. Originally it was asked over on the GLA blog. Chuck answered the question, and then I felt the need to add my own, long winded opinion. Here I've duplicated, with permission. (Chuck is very nice.)

One of (my group's writers) is co-authoring a book. She wants to know if she and her co-author would be advised to pitch this book to agents together at our upcoming conference, or if they should they pitch separately, maximizing their coverage. What should they do?

Chuck's Answer:
Depends. I recently pitched a book to an editor with my writing partner nowhere in sight. It didn't matter because I knew answers to questions. If these writers are a two-headed monster (perhaps one knows the material, the other the marketing), then they should stick together for sure. Presenting together tends to give off a professional approach. To me, at least...

If time is an issue, then you they want to split up. At our conference in LA last weekend, we had some long lines for a few agents and hundreds of writers running around. We keep the pitch time very short so the line keeps moving; but if you truly fear you will be missing face time with agents you really want to see, then split up down the stretch.

My brilliant additional two cents:
I agree with Chuck, but I thought I’d add my own perspective on the matter too.

As the editor who was pitched the book, I can tell you that Chuck is right in his case. He does know all the answers to all the questions, and if he doesn't, he finds out quickly enough. I've actually never had any contact at all with his co-writer. Everything she says comes through Chuck since he was the one that pitched the book. In this example, Chuck has become the point person for this team. Although I would love to meet the other author, it is not entirely necessary.

However, if neither author wishes to take the lead, then the two should always try to communicate simultaneously using teleconferencing or CCed emails, and you should pitch together at the conference. Everyone should have equal say in all decisions anyway, but in this case you would also want equal access to the editor or agent. If you start by pitching separately, the person who actually physically does the pitch becomes the de facto leader of the team simply by having a longer, even if by only a few days, relationship with the editor/agent.

Finally, before you decide whether or not to split up, you both need to consider your own pitch skills and styles. If you pitch best as a team with each of you bolstering and hitting ideas off one another, then pitch as a team. Also, if one of you is a vastly superior pitcher, consider pitching as a team or having only one person do the pitch. What you do not want to do is pitch separately if either one of you is a poor pitcher or if your styles of pitches are going to be radically different. You don't want to break each others confidence in one another over something as unimportant (in the overall scheme of things) as a three-minute pitch. Practice beforehand and make certain you are both confident and calm before you go pitch separately.

Any ideas of your own on this subject? Leave us a comment. I'd love to see this open into a discussion.

So many pitches. So little time.

I have officially responded to every person who entered the pitch contest.

If you didn't get an email from the pitch contest email address, let me know ASAP.

I tried to do these as quickly as possible so that I could get them all done tonight before bed. So, that means that I had to take a few shortcuts. I apologize now if I

• misspelled something or added or missed a word in a sentence
• addressed your email to the wrong person, wrote the title to the wrong book, or classified your book in the wrong genre
• sent you something resembling a form email

If I asked to see some or all of your work and there was nothing wrong with your pitch, I did indeed send you a form email. My reasoning was that I wanted to get back to everyone as fast as possible. Since I'll be looking at your work in more detail when you send me whatever I've requested, I plan to give you a more personal response at that time.

However, if I did not ask to see your work or there was something wrong with your pitch, I did not send a form email. I individually composed every single one of those messages and hopefully those of you who received them will now understand why I did not ask to see your work. In almost every instance it was because it was a book that would not work with our list for some reason. I tried to give that reason in every case.

I would like to end by saying that all of the pitches I got were good. Clearly all of them had been thought out in advance and carefully crafted. Not a single one left me at a complete loss as to what the book was about. A few of the pitches left me asking a question or two, and I passed along my comments to those authors. Overall though, these were some of the better pitches that I've ever been presented. Bravo to all 28 of my entrants.

And everyone who didn't enter, give a metaphorical round of applause to our contestants. It takes guts to present your work to a complete stranger. These folks were a brave lot.

Patience Please

I'm so sorry, but I'm not all the way through the pitches yet. I'm going to finish them tonight and email all of you then. So, although no one has complained yet, I just wanted everyone to have a status update before the panic set in.

On the up side, I finished the ARC for Stacy Nyikos's new book, Dragon Wishes. It's downright splendid if I do say so myself. And Regan did a fabulous job on the cover. Perhaps I will post a sneak peek in the next few days.

Juliet, oh Juliet, wherefore art thou?

If you were wanting great love advice from one of the world's most famous lovers, who would you ask?

I would want to talk to Juliet. After all she was a teen in love with a guy her parents hated so much that she had to fake her own death to be with him. Granted that didn't exactly work out as planned, but she has suffered for her love and probably has some great advice.

At least, that's what lots of people believe. Every year the city of Verona receives tons of letters addressed to Juliet asking for advice. Since the end of World War II, there's been an entire club devoted to answering those letters. And it's while they're in Verona studying Shakespeare and answering letters for the Juliet Club that the six characters in Suzanne Harper's new book, The Juliet Club, come together.

Suzanne was in the store the other day signing copies of The Juliet Club and her other teen book The Secret Live of Sparrow Delaney, so I sat down with her for a chat.

It turns out that she got to do lots of research for this book while she was writing it. Now normally you don't "get" to do research; you have to do it. But in this case it sounded like a whole lot of crazy fun. Suzanne can now:

• Do an Elizabethan dance


• Stage-fight with swords


• Speak some Italian - she liked this so much that she continued her lessons.

And if that wasn't enough, Suzanne got to visit Verona in Italy not once but twice. The second trip was for four days, and while she was there, she actually had the opportunity to visit the Juliet Club and read some of the letters that teenagers have sent in.

Got a question for Juliet? You too can write her. Send a letter properly stamped for international mail to:

CLUB DI GIULIETTA - THE JULIET CLUB
via Galilei 3 - 37100 Verona
Italy

And check out Suzanne Harper and her books.

(Originally posted at the blog I do for BookKids.)

And They're Out of There

The pitch contest is officially done, finished, complete.

Thank you to everyone who sent me in a pitch. There's just a couple shy of 30 for me to read tonight and tomorrow. I hope to contact by Thursday the folks with manuscripts I would like to see. Hopefully on Friday we'll be able to go through the winning pitch to see what did and did not work.

And speaking of Fridays, I want to bring back Tip of the Week Wednesday and Question of the Week Friday. Now, obviously I can come up with Tips, but I always need help with questions. Specifically, I need someone to ask me one.

Anybody, any question. I'm not picky.

Pretty please.

There are no stupid questions. And like my professors used to say, if you're wondering about something, someone else out there is wondering too. So, use the comment section of this post to ask me some questions. Otherwise I will be unable to fully share my broad, sage, and utterly fabulous wisdom.