The Eternal Question

Okay, I'll stop with the tangents. I'll ignore shiny objects. I will also ignore my father. That last one doesn't upset me too much. And I will answer the eternal question- Why?

Or more accurately, I won't answer it at all. What I will do is tell you to sit on your tuffet, eat your curds and whatever and while you're at it, take a good hard look at your manuscript and ask yourself why would anybody pick up on this book specifically. And be fair. Imagine you read twenty, thirty, forty queries every single day. You start to see a lot of patterns, and many queries, even if interesting, are still very amateur. What would call attention to your book over the endless sea of bland same-ness?

Here's a few angles to consider.

The Plot- Do you have something new or different? I don't mean at a fundamental level. Every story has already been told a thousand times on the conceptual, emotional, thematic level. I mean the details of the progression. Example, a fantasy novel in which a hero confronts a recently awakened ancient evil. Not original. It'd be hard to break into the market with that. Let the known authors handle it. By contrast, my Have Degree; Will Travel is about a hero confronting a recently awakened ancient evil and then becoming her speech writer and politcal campaign manager. The main problem with this hook is that plots that are unusual are often either A) Stupid (as mine is) B) Really complicated or C) Both.

The Characters- Has the same potentials and pitfalls as unique plots. Let's be honest. Archetypes work. But just once in my time as a reader, I'd like to see a Ghost Story where the ghost does something beyond cry to someone to help them complte their unfinished business. Make use of ghostly properties. How about a ghostly voyeur? Or a Ghostly detective? Or combine them and make the story about how he's going to lead police to the solution without being able to communicate with them. Ooooh. Stupid, but it'd work. There are too many cookie cutter characters in too many cookie cutter stories. Most stories about drug abuse or spousal abuse or the hot new guy/girl in town and oh-goodness-they're-looking-at-me-time-for-me-to-turn-over-a-new-leaf-and-be-awesome-enough-for-them just bore me. If they're well constructed, I'll give it the credit it deserves, but without truly distinct characters, you're sunk.

The Voice- This is not something I can give you detailed feedback about. Just write. Figure out what kinds of voices you do, and polish them. You'll mostly want to work on consistency of tone and how unique the voice itself is. Whether that means a 1st person narration in a genre that's usually third, or an omniscient third who inserts personal comments or whatever it is. Find something that sounds interesting and sounds like YOU. If you're comfortable with it, it's a lot easier to get into using it and using it consistently.

The Audience/market- Sometimes you might have a book idea that just lends itself to promotion within existing circles. I heard once about a company that just does travel guides. Mostly Disney. They were supported throughout their early years, and get tons of favorable press from an extensive network of Disney afficianados who go to Disney World all the time and swear by the thing. Sometimes it just happens that you stumble onto it. Sometimes you're filling a vacancy that really needed to be filled. And sometimes, you yourself are an afficianado of something and can attest that at the very least, there's a rabid niche audience who would eat your book up. I, for instance, decided years ago to write Gigantism: The Impossible Dream, a collection of short stories inspired by the songs of They Might Be Giants, a really neat band with a history of unusual, but brilliant marketing campaigns. Then I was too lazy and cowardly to do so. Then I was too wimpy to throw writing samples at them while they were on stage. And so on. But there's a market there. Whether or not I'd have the skill to get their approval is another issue. The point is, it was a pretty neat idea and at the very least, it might've got someone's attention. On a side note: No one steal that idea. Also, if Flansburgh or Linell read this... pretty please? I'll write you, like, the bestest stories ever.

You- That's right. You, as the author, can be a selling point for your work. For instance, did you know the TV show Bones is based on a real novel writing , murder investigating anthopologist? Apparently the real one (and her books) are boring as hell, so they had to find a way to make boring people interesting, but hey. Sometimes being an expert in a field can go a long way. Or if you're known for something. You don't have to be an A-list celebrity. But the same people who write self help books tend to do a lot of speaking tours. It's actually how they make most of the money, but it promotes the books they have out and makes it easier to sell in the future. If you can't manage that, you can try starting a blog or something. See how far that gets you. It's gotten me all kinds of places. The living room. The bathroom. A whirlwind tour of world class gigs. Anyway, at the very least, love your material, love your book, and work on your public speaking. If it ever comes to it, agents and editors alike look for authors who will be competent at promoting themselves via author sites, interviews, book tours etc.

Finally, just remember to be honest. Don't think of your book as being guaranteed to sell ten million copies. The chances of that are almost nil. Don't think for a second that your book faces no competition whatsoever. With over 400,000 books published each year in the United States alone, somebody out there has something that is at least similar. And don't tell me, or any other reader, submissions manager, agent or editor that you're a good writer. Show us. If you'll recall, "show, don't tell." is writer's rule number one. Once you know who you are, what you're writing, how you're writing it, who would want to read it, and have some confidence in your conclusions, your chances improve astronomically.