Brenda Sturgis reports on the top literary agents for selling picture books in this recent post. Let’s talk about this report.

Top Literary Agents for Picture Books

Self Reported Statistics. The statistics for Sturgis’s report was compiled from reported sales on Publisher’s Marketplace. This is a big caution because sales on PM self-reported. I know from talking to friends that their agents (some of those listed in the report) have had sales, but they weren’t reported on PM. In other words, agents select the sales to report and tend to report only the “hot” sales or the “big” sales. Sales to smaller houses or those without large advances tend to be under-reported.

Top Picture Book Agent. No surprise: Brenda Bowen, former editor and editorial director of various imprints during her time is the top selling agent of picture books with nineteen reported deals. (Read her blog; her agency.) She is very selective in her clients, because she can be. Her industry contacts makes her network amazing and she’s working it apparently.

19 down to 3. While Bowen has 19 reported deals, number 20 on the list, Stephen Chudney only reported 3 deals in the last year. If this holds true, then an agent who sells 2-3 picture book deals per year is doing a stellar job.

But again, remember, this is based on SELF-REPORTED DEALS. We really don’t know how valid these statistics are. And, overall the top twenty agents for picture book deals reported 119 total sales. Those will probably be some of the top picture books published in the nest few years.

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I’ve been researching book trailers (software, how to, best practices, options, etc) in anticipation of doing a how-to ebook. Once again, it’s apparent to me that we must be able to describe a novel in one sentence.

Elevator Pitches and Book Trailers

You’ve heard that the one-sentence elevator pitch is the standard tool for getting interest in your story. You need a hook that shows how unusual your story is, a hook that has an emotional tug, a hook that makes your story irresistible.

Book trailers need the same kind of hook. You have a minute, give or take, to present a multi-media version of the elevator pitch. Really – the only difference is that it’s multi-media: images & text, voice/music/sound effects.

Log your Story.One suggestion for developing a concept for a MOVIE trailer is to “log” the movie, or to watch it and jot down brief descriptions of important scenes, bits of dialogue that reveal character conflict and emotion, dialogue or images that reveal theme. Once you’ve logged the movie, then you analyze and extract just the bits needed to pitch the movie in a trailer.

I tried this in my novel, The Wayfinder, and found that the theme is contained in such a small amount of direct dialogue, description, action or exposition. Yet, the theme is an important element to work into a pitch.

Yeah, I know, I’m mixing up movie trailers, book trailers, elevator pitches and the theme of your story. But they all relate to the idea that we must describe our stories in truncated, incomplete, enticing tidbits. One sentence. A 30-second video.

In fact, it’s what we practice all along. The theme of your novel is delicately woven into the story with just a few hints, a bit of dialogue, a turn of phrase. You know how to do this already.

Log Your Novel. Log your novel, then mine it for those places you’ve already done it; then use those gems to craft a short, but compelling hook for your novel.

NOTE: Look for an eBook about book trailers later in the summer! While I’m researching – I’m looking for input about what you want to know about trailers. Please leave a comment.

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Why Would Anyone Choose Rejection?

Is rejection your goal? No, of course not. You and I both want to succeed, to have a manuscript accepted and to sell thousands of books.

When you apply for jobs, though, especially in today’s economy, you may need to send out 20, 30, 50 resumes before you find the right job.

It’s the same for submissions. You must have the right manuscript with the right editor at the right time. So many things could go wrong: you may have the right editor and right time, but you haven’t finished the right manuscript or you just sold it elsewhere.

You may have the right manuscript and the right editor, but–maybe the editor is moving to a different house next month, or maybe s/he just bought a similar project. That means yours showed up at the wrong time.

The variations on the possible scenarios are endless, of course, but the bottom line is that a little luck is involved. And the way to increase your odds is to send out targeted, appropriate submissions, enough to collect a few rejection slips.

For some writers, it is a good goal to get 20 rejections before the end of this year. Yes, 20. Or more.

It means you are submitting, looking for the right combination of circumstances to make that sale. You want your book to be published well, not just published. You want excitement, enthusiasm, joy. And the best way to find that may be by sending it to 19 places that reject it, and a 20th who accepts it.

Go on. Get rejected a lot this year!

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How to Write a Query Letter

I’m attending a retreat this weekend and we are supposed to bring a query letter for critique. In preparation, I’ve read a variety of articles about “how to write a successful query letter” and found the best available on the internet today.

Basics

1. How to Write a Query A classic 3-paragraph query letter. Great examples of hooks.





2. How to Write a Query Letter Great list of Do-Nots and a good sample query included.
3. How to Write a Successful Query. Covers the essentials, plus Hooks to Avoid.
4. Rites of Submission: Cover Letters and Query Letters. Details the differences and similarities between cover and query letters.
5. Tara K. Harper, FAQ: Query Letters Reminder to consider the audience (publisher, editor, or agent) and the type of manuscript you have written (novel, magazine piece, etc.)
6. How to write a query letter. With only 25 words for each major section of a query letter, this one gives you a solid skeleton for your query.
7. Stepping Onto the Query-Go-Round, pt. 1: Content First of a 4-part series on query letters, including a successful letter, notes on tracking queries and more.
8. What’s NOT a Query Letter. Send out these queries at your own risk.
9. How to Write a Great Query Letter: Inside Tips & Techniques for Success. FREE eBook from agent, Noah Lukeman, on the topic of queries.

Sample Query Letters

10. How To Query an Agent
11. How to Write a Great Query Letter: An Example that Worked. Example from a Scholastic Editor.
12. Sample Query Letter. An annotated sample query letter.
13. I’m All Done, Now What? Writing a Query Letter. A query letter is taken through several revisions.
14. The Complete Nobody’s Guide to Query Letters The query letter as a cold-call selling technique. Example of a successful query.
15. P&E: Sample Novel Query Letter. Basic annotations, but good.

Sending a Digital or Email Query Letter?

16. Query Letter Subject Lines: Act Now!! Get It While It Lasts!

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Twitter, Facebook, Good Reads and More

When and where should authors use social media? I recently read a blog post about how businesses are using social media. Here, I go through these 10 purposes and muse about how authors might use social media for the same reasons.

1. Win Real Fans.
   For children’s book authors, gaining thousands of fans seems to work best with teen audiences, not middle grade or picture book audiences. But if you concentrate on educators, you might have a chance to gain real fans. Perhaps this is also easier for a publisher’s fan page, because there are a variety of books, not just a couple like on an author’s page. Still, it’s a real goal and one you might want to concentrate on.
2. New Way of Thinking for a Direct Response Pro
   This comes from a business person who is used to doing direct mailings and social media moved him into a different way of communicating with his audience. This advice is to basically re-purpose your communication to fit a variety of media. Certainly, authors can write blogs, speeches, twitter posts, fan pages and re-use ideas and copy. I’m also paying attention to links that I add to a posting. For example, the post about my new book, Prairie Storms, included links to the publisher’s submission information and information on the publisher’s grant programs for schools. When I posted on mailing lists that the article was up on my site, I emphasized the different links for the different audiences. Think about how communication can be used in a variety of ways.
3. Long-term relationships versus short-term profits
   This is an easy one for authors. We want long-term relationships with people who are interested in the stories we write, the passions that fill our days and our books. Those relationships may result in sales; but we also care about deep conversations about our passions, speaking engagements, connecting with kids, learning more about our craft and so on. Relationships – YOU – are important to me!
4. Virtual Tupperware Party
   This was an interesting idea, that you could develop a group of people who would support your efforts. For the business, it meant the “tupperware salesman” would get special discounts, products, etc. which they could share with friends at specified times. “. . .they could simply become discount agents for their friends. Somebody who all their friends know can get good deals on specific products or services.” Not sure how an author could replicate this; but a publisher might be able to.
5. A Straightforward Sale
   Yes. An article or post or twitter or fan page – any of these might result in a straightforward sale. Online, you have three choices: sell from your site, links to your books that take a customer to an online bookstore, or links that point customers to local bookstores. Choose one and make sure you always implement it.



6. Find Out What Your Customers Want
   Again, for children’s book authors, it’s hard to use social media to find out what tweens and below want because they either aren’t online, or because their privacy must be strictly kept. For teens, educators, librarians and the general reading public, it might be easier. For example, I’m currently running a poll about what you might like to see in a book about book trailers. Take the one-minute poll.
7. Track Lead Generation
   Keep track of where your sales came from. This isn’t so straightforward for writers and authors, but I keep track of my speaking engagements this way, to see where the invitations come from. And social media has figured into it recently. Certainly, website traffic is easy to track and Twitter has increased my page views this year. Programs like HootSuite.com for Twitter allow you to even track specific links to see how many times someone follows a link to a particular posting.
8. Present Real Value
   This business person is emphasizing the need for real value in what you represent or sell. It downplays the importance of slick communication in favor or filling a need. This is actually encouraging for authors who don’t want to do lots of social media tasks. Instead, concentrate on writing the best novel or story or nonfiction book you can.
9. Lead Generation
   This business person is talking about directly enticing customers with giveaways, contests, sample chapters, etc. We’ve all see this work to some extent. In fact, Twitter seems to be a good way to announce these promotional efforts.
10. Social Media is About Awareness, not Revenue
    This business perspective says that the most important task of social media is name recognition, reputation, brand awareness. Certainly, an online presence can raise awareness of you and your work. This type of benefit is hard to measure, of course.

What is the purpose of your social media efforts? Something not listed here? Or a combination of these?

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Book Trailer Case Study: The Book of Spam

Some book trailers are sponsored and developed by the publisher; others are done entirely by the author. Witness this glorious book trailer by Dan Armstrong and Dustin Black about The Book of Spam: A Most Glorious and Definitive Compendium of the World’s Favorite Canned Meat. (Atria Books, 2007)

Description:
“What luncheon meat is found in over forty-five countries, available in ninety-nine percent of supemarkets and corner shops, and sells nearly eighty million pounds every year? It’s SPAM. From the 20,000-member SPAM Fan Club to Monty Python’s Broadway sensation SPAMalot, after seventy years of canned-meat greatness, SPAM has become a pop-culture sensation with a devout following, and The Book of Spam is its Bible.”

First and Second Campaigns

It doesn’t sound like a book that could inspire greatness in a book trailer. But the authors were committed to helping publicize and popularize their book, especially with online efforts. Their first offering was a song, “Theme from the Book of Spam.” It was followed by a series of humorous book trailers called The Pig Diaries, in which the pig is ignorant about all things MEAT. It’s a kitschy sort of trailer with plastic farm animals and humor that almost falls flat. By now, there were two websites: TheBookofSpam.com and ThePigDiaries.com

Third Campaign: Toastvertising

But Dan and Dustin weren’t finished. Enter Toastvertising.

Dan said, “We picked toast because of it’s close connection to SPAM. Plus it was a media that was unexplored in the world of animation. And it was downright delicious.”

The idea was to do an animated video using a series of pieces of toast; it’s much like a flip book, except the images are dark outlines made by laying a stencil over a piece of toast and torching it until the image is dark.

As you watch this clip, listen to the script. Play it several times, just listening to the script. The script is brilliant.
(YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYMmh_H3dJA )

Dan said, “I wrote the script and did the voice over and sound editing. Dustin built the set and flambeed each and every piece of toast. Once we had everything ready to go, the shoot took us about 10 hours. Dustin ran the still camera, I ran the toaster. His sister was nice enough to go get us lunch.”

A ten hour day, 9 days of toast smell, 13 loaves of bread, 220 pieces of bread, a $10 toaster, 9″ of snow outside, bright light inside–it’s a long hard day, but look at what they had at the end, a 1 minute, 11 second piece of Toastvertising, which is, of course, featured on its own website.Even more fun than the Toastvertising trailer is the trailer about making the Toastvertising trailer.
(YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK5LpsL7eJQ)

By the end, they had done a song, computer wallpaper, three websites, and The Book of Spam Blog. And they had snagged a great special sales: The book was featured on the Spam can and Hormel was making The Book of Spam available through a special promotion.

Lessons to Learn

• Make book trailers part of your overall plan of publicity. You can’t rely just on a book trailer to create a demand for a book, but it can help.
• Don’t give up. Be willing to do two, three or more “campaigns.” This third campaign for The Book of Spam was the most successful, earning it a mention in Publisher’s Weekly.
• The most successful trailers start with a great concept: animation with toast was quirky and appropriate. Followed with great execution, it was a winning book trailer.

Dan said, “Our advice to an author that wants to do this themselves is “yes.” They should do it. Promoting your own book is the only sure-fire way to get it done. To your publisher, you are merely one of hundreds of books they’re thinking about and promoting. With the age of the internet, you don’t need tons of cash invested in traditional advertising. Do something that gets noticed for cheap. It’s a win-win for everybody. The book got exposure. We had fun making it. And our publisher saw that we had mad fresh marketing skills.”

POLL: Would you like to see in a book about book trailers?

This poll is to find out what you would want to read about in a book about book trailers. It will run from March 22 to April 22. Please leave comments with any other suggestions. Privacy: We will not store or use any private information.
(For those who read this by email, you can find the poll here: http://www.darcypattison.com/marketing/book-trailers/)
[poll id="5"]

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Tips for Skype Author Visit: Be Prepared

Before I did my first Skype Author Visit today, with a school in Arlington, VA, I went through several fine-tunings of my setup. These are all small tweaks, but I felt like they were important to let me relax and enjoy the presentation.

Turn Your Office into a Video Studio

Lighting. My office is a dark attic, perfect for writing, but not good at all for a video studio. Looking around for tutorials on lighting for video shoots, I saw that it was important to have three types of lights.

Main light at about 2 o’clock to light one side of the face. It needs to be strong enough to light up your face without glare. Because I have an attic office, I just use a shop light and bounce it off the nearby ceiling.

The main light is about 2 o'clock from my face, bouncing off the ceiling.

The secondary light just bounced light onto the opposite cheek.

Camera. With the lights in place check the camera settings.

• Tilt. Is it capturing your full face? I also position the screen showing small shot of myself as near the camera as possible, so I am mostly looking at the camera.
• Reverse Image. I also found it better to reverse or flip the image that I’m seeing of myself. That way, if I reach up to touch my hair, it looks right to me.
• Zoom. Zoom in or out until you get a shoulder shot. I like it zoomed out enough so you can easily see my gestures, because I talk a lot with my hands. It also gives a small window into my office and sometimes, I got questions about my unabridged dictionary which is on a book shelf behind me.
• Color balance.
  • Set the white balance first.
    Click on Auto-focus on the white balance. Hold your foam core or other white object about where you’ll be seated. Let the auto-settings work. Then, click OFF the auto-focus, forcing it to stay at that setting. My office has windows, so I do this check each time I do a video, to allow for differences in light coming from the windows.
  • Then set brightness, contrast and color balance to your liking. I like to balance the color closer to the b/w side, so it’s not glaring.

Turn Yourself into a Movie Star

Make-up. With 3-4x the light, you’ll need makeup. I’m a minimal make-up person, but I’ve found that it helps to pay attention to my eyes and to add a bright red shade of lipstick. This helps make me stand out.
Also, if you tend to have dark circles under your eyes, adjust the lighting to avoid this, and use a yellow-toned concealer, or look for something like Ooh La Lift , which lightens this area. Use the screen capture function of the camera to take shots of yourself for comparison

Clothes. Test a couple colors and styles of clothing. Use the webcam to take a series of pictures for comparison.

Triple Check All Equipment

Once you have the lighting, makeup and clothes right, test your microphone using Skype’s call service. Finally, try a test call with a school a day or so before the real thing to make sure that all equipment is functioning on both sides. I like it if any face-tracking software is turned OFF during the visit. Face-tracking tries to find a face and focus on it; but with a classroom or even just a couple people, it tends to move from face to face and I find this distracting.

Lights, Camera, Action!

10 Minutes Before.

• Last equipment test. About ten minutes before, test your equipment one last time.
• Props. Gather all your books as props, and any other props you plan to use (I forgot to do this on the first Q&A, but made a beeline for the books before the second).


Make sure you have your props nearby. Water, too.

• Review purpose and audience. Make sure you know the age of the audience and what type presentation you are being asked to do and make sure you’re ready for that. For example, you might have sent ahead a handout for the kids, or perhaps a Powerpoint which they will show at the same time they show your video feed.
• Water. Also, if you need it, set a cup of water beside your computer/camera set up.
• Minimize disturbances. Turn your phone off or to vibrate and warn anyone else around that you’re doing a video, so they’ll stay out of your “video production room,” or at least enter quietly.
• Expect technical problems. Be read for technical difficulties by becoming familiar with the camera, microphone and Skype settings. For example, in my test visit, I talked only to the teacher. But in the real visit, she turned up the speakers so everyone in her library could hear, resulting in feedback. We had to play around with the sound on both sides to find a comfortable level which was easy to hear, but avoided feedback.

Action.
Once the Skype visits starts:

• RELAX. Just have fun. You’ve done all the setup work, so you don’t stress in the middle of the session, so now be confident, relaxed. If kids are coming into the room, wave at them and say, “Hi.” Do whatever kinds of interaction you would normally do before and during an author visit.
• Consider the Technology. Talk slowly, allowing for the slight lag time of Skype.
• Focus on audience. Focus on the students and meeting their needs: If a student has a question, ask that they come up close to the camera to ask their question. Answer questions simply and clearly. Ask them for follow-up questions. It’s all about the kids.
• Look at the camera. Remember to look AT THE CAMERA, not down at the computer screen where your image and their image are displayed. Looking at the camera will make it appear that you are making eye contact and that’s important for any speaker. To make this more natural, it helps to maximize their video feed, making it fill the screen. If possible, move the smaller image of yourself near the camera, so you can see it from the corner of your eye. But whatever you do, make yourself look AT THE CAMERA. It was one of the hardest things to do today.
• Multiple presentations on one day. If you are doing several presentations, common for short Q&A sessions, hang up and have them call back in between. This allows you time to take a bathroom break, reapply lipstick, check email, Twitter just once (Okay, twice – it’s short), and just relax a few minutes. But be sure you’re back in the room, ready for the next session.
• Very Important: Touch NOTHING on the camera or Skype settings in between sessions. This is NOT the time to tweak things, unless you absolutely have to. If you DO tweak, call back five minutes early to reconfirm that everything is working right. I looked at possible Avatars and either I did something or the librarian did something to settings and somehow, I missed the second call.
• Tip: You’ll get an Orange Pop-up Box from Skype to tell you when the other party is Online. You can expect the call shortly after that. If you don’t get the call on time, call them: there may be some technical difficulty going on.

I’m a fast learner. The first Q&A, I felt too stiff; the second Q&A lasted only a few minutes because of technical difficulties. But by the third, I was starting to feel comfortable and like this method of connecting with readers. I hope to do it again, soon.

To the students at SMS: Thanks! You had some great questions!

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Connect with Authors Through Skype

One site that quickly gained popularity this year is the Skype an Author, a Wetpaint site, billed at the key to Virtual Author Visits in Your Library or Classroom. Set up by Sarah Chauncey of the Grandview Elementary School Library in Rockland County, NY schools and author Mona Kirby, it is getting attention from many sources, including the School Library Journal.

The site allows authors to set up pages describing their books and how they might do a Skype visit. Skype is the online audio/video free phone service; a Skype visits allows an author to see students and students to see the author.

Authors are asked to do one of two types of Skype visits:

• No Charge – Meet the Author Visit – 10 to 15 minutes
• In-Depth Visit – 30-60 Minutes – Charge to be determined by author

Why Should you Want to Skype?

(See what Catherine Balkin said in yesterday’s post. )

Set Up Your Page

I recently updated the Darcy Pattison page on the Skype an Author site.

Here are some tips:

Set up your Webcam

One final thing you’ll want to do before going live with the Skype an Author site is to test out your Skype/Webcam set up. I discovered, for example, that the lighting in my office is great for doing work on the computer, but awful for doubling as a video studio. Here is one videos to get you started on simple lighting. Look for other tutorials.

How to Apply Simple 3-Point Lighting to Amateur Film Making

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Online Author Chats – A New Learning Experience

Guest Post by Catherine Balkin

Author Appearances Down. I’ve been arranging author appearances in schools and libraries for about 20 years and, a few months ago, I was sitting at my desk, lamenting their recent slump. With the economic downturn, school and library budgets have been cut right and left, and fewer and fewer authors are being asked to visit schools, libraries, and university events. My little business was – and still is – suffering because of it. So are many of the authors and artists I represent.

Online Chats an Alternative to School Visit? Then a school teacher called and asked me about arranging an online chat with an author using Skype or iChat. At the time, it was a new idea and I decided to explore it. I started asking authors if they would be interested in doing them, and many of them loved the idea. I talked to other schools – many schools, in fact – to find out what they could afford for honorariums. Everyone I talked to liked the idea of online chats. The schools liked the idea of not having to pay travel and hotel expenses, and the authors liked the idea of fewer travel hassles. And because there was no need to travel, the authors were willing to charge less. The more research I did, the better online chats began to sound.

Problems with Setting up an Online Chat. Okay, a couple of snags presented themselves. Some school districts won’t allow access to free programs like Skype or iChat, fearing viruses. But enterprising teachers can use their own laptops or go to a public library or other public places that offer access to computers and the internet. And sometimes the images on the screen aren’t as sharp as we would like or there are time lags during a session – but a good computer makes a big difference with snags like these. They were definitely not obstacles that couldn’t be overcome.

Making Author Online Chats Work

So to help spread the good news that there was an affordable way to bring authors and artists and students together, I decided to raffle off online author chats. This raffle has been teaching me even more about the process and most of the raffled off chats haven’t even been held yet.

• One winner still working on the scheduling end of things teaches an online graduate course to library students all over the country, and she told me she plans to use either Skype’s conference call feature or Adobe Connect.
• Another snag that had been worrying me was the fact that the number of students the author could reach during a chat was limited to the number that could crowd around the computer monitor, but a conference online chat solves that nicely.

  The solution came from another winner – an elementary school teacher, who told me she plans to project what’s on the computer monitor onto a large screen using an ActivBoard so the whole grade level can participate.

This raffle has been – and is still in the process of being – a great learning experience. They certainly offer an alternative solution to budget minded schools. In these uncertain economic times, they are a brand new educational tool and a whole new way for teachers to present literature to students. And they allow us a way to continue to bring readers and writers together.

I have no doubt that I will do more raffles for selected authors and artists from time to time, especially when I add new authors and artists to the Balkin Buddies online list, so anyone who wants to drop his or her name into the future raffles hat, please feel free to contact me through the Balkin Buddies website . I also hope you browse through the site from time to time because I’ll be adding more information as I learn it.

Like author visits to schools, online chats are already proving to be a great way to connect kids in a very personal way to the books they read.

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For several years, we hosted high-school exchange students in our home. The surprising thing was the ongoing friendships that continued for many years. One European family, in particular, have been friends and it’s interesting to see the students finish college and begin careers. The son, especially, has an interesting attitude: he wants to be flexible enough to go where he needs to get a good job.

His girlfriend/fiance/now wife went to Scotland for experience in the hospitality industry; he went to Germany to learn that language and culture, then worked for a while in Russia. They were considering work in Australia.

In today’s economy, writers need to be flexible.This year, I’m taking risks, trying to break out of the slump forced by the economy.

• I’m trying new genres. I’ve tried at least three new genres this year and plan to play around with a couple more to see if I can find new markets.
• I’m trying to reach new people. I’m attending different conferences than I’ve ever done before, to meet new people in the industry and see if something will click.
• I’m triple-checking resources, looking for markets. What have I overlooked before? Where can I plug in that I’ve over-looked?
• I’m looking at my life circumstances and thinking about how it affects my work. What have I avoided because of other concerns, such as family? Am I in the same place or could I now consider those things? What have I always accepted because it fit my life – but maybe I no longer need to accept?
• I’m appreciating the writing outlets I do have and trying to serve them better. What are the editor’s needs? How can I make their life easy by giving them EXACTLY what they need?

Articles, books, bylines – here I come!

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