Trials and Errors of a Video Pitch

I've been sending out a video query to agents in New York, friends in Hollywood and overseas. The response has been interesting, to say the least.

Some liked it, some didn't. The main thing is feedback.

Now I know what it needs and will go to work on revising it.

A video takes longer to create than an email or letter, but I feel it has more impact.

What I like is that they give the agent/producer/publisher, etc. a chance to see and hear about my work.

The scary part is that they have to look at me.

Maybe I'll just do audio queries instead.

Are Agents REALLY Needed Now?

I'm not going to make any friends with this, but the question must be asked. After all, I've seen how the internet has changed the music business. Why should the publishing biz be immune?

Now that all of us can communicate one on one, who needs a salesperson to tout your wares?

Sure, the agent is 'in place', whether that be NY, LA, London, etc. depending on whether you're selling a screenplay or novel. Yes, they have the contacts which you haven't developed, but did they grow up with these people or just hang out in the right colleges and bars?

Are the proper places to 'hang out' now Facebook, Twitter, or? I ask this, since the internet landscape changes quickly. Does anyone remember Myspace?

Does all the tweeting, blogging, etc. really get you published? Or is it who you know?

My personal experience with agents hasn't been good. I've driven across country to LA to hear a sales pitch about how my screenplay would be promoted to producers and directors. All I needed to do was come up with $2500. This was in 1992, so things have changed since then. Yet, isn't an agent really just another salesperson?

Now, you have to jump through hoops, apply all your skills to being a good pitch/query writer and hope that they like your blog. Sorry, I'm not here to spend half my time being a lap dog. If you don't like me or my work, OK. Get in line, there' s a long one. There are people who don't like Shakespeare either.

Yes, I know a good agent can help develop your work. They can find you a good editor or the people with special skills to help you.

A relevant story, short and pointed. I moved to Europe ten years ago, was told by a real estate agent that I couldn't buy a house until I rented an apartment for a year. This sounded like they wanted to control the situation and get a year's rent from me.

I hopped in the rental car, drove around town, found houses for sale. Called the listing agent, even though I didn't speak Dutch (still don't). They showed me their houses. I found one I liked and contacted a real estate lawyer. Got the contract written up, reviewed it, signed it and moved into the house.

So, no offense to the agents out there. I would LOVE to give you my business. My catalog of work grows each day. I write, but I don't spend hours on the internet, blogging, tweeting and generally getting nothing done. I leave that to those thrive on it.

Myself? I'm going to videos.

After all, if you get to be a published author, you have to make those personal appearances.

Just as long as they photograph me from my good side.

Communications, interrupted

I've been working, on the farm and writing projects. The "farm" includes car/equipment work, not to mention the typical farm activities.

Don't know if it's been the heat causing stress on the fruit and nut trees, but I've been having limbs break and even had our largest pecan tree split down one side, about one third of it cracked off and fell into the garden. Lots of firewood, but I hated to see the tree break apart like that.

As for the Great Agent Search. Just received an email from a friend in Australia. She complained of sending me emails for the past couple of weeks...and they were 'bounced' back to her.

If you're an agent and have had this happen, please resend. I really hate to send email after email to a person, in the hopes that the ISP or whatever is causing the problem gets their act together.

Otherwise, I'm gearing up for fun.

It's going to be a great Fall season!

Videos and the lack thereof

August? Who let this happen? I thought I would have about a dozen videos done and posted by now, but a variety of factors have slowed me and the process down this summer.

The heat we've had for the past three months hasn't helped much. It's either been scorching or raining. Getting hit with a major case of heat exhaustion didn't help either.

About the videos. The Baja Bug has been pushed back. I am going to clean up the 1935 BMW cabriolet and do a video on how it was abused by so-called 'car restoration' people. I have a 26 part TV series outlined for it. Anyone interested?

Video queries for my novel are going out to agents and publishers. It may not be the accepted thing to do, according to the rules driven agent application process, but the pace at which I receive or don't receive replies is glacial.

When I was in management, you answered an email that day, unless you had to provide info that required research, then it was usually within 48 hours. Waiting two months for an agent to tell me, "Sorry, not interested", if they answer at all, is an odd way to do business.

I have a feeling that the publishing business is about to go the way of the music business and many agents/managers/publishers will have to revamp their methods, as authors will turn to self-promotion to get their work before the public. The internet has turned the business model of more than one sector of the economy on it's head.

That said, I've taken a different stance as to my public persona. Too many people may have the wrong impression about me living out here in the hills of Tennessee. I'm not a complete hillbilly, more like a redneck peasant. Love living out here, away from all the traffic, noise, congestion, etc. of the big city.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being in NYC, LA, London, Paris, Brussels, Prague. I could go on with a long list of cities I either lived in or visited and their attractions. It's just that I get more work done in the solitude of the farm. There's a pile of work that I've done over the past 10 years that now needs to get out to the rest of the world.

Like I tell people brave enough to ride with me.

"Sit down, buckle up and please scream quietly...I don't like being distracted when I drive."

Agents of Change?

Having fun, sending emails to literary agents. Which seems to take forever.

Please bear with me, the Internet isn't as fast out here as it is in the cities. As I've mentioned before, I had better Internet access in the Netherlands, 10 years ago. Even my neighbors, who just moved here from Nashville, complain about the service. No, they're not on dial-up, cable's not available, so they're using satellite. Which is pretty slow out here.

Yesterday, heard Bob Edwards Weekend's final chapter of "The Future of Publishing" series. Which sounds like it's going to keep changing, now more rapidly then ever.

Wonder how it's going to affect literary agents?

Everyone in the publishing game is now having to deal with the Web. Twitter, blogs, e-books, websites, all things that didn't exist 10 years ago.

Is the best thing to have a daily video of you reading your book? A podcast for those who are driving or otherwise busy? Followed up by a link to your blog/website where a reader can download a PDF file of your lastest chapter? With a 'donate to the starving writer' button for that all important PayPal account?

Will the writer be able to directly access the reader, without the need for publishers, agents and managers?

Stay tuned, it's all changing.

Keep Trying

Spent the past 24 hours trying to get a partial out to an agent.

Everything is fighting it, my computer didn't want to run the word processing program. Fixed it, moved on to reformatting a correctly formatted document that turned into junk on it's own. It's not like I haven't run into this before.

When I worked in the Netherlands, sending tech manuals halfway around the world, you wouldn't believe the way things would print out at the receiving end. That's why I check what I've done before sending it. Even then, it seems like there is some type of problem.

Today, ready to send the partial to the agent, went to another computer, where DSL/high speed is available. Now, I can get on my blog...but I can't get on my email to send them the partial!

To compound this, earlier I called their office, to clarify a couple of questions I had about the submission. Sent to voice mail, haven't heard back. Can't check my email to see if they answered my questions that way.

Are we having fun yet?

Doesn't matter, I don't stop.

Maybe my email server is having a problem.

Either way, I'll get the partial out.

If you're the agent in question, have mercy and a bit of patience, please.

What's that saying? 'That which doesn't kill me, makes me stronger!'

The Sweet Taste of Rejection

Oh, the joy!

Query emails going out, rejections now starting to roll in. Most people would be depressed, upset, angry. WHY?

You have to get rejected to be accepted. When I sold BMWs and Volvos for a living, I learned about sales averages. At that time, you had to talk to about 100 people to sell 1 car. At the dealership I worked at, you were expected to sell at least 10-15 cars a month. Anything less and it was talk with the sales manager time.

Try sending out 1,000 to 1,500 queries a month. You can see why car salesmen spend so much time at the dealership. Now, if you had the same rate of return, you'd have 10-15 agents interested in your 'product' at the end of the month.

Throw in the fact that you're not selling a known product. Raise the return rate to about 200 to 1 or higher. Yep, tough to sell a book.

You can't give up.

Me, I'm just getting started.

Persistence

Persistence, that great word which means you don't stop until you reach your goal.

Tenacity is part of my personality. I will stay on the book, project, job, whatever, until it's done. Why stop? There's nothing more aggravating than a unfinished project lying around.

Which leads to the frustrating part of being a writer. The real work comes after I write the story. Then I have to find an agent or publisher.

I've sent out the query letter.

Now comes the hard part, waiting for the reply.

Your Efforts May Be In Vain

OK, few hours since the last blog.

Agent Query email results?

No change.

Send the test email. Reformats itself to look as if I am unable to insert page breaks, etc.

Which I did, but they get stripped out when sent through the ISP server or maybe the virus hunter?

I am not having fun now.

Decided to go ahead, send the email to an agent. May she be merciful on my efforts.

After all, life out here in the 'rural areas' of America doesn't include the wonders of cable, DSL or high-speed internet of any type. Unless you want to spend the big bucks on satellite, which works at a less than satisfactory level. Just ask my neighbors, who have used it and then quit it.

Ah, but the views are sublime and the wonders of nature abound.

Yes, I LOVE NY and LA.

But it's hard to take this old boy out of the country.

So, dear agent, please be gentle
If rejection be thy choice
I shall suffer no remorse
For I have done my best

How Many Ways Can I Write This?

Dear Agent,

Have I told you about my book?

Yes, I know this isn't the way to do it, but my angst is now overwhelming my restraint.

Spent the better part of the morning, rewriting my basic email query. Went out, chopped some wood for the wood burner. Got cleaned up and got on the Internet.

Enjoyed the nerve wracking experience of putting my carefully crafted query into an email, then checked it.

Yep, all that time spent putting page breaks, correct spacing, page numbers on the query, wasted. Down the tubes. Repair the damage and try again. Send the email to myself.

Haven't looked at it yet.

Afraid of what I'll find.

So, Dear Agent, you might not get the query until tomorrow.

For My Next Act...

Yeah, a couple of weeks, I'll be back.

How about just shy of a year, by a couple of weeks?

That's the thrills, chills and headaches of writing, researching, editing and rewriting a novel.

It doesn't help when the agents/publishers decide that anything over 125,000 words is too long. I was at 136,000 words when I got the news by reading the blogosphere.

Back to cutting, rewriting, restructuring the book. I'm not complaining, because I'm convinced it improved the book, immensely.

Now it's time to find an agent. Which, from what I've heard, is much harder work than writing the book.

Yes, I've started writing the next book.

It's what I do.

Literary Agents Search

If you write and want to be published or produced (in the case of film), then you know the biggest job is getting representation.

Believe it or not, over 100 years ago, agents didn't really exist. Writers contacted newspaper, magazine or book publishers about publication. You might get a deal to do an article or a contract, if there was a series involved.

Now you have agents who specialize. Some won't touch poetry, others screenplays. I can understand this, as the literary world is now much more complex than in the days of Mark Twain.

Which is OK, if you're a writer who only works in a specific format or genre.

I like to work in all forms of word and story construction. Whether it's Haiku, poetry, short stories, novellas, screenplays or novels, I've written them all. Blogs, websites and tech manuals can now be added to the resume.

No matter what you write, finding an agent you can work with is of supreme importance. I've never pushed myself to get an agent, until now. It's a time consuming process, but one which, if done right, can result in a long-term relationship.

Actually, it's more of a team than a one-on-one relationship. After all, you have the writer, the agent, the editor and the publisher/producer.

Having a Muse is optional.

I'm ready to find and work with an 'A-Team'.

Have Muse, will travel.

Cut to the Chase...Agents and Rewrites

There won't be a follow-up post about the fire down the road. It would take too much space. The 'blog post' I wrote about it came in around 3,000 words. More a short story than a blog post.

Too much to do, getting ready for Spring planting. Already have some things done, but need to get more seed beds started and the garden ready. Plan on putting in a new orchard, mainly plum trees, but may try to add a few pear trees.

The 'to do' list at the shop is more a 'to do catalogue'. I'm still engineering the dump truck tailgate. This is not your usual tailgate. It's going to both tilt and swing open. It's a real workout to move the 40x92 inch tailgate around to make things fit and work correctly. Who needs time in the gym?

The novel rewrite is progressing, if that's a proper term for my slogging through mud pace. I'm now at the same spot I was back in January, before I lost the file. Time to put my foot down and increase speed.

Agents? Still reading blogs and doing research. If you're interested in representing me, don't hesitate to contact me.

Like any good gambler will tell you, "You can't win, if you don't play."

Place your bets!

Agents of Change, Literary and Other

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted, haven't stopped writing, just didn't find time to post stuff here. My apologies to whoever might be reading this blog.

Last half of November was descent into hell. Neighbor shot a deer, which I didn't think would happen. I had committed to helping get it out of the woods and gutting it.

Since I never expected her to shoot one, I didn't think that I would be making like a M*A*S*H* field hospital surgeon and wind up dissecting Bambi's brother in the middle of a hay field. Yes, it's bloody and yes, it's a very long post. The squeamish should not read it. I'll post a warning before and after the post is put up, later this week.

Then my other neighbor died. This wasn't unexpected, just happened sooner than most thought, as his cancer spread rapidly, in weeks rather than months as the doctors had predicted. Watching the actions of his grown children, grand-kids and other relatives was enlightening to say the least. I'll try to keep from being too acidic in my comments.

The most important thing has been my sending out emails to literary agents, trying to get one to promote my books, screenplays, songs and poems. I usually don't mention all of these types of the written word when sending a query email. Everyone is a specialist these days and there are certain agents that don't represent screenplays, others that don't touch poetry, etc.

My take on that is that they are all forms of expression. Even if you aren't good at one and excellent at another, there is nothing wrong with working on your weak point to build it up and strengthen it.

Too many people write, in the hopes of being famous and making money. I write because I love it.