Literary Agent Mitchell Waters, FDU Graduate, Talks About Publishing

Even though I've gone digital in almost every area of my life, there are two magazines I still read in hard copy: Architectural Digest and my university alumni magazine. You can't get a real feeling for the photos in AD unless you read them in print and my brother is one of their biggest advertisers. And reading my alumni magazine takes me back to great memories when life was simpler for all of us. I'm not ready to go digital there yet.

I never know what I'm going to see in the alumni magazine. But I always find something that connects me back to my days on the Florham Madison Campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University. This time, in the most recent issue, I read a piece about two people who graduated about ten years before me. One is Curtis Brown literary agent, Mitchell Waters, and the other is an author, Jon Reiner, who wrote The Man who Couldn't Eat. The book title caught my eye first. I'm going to read it because it looks interesting and I like to support fellow alumni. And then I read that his agent, Mitchell Waters, also went to the Florham Madison Campus at FDU.

I didn't know either of them personally, but they both were in the English department and Theater department, which tends to be a closely knit group. I majored in English and spent most of my free time in the Theater department. I'm sure we know the same people (profs at private universities never leave), especially Harvey Flaxman who will always be infamous for this Hollywood classic. I took a fascinating history of film course with Flaxman once and loved every minute of it.

I was curious and did a quick search about both Reiner and Waters. And I found a great interview that agent Mitchell Waters did where he talks about various aspects of publishing and how it's changing. The other day I wrote about about Joe Konrath and he had some pretty harsh words for agents and publishers. I agree with him to a certain extent, but Konrath's big pushy Internet mouth turns me off sometimes. So today I'd like to balance that post with this wonderful interview by Lit Agent, Mitchell Waters. Speaking from my own experience, as an author who is always on guard with publishers because he doesn't have an agent, I firmly believe authors will need agents in the future more than they ever have. Even authors published by small digital presses will need agents. And that's because ALL publishers think in terms of their own best interests, which isn't always in the best interest of the author.

Here's one question from the interview, with Dell Smith. And you can read more here.
I highly recommend reading it in full.

BTM: How has the publishing industry changed since you started working as an agent?

MW: Everything is harder. Somehow I manage to continue to be surprised at how hard it is for editors to acquire books they love. The amount of support they have to gather from amongst their colleagues is daunting and discouraging. An editor can get support from fellow editors, established editors who are legends in their fields, publicity and marketing, and still not be able to convince the publisher to take something on. Of course, that makes our job more frustrating and challenging, but I certainly don’t envy the acquiring editors.

There is a greater divide between the haves and have-nots, which new technology goes some way to ameliorate, but it remains a fact. On the fiction side, there is an intense pressure to be high-concept and/or try one’s hand at a commercial genre. In certain kinds of non-fiction, you seem to need to be a celebrity, or at least have a significant television or Internet presence. While it still helps to be an expert in a field who has an interesting idea, these other factors appear to carry more weight than ever.

Must Read Gay Stories About Coming Out...

I found this web site and wanted to share. It contains links to stories about coming out that I think most gay men can identify with.

Because heterosexuality is so broadly assumed, there is a process shared by gay people of constructing and asserting a gay identity. Most important for gay people is coming out to one's self, but coming out is an ongoing process where a gay person asserts one's identity as a gay person at all levels of a society that assumes heterosexuality and tends to treat gay people with disrespect.

Here's the link. As I said, it will lead you to other links where you can read stories that are fascinating.

The Book That's Destined to Fail...

Just like the fabled Edsel, some great books are destined to fail. Sometimes it's because the cover is wrong. It could be because the title is wrong. Other times the cover copy is off and doesn't describe the book well. And sometimes the reason is a little more complicated and the author has no control.

In November 1956, Ford settled on a name for its new line of mid-priced automobiles: It would be called the Edsel, after the son of the firm’s founder. Launched the following September, the Edsel was an utter flop, and has since become an exemplar of a product gone wrong, of how seemingly omnipotent firms and advertisers can be laid low by grass-roots consumer antipathy.

An author friend contacted me about a year ago about something he was going through. Here's the abbreviated version below. No names, but I do have his permission to write about it now.

Author friend: My publisher wants me to use a pen name for my next book.

Me: Okay. Are you switching genres? That makes sense.

Author friend: No. The book is in the same genre.

Me: But you already have a few books out in this genre and readers know you. Why would the publisher want you to use a pen name?

Author friend: They think I have too much exposure.

Me: Seriously? No offense, but you're not exactly Ryan Seacrest. You're writing in a sub-genre, m/m romance, that's on the fringes of publishing. How could you possibly ever get too much exposure?

Author friend: I don't know. That's what they said. They brainstormed about it and decided I should use a pen name.

Me: You don't sound too happy about it.

Author friend: I don't totally get it. And I can tell you right now there's no way I'm going to be able to promote this book the way it should be promoted. I feel creepy about using a pen name in my own genre. It's uncomfortable and I'll probably wind up not doing a thing to promote the book.

Me: That's a shame. Can't you talk to your publisher and reason. You know your readers better than they do. Maybe they'll listen.

Author friend: They won't. I love them and don't want to hurt their feelings. When it comes to these things they always believe they are right. They have PR people giving them advice. They have a lot of experience.

Me: Well, maybe they are right. You never know.

Author friend: That's what I've been telling myself. But deep down, I don't have a good feeling.

Me: Let me know how things work out. It's not the worst thing in the world.

Author friend: Okay. Thanks for listening.

Six months later I spoke with my friend again and he told me the book did, indeed, tank. He said he started a blog and tried to do as much basic promotion as he could. But in the end, he was a brand new author with a handicap. He didn't feel comfortable promoting a book in a genre with a pen name where he was already established with his own name.

When I asked him what the publisher said about all this, he told me the publisher said the book just wasn't strong enough. They said it had nothing to do with the pen name. Of course my friend didn't agree. Not enough people ever read or reviewed the book to know whether or not it was strong enough.

And this is how some books fail. If anyone has ever experienced anything like this, feel free to comment anonymously.

Hold On to These People

Hearts on Fire Book Reviews: All About Yves

Someone e-mailed me about a review for All About Yves. From what I gather, it was posted a week ago. Don't shoot me, but I don't do google alerts, so I rarely ever know what's being reviewed...or said. When I factor in writing time, editing, social media, and personal life (which usually suffers the most), there isn't much time left. The good thing is I have a network of good friends and we all tell each other about these things whenever we see them.

I'm linking now because there were never many reviews done for All About Yves. And also because I'd like the thank the reviewer for being so kind.

Joe Konrath: "Amazon Will Destroy You"

Here's an interesting blog post by Joe Konrath. It's not a long post; it gets right to the point. I recommend reading it, especially if you're a new author.

I agree on some things, I'm not sure about others. I'm not sure because I still haven't tried out self-publishing with Amazon. This doesn't mean I wasn't one of the first to get into e-publishing. I don't know when Konrath started looking into digital publishing, but I started with one e-publisher nine years ago who was bought out by someone else. Three years after that, I moved on to loveyoudivine.com (where I remain), and then started writing genre fiction for ravenousromance.com. Including all the work I've had published with traditional publishers over the years, I have about 90 different published works out there (I'm honestly not completely sure about the exact number), most with my real name.

I have no regrets. I'm glad I made the switch to e-publishing in spite of more than one piece of advice from publishing professionals who told me not to waste my time with e-publishing. I'm glad I didn't listen. The switch to e-publishing has allowed me to write more, release more, and build my reader base.

My overall experience with e-publishers has been very positive. Even though I'm not self-published and I don't have complete control, I don't have any complaints. More often than not the advice I receive from my publishers has been something that has helped me move forward. I'm not sure I could have done that alone. This doesn't mean I'm still not curious about the self-publishing program at Amazon.

Last Book In Virgin Billionaire Series...

Earlier this week I submitted the tenth, and last, book in The Virgin Billionaire series. I titled it, THE VIRGIN BILLIONAIRE'S LITTLE ANGEL, because I wanted to go for something more emotional this time. We'll see if that title remains. Publishers often decide to change titles and they have the final say. As it turns out, many times they are correct and the author was glad he listened.

Though I'd never planned to write a series, it was an interesting experience to write one. It gave me a chance to show the main characters, Luis and Jase, grow with each book I wrote. In the first book, Jase is a closeted gay virgin who moves to New York to find himself...in his late thirties. He's already been married and divorced, built a billion dollar empire, and has been around the block a few times. Luis, on the other hand, is a flighty young gay man in his early twenties living in New York as a silly escort who dates much older men. Though Luis never has sex with any of them, his only concern in life is what new shirt he'll buy for Saturday night and how his hair turns out.

With each book I tried to show how they grow, sometimes in large ways and sometimes in small ways. And by the time I reached the last book, Jase and Luis are starting to think about things like growing older and building a family. They don't change as people. I don't believe people can change. We are who we are from birth. But Jase and Luis grow and mature in ways I hope readers will think are viable.

In this series, I had a chance to do a few things I normally wouldn't do. For example, Jase isn't the cliched gay man who is a left wing political zealot. He's more on the conservative side and he's not ashamed to talk about it. Luis, on the other hand, tends to be more of a cliche in the sense that he follows trends, and he's not afraid to talk about his liberal values either. It's this balance that keeps their lives interesting. I've always believed opposites do attract...at least from what I've seen from my own personal experience it seems to work.

I also wanted to tackle a more serious topic in the final book. As with everyone's life, Luis and Jase find themselves dealing with something so serious Luis isn't sure he can get through it. For most people what Luis goes through would leave scars for the rest of their lives. I'm not going to say exactly what I did because I never give spoilers, but it is something that changes almost everyone in the book in one way or another.

I'll post more about the final installment as I get closer to a publishing date. Right now we haven't even started edits on it and I'm not certain when we will. It's also a little longer than most of the other Virgin Billionaire books, with 65,000 words. Most of the romance novels I'm contracted to do are for 50,000 words, which seems to be a standard in e-publishing. I prefer to write novels that are not less than 60,000 words and this time I think I would have done a disservice to the reader if I'd skimped. Thankfully, publishers don't mind this. If writers go over a word count, they are usually fine with it.

Here's an unedited raw excerpt from the manuscript I just submitted. It's a dream/nightmare scene, where Luis dreams that he's been impregnated and he's acting as a surrogate. The stress Luis has been under, because Jase insists on building their family through surrogacy, has stressed Luis out so much he actually has nightmares about it.

When Luis opened his eyes again, he was standing in the kitchen at Cider Mill Farm in his bare feet in front of the sink. He was wearing something he would normally never wear, not even to work outside in the garden: a loose baggy T-shirt with a character from Sesame Street on the front and over-sized cut off jeans that had long strings hanging down to his knees. The T-shirt had stains and the jeans hung low on his waist. He glanced through the window and saw Isabelle and Mary sitting on the patio in white dresses, fanning themselves. Hunter was running around on the back lawn with a puppy Luis had never seen before. But it wasn’t a cute puppy. This one had green-gray patchy fur, bugged, lopsided eyes, ears that came down to his paws, and saliva dripping from his mouth. He pressed his palm to his torso and felt something peculiar. When he glanced down at his waist, he saw a huge mound that had to be at least forty-four inches round.

Jase came up from behind, looking sexier and better than he’d ever looked before. He reminded Luis of the young version of Jase he’d once met after he’d dreamed he went back in time to when Jase was eighteen years old.

Jase gave Luis a playful pat on the behind and said, “How’s my chubby little husband doing today? Did I tell you today how much I love all the cellulite on the backs of your legs?”

Luis’s jaw dropped. He pressed his palm to the huge mound that used to be his perfectly thin, flat waist, and said, “I’m not sure how I’m doing.” He remembered being in the clinic and having The Procedure, but nothing in between then and now.

“You’re looking hot this morning,” Jase said, as he grabbed Luis’s ass and squeezed it. “I love the way your ass got so big with this baby. It’s the biggest, fattest, hottest ass I’ve ever seen.”

Luis glanced down at his thighs and gulped. They seemed to have quadrupled in size, to the point where they would rub together if he started to walk. “Hot. You think this is hot. I look like a goddamn whale. My entire body is swollen, my feet are killing me, and there’s a strange, hideous animal creature running around outside with my son. Where did that dog come from? And where is Camp?”