15th Free “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest: Young Adult Fiction

Chuck Sambuchino has announced yet another free contest. This one is for YA fiction.

The good thing about a contest that only allows you to submit the first 150-200 words of your book is that it forces you to really look at that first page.

How many extraneous words do you have in those first few paragraphs? Have you captured the attention of your readers?

Any manuscript, or portion of a manuscript, you send to an agent or publisher will be judged on those critical first paragraphs. 

Polish them until they shine.

_____________________________

15th Free “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest: Young Adult Fiction

Chuck Sambuchino, GLA Blog, 3/23/2014

Welcome to the 15th (free!) “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest on the GLA blog. This is a recurring online contest with agent judges and super-cool prizes. Here’s the deal: With every contest, the details are essentially the same, but the niche itself changes—meaning each contest is focused around a specific category or two. So if you’re writing young adult fiction, this 15th contest is for you! (The contest is live through EOD, Wednesday, April 9, 2014.)

WHY YOU SHOULD GET EXCITED

After a previous “Dear Lucky Agent” contest, the agent judge, Tamar Rydzinski (The Laura Dail Literary Agency), signed one of the three contest winners. After Tamar signed the writer, she went on to sell two of that writer’s books! How cool! That’s why these contests are not to missed if you have an eligible submission.

HOW TO SUBMIT

E-mail entries to dearluckyagent15@gmail.com. Please paste everything. No attachments.

WHAT TO SUBMIT

The first 150-200 words of your unpublished, completed book-length work of young adult fiction. You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with each entry.

Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any any social-media. Please provide a social-media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc., with your official e-mailed entry so the judge and I can verify eligibility. Some previous entrants could not be considered because they skipped this step! Simply spread the word twice through any means and give us a way to verify you did; a tinyURL for this link/contest for you to easily use is: http://tinyurl.com/pcmopmq.

An easy way to notify me of your sharing is to include my Twitter handle @chucksambuchino at the end of your mention(s) if using Twitter. And if you are going to solely use Twitter as your 2 times, please wait 1 day between mentions to spread out the notices, rather than simply tweeting twice back to back. Thanks. (Please note that simply tweeting me does not count. You have to have the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point.)

WHAT IS ELIGIBLE?

Young adult fiction. The agent judge did not choose to exclude any subgenre, so everything is fair game.

CONTEST DETAILS

This contest will be live through the end of April 9, 2014, PST. Winners notified by e-mail within approximately three weeks of end of contest. Winners announced on the blog thereafter.

To enter, submit the first 150-200 words of your book. Shorter or longer entries will not be considered. Keep it within word count range please.

You can submit as many times as you wish. You can submit even if you submitted to other contests in the past, but please note that past winners cannot win again. All that said, you are urged to only submit your best work.

The contest is open to everyone of all ages, save those employees, officers and directors of GLA’s publisher, F+W Media, Inc.

By e-mailing your entry, you are submitting an entry for consideration in this contest and thereby agreeing to the terms written here as well as any terms possibly added by me in the “Comments” section of this blog post. (If you have questions or concerns, write me personally at chuck.sambuchino (at) fwmedia.com. The Gmail account above is for submissions, not questions.)

PRIZES!!!

Top 3 winners all get: 1) A critique of the first 10 double-spaced pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) A free one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com ($50 value)!

MEET YOUR (AWESOME) AGENT JUDGE!

A literary agent for close to fifteen years, Andrea Somberg represents a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, including projects aimed at a young adult and middle grade audience. Previously an agent at the Donald Maass Agency and Vigliano Associates, she joined Harvey Klinger Inc. in the spring of 2005. Andrea has also been a MediaBistro instructor, teaching courses on writing nonfiction and memoir book proposals. Learn more about Andrea on Twitter, Facebook, or Publishers Marketplace.

Do you know what an author brand is? And do you actually want one?

At last, I understand what an author brand is! It's Heinz! It's Dinty Moore! It's Walmart, Home Depot, McDonald's!

What do all these things have in common?

They are completely uniform, completely predictable, and completely marketable.

To create an author brand, just do what any of these other brands have done. Write a series (Dijon mustard, honey mustard, German mustard). Make sure each book provides the same reading experience (mustard). And churn your "products" out on a schedule (New this week! English mustard!). The combination of predictability and availability (more, more!) is what is known as "trust." And once readers develop "trust," you've got yourself a heap of consumer loyalty.

Frankly, I find the application of assembly-line consumerism to literature to be somewhat appalling. But that did not prevent me from reading the article below. (Or from reading every single one of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.) At least, I now know to avoid agents who talk about developing "author brands" for their clients.

Ouch.
___________________________________________

The Strongest Brand In Publishing Is ...

By David Vinjamuri, Forbes, March 4, 2014

When comparing authors, publishers tend to focus on book sales.  But sales figures tell only part of the story.  Expensive advertising and a strong push for distribution and display at bookstores might yield strong initial sales but create lots of returns and low profitability.  An early and fortuitous movie deal might overexpose a book that doesn’t meet the promise of the movie.

A thousand other externalities make sales data inadequate to measure the strength of an author’s franchise.  To understand which authors are worth investing in, publishers need a better measure of an author’s value.

Brand, Not Platform

The metric often used to evaluate new or developing authors is platform – roughly defined as the social reach of the author though Facebook fans, Twitter followers, blog views and speaking engagements.  But according to Peter Hildick-Smith of the Codex Group, which polls thousands of readers to determine their preferences and purchase behavior, platform is a misleading metric.

"We’ve seen celebrities with extremely high name recognition and very large platforms fail miserably in book sales.  Being famous or having millions of Twitter followers alone is not enough to build a strong franchise as an author."

Hildick-Smith points out that only about half of adults read books and just a fifth are regular book buyers.  So a celebrity with a large and dedicated following will not automatically become a bestselling author.

Read on to find out which author has the strongest "brand"  more...

2 Literary Agents Looking for Literary Fiction, Nonfiction, MG and YA Sci-fi and Fantasy

Updated 3/20/21

These two agents are looking for new clients. Read their bios to see if your work is a good match for them.

Lisa Gallagher is actively seeking new clients both in fiction and non-fiction who are great storytellers, delivering both narrative urgency and dramatic tension, combined with multi-faceted characters and a transporting sense of place. Caitlen Rubino-Bradway of LKG Agency is looking for middle grade and young adult fiction, with a preference for YA. Science fiction and fantasy elements are a plus!

As always, don't submit before going to the website. Submission requirements frequently change, and agents can close their lists or switch agencies.

Note: If these agents don't suit your needs, you can find a list of dozens of agents seeking writers here: Agents Seeking Clients

_____________________________

Caitlen Rubino-Bradway of LKG Agency

NO LONGER AN AGENT

About Caitlen: “I joined the LKG Agency in 2008, thereby disproving the theory that no English major ever does anything with their degree. I have enjoyed my apprenticeship under Lauren Galit very much, and I am now actively looking to build my own list."

What she is seeking: “I personally am looking for middle grade and young adult fiction, with a preference for YA. In teen novels, Sci-fi/fantasy is my sweet spot, but I’m open to anything as long as it doesn’t have zombies.

“Also, the LKG Agency is always on the lookout for nonfiction, both practical and narrative. We specialize in women’s focused how-to, such as parenting, lifestyle, health & nutrition, and beauty, but we are open to a lot of nonfiction genres. (For a full list you can check out the submission guidelines on our website.)”

How to submit: For middle grade and young adult submissions, please send a query, synopsis, and the first three (3) chapters, and address all submissions to mgya@lkgagency.com.

_____________________________

Lisa Gallagher of DeFiore & Co

NO LONGER LISTED ON AGENCY WEBSITE

About Lisa: Lisa Gallagher joined DeFiore & Company Literary Management Inc. as a literary agent in 2014, after working at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates for five years. She has more than twenty years of publishing experience and insight from both sides of the Atlantic, and now as an agent, being a champion of authors and their work continues to be her passion. Formerly SVP & Publisher, William Morrow (an imprint of HarperCollins), Gallagher published many New York Times bestselling novelists including Tom Franklin, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Christopher Moore, Sena Jeter Naslund, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, James Rollins, Marisa de los Santos and Neal Stephenson, as well as non-fiction blockbusters like Marley & Me and Freakonomics. Prior to joining William Morrow in 2000, Gallagher was Associate Publisher at Bloomsbury USA, following a move to New York from Bloomsbury’s London office in 1998. Gallagher was educated at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, UK.

What she is looking for: She is actively seeking new clients both in fiction and non-fiction who are great storytellers, delivering both narrative urgency and dramatic tension, combined with multi-faceted characters and a transporting sense of place.

How to submit: Please submit your manuscript or proposal to lgsubmissions@defliterary.com. For fiction, include 5 pages in the body of your email.

Nook: Still Asleep at the Wheel

Shortly after hearing that Russia has now become the world's third largest ebook market - after the US and China - I received this email from Nook.

Dear Publisher,

You may notice some changes the next time you log into NOOK Press. We've been working hard to get NOOK Press ready for some new guests – starting today, publishers in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium will be able to publish with NOOK Press and reach Barnes & Noble's millions of book-loving customers. This means even more great indie content for customers and increased visibility for you and your NOOK Books in the months to come!

Of course, I am absolutely thrilled that Belgians will now be able to publish on Nook, but Nook books are still available only in the US and the UK.  

What about reaching the second and third largest markets in the world?

(Yesterday, I filed my 2013 tax return. I received $4712 from Amazon. Nook netted me a grand total of $75. The numbers speak for themselves.)
________________________________

In Britain and especially abroad, ebooks are booming

By James Bridle, The Observer, Saturday 25 January 2014

Over the past year, more and more people have been reading ebooks. Hardly a surprise, but after years of hand-waving by enthusiasts and detractors, we're finally getting to the point where we can actually measure what's going on. We can see, for example, that in 2013, Russia overtook the UK to become the world's third largest ebook market after the US and China – largely thanks to a site called LitRes, which was founded in 2006 with a stated mission to fight book piracy. Before LitRes, the only ebook market in Russia was the black market. Today, LitRes is the only serious seller on the market. A similar effect can be seen occurring in Brazil and China and elsewhere.

Read the rest of this article here.

Bad Reviews of Classic 20th-Century Novels

I enjoy reading bad reviews of famous novels - almost as much as I enjoy getting them. It comforts me to know that if a book of mine is called "lugubrious" I will be keeping company with Aldous Huxley. (Unlike Brave New World, not one of my books has been called "lugubrious," or even "nauseating," but this is probably due to an avoidance of polysyllabic adjectives on the part of contemporary reviewers.)

These books were panned primarily because they broke new ground. Innovative writing is rarely well received in the short run. However, in the long run, these books have stood the test of time, and are now considered classics.

Here are some truly harsh reviews of 20th-century classics assembled by Sean Hutchinson for Publisher's Weekly. If your book has the good fortune to be called "silly," know that you are right up there with Richard Wright.

______________________________

Really Harsh Early Reviews of 20 Classic 20th-Century Novels

By Sean Hutchinson

Ulysses – James Joyce

Joyce’s magnum opus redefined literature and was a major event upon its release in 1922. Some bought into its radical structure, but others didn’t—including fellow modernist Virginia Woolf. In her diary she called Ulysses “an illiterate, underbred book it seems to me: the book of a self-taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating ... never did any book so bore me.”

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cited by many as the Great American Novel, Fitzgerald’s inimitable The Great Gatsby remains a staple in classrooms and on bookshelves the world over. Critic and journalist H.L. Mencken, however, called it “no more than a glorified anecdote,” and that “it is certainly not to be put on the same shelf, with, say, This Side of Paradise [Fitzgerald’s debut novel].” In her review for the New York Evening World, critic Ruth Snyder said, “We are quite convinced after reading The Great Gatsby that Mr. Fitzgerald is not one of the great American writers of to-day.”

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov’s novel about a literature professor who becomes obsessed with a 12-year-old girl wasn’t without controversy when it was published in 1958. Orville Prescott’s review in the New York Times listed two reasons why Lolita “isn't worth any adult reader's attention.” “The first,” he said, “is that it is dull, dull, dull in a pretentious, florid and archly fatuous fashion. The second is that it is repulsive.” Later in the same review, he called Nabokov’s writing “highbrow pornography.”

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

The ritualistic and drug-filled dystopian world created by writer Aldous Huxley may have been too much for some when it was first published in 1931, but the New York Herald Tribune may have missed the point of the book altogether when their review called Brave New World “A lugubrious and heavy-handed piece of propaganda.”

Catch-22 – Joseph Heller

Heller’s satirical novel about World War II is so popular that the phrase “Catch-22” has become a ubiquitous modern idiom meaning a type of no-win situation. Heller was in a no-win situation, according to critic Richard Stern, whose New York Times review called the book “an emotional hodgepodge.” He added, “No mood is sustained long enough to register for more than a chapter.”

Under the Volcano — Malcolm Lowry

Lowry’s novel—about an alcoholic British consul in Mexico during the Day of the Dead celebration on the eve of World War II—has both dazzled and frustrated readers since its debut in 1947. The New Yorker only reviewed it in its “Briefly Noted” section, saying, “for all [Lowry’s] earnestness he has succeeded only in writing a rather good imitation of an important novel.”

To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf

The New York Evening Post’s cleverly snide review of Woolf’s highly abstract Modernist masterpiece managed to praise her and shoot her down all in the same sentence: “Her work is poetry; it must be judged as poetry, and all the weaknesses of poetry are inherent in it.”

An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser

This sprawling tale of love and deceit's influence has been made into an opera, a musical, a radio program, and more. When the novel was first published in 1925, the Boston Evening Telegraph called its main character, Clyde Griffiths, “one of the most despicable creations of humanity that ever emerged from a novelist’s brain,” and called Dreiser “a fearsome manipulator of the English language” with a style that “is offensively colloquial, commonplace and vulgar.

Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, cementing its reputation as one of the most important books about race and identity ever written. In its 1952 review, however, the Atlantic Monthly thought it suffered from “occasional overwriting, stretches of fuzzy thinking, and a tendency to waver, confusingly, between realism and surrealism.”

Native Son – Richard Wright

Richard Wright’s Native Son is another classic American novel about the African American experience, but the New Statesman and The Nation found the book to be “unimpressive and silly, not even as much fun as a thriller."

Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow

Bellow’s uniquely comic and philosophical novel about an American millionaire who unwittingly becomes the king of an African tribe was the author's personal favorite. But it wasn’t a favorite for critic Reed Whittemore. In his review for the New Republic, Whittemore posed this question to himself: “The reviewer looks at the evidence and wonders if he should damn the author and praise the book, or praise the author and damn the book. And is it possible, somehow or other to praise or damn, both? He isn’t sure.”

Read the rest of these really harsh reviews here.

2 Literary Agents Seeking Romance, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Kidlit, YA, Sci-Fi &more

Updated 3/16/21

Here are two agents seeking to expand their client lists. Cate Hart is interested in romance, MG and YA fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, magical realism, and nonfiction. Rena Rossner wants Literary and Upmarket Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction and Thrillers. Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction in all genres. She is also actively seeking Young Adult, Middle Grade and Picture Books.

Always check the agency website before submitting. Agents may switch agencies or close their lists, and submission requirements can change.

If these agents don't suit your needs, you can find a comprehensive list of new and established agents seeking clients here: Agents Seeking Clients.

___________________________


Cate Hart of Harvey Klinger Literary Agency

About Cate: Cate joined Harvey Klinger Literary Agency in 2019 after 5 years with a New York agency where she represented Middle Grade to Adult fiction. A graduate of the University of Tennessee, studying Theatre and History, Cate currently lives in Nashville with her children.

What she is seeking: She specializes in Historical, whether in Young Adult, Women’s Fiction and Romance, or narrative nonfiction. She is particularly drawn to oft forgotten stories of the past and underrepresented voices, and especially personal to her is unexplored Southern history and culture. She also loves high-concept fantasy in YA and Adult fiction.

How to submit: Please use her query form HERE.

______________________________

Rena Rossner of Bradford Literary Agency

Rena Rossner (she/her) joined Bradford Literary in 2026, after 15 years of agenting experience as both a foreign rights co-agent and a literary agent at The Deborah Harris Agency. Rena has sold over 170 books over the course of her career, from picture book, middle grade and young adult fiction to adult fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She was born in Miami Beach, Florida, but has spent her life living between two countries. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars program, Trinity College, Dublin, and holds a MA in history from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is a mom to five children and a rescue pup named Diego Rivera, she loves sunflowers, making cocktails, cooking gourmet meals and working in her ceramic studio. She currently lives in Jerusalem.

What she is seeking: Rena is interested in representing Literary and Upmarket Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction, Thrillers, Horror, and Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has a particular love for novels in verse. She accepts queries for Adult, Young Adult, Middle Grade and Picture Books projects and also works with illustrators.

How to submit: Closed to queries.

How to Buy a Top Spot on the New York Times Bestseller List

I have long suspected that the rank of "NYT bestseller" could be purchased. Now, there is proof.

Does this mean you can buy a bestseller slot for your upcoming book? Not unless you have a couple hundred thousand dollars to spare.

Or conversely, you could get the RNC to spend $98,400 on your book, but only if you are Donald Trump, Jr. 
_______________________________

How to Buy a Top Spot on the New York Times Bestseller List

By Dennis Abrams, Publishing Perspectives, March 10, 2014

Carolyn Kellogg reports in the Los Angeles Times that while every author wants to get a book on the bestseller list, “those who can pay for the services of ResultSource Inc just might get one.”

The company which describes itself as “a boutique marketing firm that works with today’s thought leaders to build bestsellers” apparently has done so. In 2013, Kellogg reports, the Wall Street Journal talked with the authors of two books who paid thousands of dollars to ResultSource and soon ended up on the Journal’s bestseller list. “Precisely how [ResultSource] goes about [its business] is unclear, Jeffrey Trachtenberg reported at the time.

Now, Warren Cole Smith reports at www.worldmag.com that “Seattle’s Mars Hill Church paid [ResultSource] at least $210,000 in 2011 and 2012 to ensure thatReal Marriage, a book written by Mark Driscoll, the church’s founding pastor, and his wife Grace, made the New York Times best-seller list.”

Smith writes that a document obtained by WORLD shows that ResultSource Inc. (RSI) entered into an agreement with Mars Hill “to conduct a bestseller campaign for your book, Real Marriage, on the week of January 2, 2012. The bestseller campaign is intended to place Real Marriage (Thomas Nelson) on The New York Times bestseller list for the Advice How-To list.”

ResultSource also promised Mars Hill that they would be able to help place Real Marriage on the Wall Street Journal Business, USA Today Money, BN.com (Barnes& Noble) and Amazon.com bestseller lists.

Find out how they did it HERE.