4 ms·

The example Derek uses in this post about looking for a booking agent reminds me of an anecdote he told several years ago (as I recall, it was part of a speech

by Kuiper 9y ago

The example Derek uses in this post about looking for a booking agent reminds me of an anecdote he told several years ago (as I recall, it was part of a speech or a Q&A he did at Berklee College of Music) about how he went about reverse engineering the process for getting into Rolling Stone -- he phoned Rolling Stone masquerading as someone working for a label trying to find a new publicist, and asked if they had any recommendations. From this he got a list of publicists that Rolling Stone liked, which were the publicists who were most likely to be capable of getting him written up in Rolling Stone. I actually put a version of this into practice several years ago when I was a looking at how to break into the world of trade publishing -- I had a manuscript for a fantasy novel, and decided my ideal outcome was to get published by Tor (a name that appeared on the spine of many of my favorite fantasy novels growing up). I went to the bookstore and compiled a list of books that had Tor's name on the spine, then went through the books and identified the ones that were most similar to my own manuscript in terms of subject matter/tone, length, and target demographic. Then I opened each book, flipped to the "acknowledgments" section, where most authors take the time to thank their agent. This game me a list of agents who A) represented books similar to mine, and B) had successfully sold books to Tor. I think the lesson is that if you don't know the specific way forward, it's often as simple as starting at the goal and working your way backward -- want to know which publicists are on good terms with Rolling Stone? Ask Rolling Stone. Want to find out which agents have sold books to a specific publisher? Grab some books by that publisher and open them up.

crdoconnor 9y ago
>I think the lesson is that if you don't know the specific way forward, it's often as simple as starting at the goal and working your way backward This is kind of how behavior and test driven development works too.
sivers 9y ago
Great example, reading the acknowledgements. The Rolling Stone story is here at “Call the destination, and ask for directions” : https://sivers.org/destdir https://sivers.org/destdir
aidenn0 9y ago
Did you ever get the novel published?
- Kuiper 9y ago
  That book remains unsold, mainly for lack of trying on my part -- around the time that I was ready to start sending out query letters, I landed some contract work working on visual novels. Getting my first contract involved spending a week or so assembling a writing portfolio to satisfy the company I was applying to, and once I had that portfolio, I started sending it off to any visual novel company that posted a classified seeking contract writers, with a pretty high success rate. (My portfolio started as a collection of ~5 writing samples; with each opening that I applied to, I would pick out the 3-4 writing samples which seemed most relevant to the position I was applying for and just send those. Each job I completed gave me another writing sample to add to the portfolio, and the longer I kept working in the visual novel space, the more specific I could get with tailoring my writing samples to the positions I was applying for, so the result was sort of this "snowball" effect where success beget more success.) Once I had my foot in the door, my inertia continued to carry me forward from gig to gig, and visual novel work eventually became my main source of income (I quit my "day job" back in 2016). Having a steady supply of contract work kind of sapped my motivation to continue doing any writing on spec; the appeal of toiling away privately on a novel with the hopes that it will one day get published becomes a lot less attractive when you have offers from people who are willing to pay you to write right now. Once the contract work started, I also sort of rationalized procrastinating on sending out query letters for my unsold novel with the reasoning that my query letters would be a lot more impressive when I could start them with a paragraph listing the visual novels I'd worked on as a contractor, along with information about the number of copies they'd sold. That being said, although I never sold that novel, the time I spent working on it certainly wasn't wasted -- most of my early gigs in the visual novel space came as a direct result of the strength of my portfolio, which included parts of the original manuscript. So, while I didn't sell the manuscript, it did help with the first few critical steps of my writing career. In an interesting quirk of fate, the editor that I'm working with for one of my current visual novel projects is also a senior editor at Tor, so despite never sending out those query letters, I somehow managed to stumble my way into a working relationship with someone at the publisher. Perhaps the moral of this story is that all roads lead to Tor. :)

by Kuiper 9y ago

crdoconnor 9y ago

>I think the lesson is that if you don't know the specific way forward, it's often as simple as starting at the goal and working your way backward This is kind of how behavior and test driven development works too.

sivers 9y ago

Great example, reading the acknowledgements. The Rolling Stone story is here at “Call the destination, and ask for directions” : https://sivers.org/destdir https://sivers.org/destdir

aidenn0 9y ago

Did you ever get the novel published?

Kuiper 9y ago
That book remains unsold, mainly for lack of trying on my part -- around the time that I was ready to start sending out query letters, I landed some contract work working on visual novels. Getting my first contract involved spending a week or so assembling a writing portfolio to satisfy the company I was applying to, and once I had that portfolio, I started sending it off to any visual novel company that posted a classified seeking contract writers, with a pretty high success rate. (My portfolio started as a collection of ~5 writing samples; with each opening that I applied to, I would pick out the 3-4 writing samples which seemed most relevant to the position I was applying for and just send those. Each job I completed gave me another writing sample to add to the portfolio, and the longer I kept working in the visual novel space, the more specific I could get with tailoring my writing samples to the positions I was applying for, so the result was sort of this "snowball" effect where success beget more success.) Once I had my foot in the door, my inertia continued to carry me forward from gig to gig, and visual novel work eventually became my main source of income (I quit my "day job" back in 2016). Having a steady supply of contract work kind of sapped my motivation to continue doing any writing on spec; the appeal of toiling away privately on a novel with the hopes that it will one day get published becomes a lot less attractive when you have offers from people who are willing to pay you to write right now. Once the contract work started, I also sort of rationalized procrastinating on sending out query letters for my unsold novel with the reasoning that my query letters would be a lot more impressive when I could start them with a paragraph listing the visual novels I'd worked on as a contractor, along with information about the number of copies they'd sold. That being said, although I never sold that novel, the time I spent working on it certainly wasn't wasted -- most of my early gigs in the visual novel space came as a direct result of the strength of my portfolio, which included parts of the original manuscript. So, while I didn't sell the manuscript, it did help with the first few critical steps of my writing career. In an interesting quirk of fate, the editor that I'm working with for one of my current visual novel projects is also a senior editor at Tor, so despite never sending out those query letters, I somehow managed to stumble my way into a working relationship with someone at the publisher. Perhaps the moral of this story is that all roads lead to Tor. :)