This week is all about the submission and review process. First, a panel on manuscript lengths with author/TRF editorial associate Amanda Sun and columnist, author and Dundurn Press editor, Russell Smith, moderated by TRF's own Kathryn Willms. Newly-minted agent Jennifer Chevais gives her tips on crafting a logline for your project, and in our final panel convo for the season, agent Stacey Kondla, author Kalena Miller, and former Wise Wolf Publisher Rachel Del Grosso discuss how far into a submission one reads, moderated by Sam Hiyate.
This week is all about the submission and review process. First, a panel on manuscript lengths with author/TRF editorial associate Amanda Sun and columnist, author and Dundurn Press editor, Russell Smith, moderated by TRF's own Kathryn Willms. Newly-minted agent Jennifer Chevais gives her tips on crafting a logline for your project, and in our final panel convo for the season, agent Stacey Kondla, author Kalena Miller, and former Wise Wolf Publisher Rachel Del Grosso discuss how far into a submission one reads, moderated by Sam Hiyate.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to season two, episode five of Agent Provocateur. Today on the show we examine the question every writer dares not ask-- how far into your work do agents and editors read before they pick up the phone and call you? Okay, that's your fantasy-- or probably more realistically, they just stop and move on.
Kalena Miller:You-- you drop in the opposite direction. Like there's no way they're ever gonna read my book. They have 30 million books that they're reading...
Sam Hiyate:Assistant agent Jennifer Chevais gives us some tips on crafting a great logline...
Jennifer Chevais:You've got one sentence to get to your story's essence. Make every word count.
Sam Hiyate:But first, agent Kathryn Willms hosts a panel tackling a weighty issue. Is manuscript word count simply a case of commerce or do specific stories need specific lengths? All that and more on today's Agent Provocateur.
Kathryn Willms:Hello, I'm Kathryn Willms and I'm an associate agent at The Rights Factory, and I'm really excited about today's panel. Today we convene to answer Cosmo magazine's favorite question: Does size matter? By which of course we mean book length. Word count is the topic of many conversations in this industry, between various combinations of agents, editors, writers, sales teams, and readers. And it's no surprise that recently it was a topic of discussion on Twitter and by discussion of course, I mean a low-key politely curious conversation. No, of course not. People had thought-- as do I-- this is a topic of which I have a lot of strongly held opinions that completely contradict each other. So I'm so pleased we have an excellent and multi-qualified panel to weigh in on what's the deal with word count. And what does our preoccupation with it say about our industry? Russell Smith is a novelist, a freelance journalist and cultural commentator, and a former Globe columnist and CBC radio host. He is now an acquiring editor of fiction and nonfiction at Dundurn Press. Hello R ussell.
Russell Smith:Hi.
Kathryn Willms:Amanda Sun is an author repped by Jabberwocky. She previously worked at Harlequin and now we're thrilled to have her on board as a TRF editorial associate. Welcome Amanda.
Amanda Sun:Hi, great to be here.
Kathryn Willms:So first let's get a quick on the ground report from a Twitter follower who stayed abreast of this whole conversation. Amanda, can you tell us what happened?
Amanda Sun:Absolutely. So as often happens, Twitter was alight with some discussion this past week, over of all things word count. It all started when an editor commented on how heartbreaking it is to receive a stellar submission that doesn't fall within the conventional word count, implying that on the basis of word count alone, it must be rejected. Some of Twitter was quick to object, saying a beautiful moving work should be beyond a specified word count, citing classics such as The Great Gatsby, which at 47,000 words comes in far under the conventional adult fiction range of 80 to a hundred thousand now. Others defended the word count ranges, saying after all this is a business and publishers need to not only afford to print the books, but produce works that readers will recognize and purchase. There are many hot takes, and I'm excited to hear what this panel thinks about this topic.
Kathryn Willms:Awesome. Thanks Amanda. So Russell, let's start with you. Where do you fall on this issue? How much does word count factor into your interest in a project?
Russell Smith:Well, first of all, I was completely unaware that it was an issue. I'm not on Twitter. I didn't know about this. The numbers that are being thrown around in that discussion, frankly, are completely foreign to my experience as an acquiring editor, and I'll go into detail about the numbers in a minute. But before I do, let me just say that I think it's really interesting to point out that the original editor who posted the comments that were controversial on Twitter, who was saying she would only look at, books that were, I think, between 80 and a hundred thousand words long-- which are numbers far longer than I would normally toss around actually-- that she's working, I looked her up, she's working entirely in genre fiction. So she's talking about romance, mystery, fantasy horror and science fiction and all the various combinations of those, where word length seems to be a part of the genre. And in literary fiction, we don't have such strict regulations at all.
Kathryn Willms:So Russell, I think that's a really interesting point. Amanda, as a writer, where does word count come into your writing process and is it affected by the genre in which you write?
Amanda Sun:Well you see, I hadn't really thought about that because I am a genre writer and also YA writer and word count is really crucial. I find that it's part of learning the process as you are wanting to be published, and you have to learn all the different conventions that you have to follow. There's, you know, reaching out to an agent-- they're not going to look at your project if it's 150,000 as a debut writer. And it's part of learning the ropes of what's expected of you and starting that separation from art as a project versus for itself or art that you want to then publish as a business. And so it's part of that sort of learned convention for me. It's also a very helpful guidepost to me when I'm writing, because you can sort of look at the word count, say, okay, I should be at this story beat. Now I should be wrapping things up here. And, so it can actually be a very useful tool. But I think it really says a lot about, do you understand, the conventions of the genre by the word count that you're submitting to your editor or to your agent,
Russell Smith:Which is really very much what I'm saying, because the word conventions there is crucial. Genre depends on conventions. And so, if you're trying to not worry about conventions-- or even to exclude them entirely-- then some of those considerations about word count, fall by the wayside. Do want to get into some nitty gritty? Like can we actually talk about numbers here?
Kathryn Willms:Go ahead.
Russell Smith:Okay. So, the editor who first started this conversation going, talking on Twitter, said, oh, she's also disappointed when she gets books c oming between 50 and 70,000 words long. She's talking novels, this is fiction we're talking about. Because they're too short. That made my eyes bug o ut o f my head because we are really for literary fiction in particular, I a m actually actively looking for around t he 60,000-word length and I would go as low as about 45. 45 is about our cutoff for how short it could be, which is a novella-length there. It would be hard for me to push past the accountant at my publishing house. A book that's so short, 45,000, because their conventional views that say that, people aren't going to be willing to shell out for a short book, because we have to charge almost as much for it as we do for a longer book and people are gonna feel t hat they're, ripped off. But I c ould make the case that it's a powerful work o f literature. It needs to be published and literary people will buy it regardless of the price-- and I can usually get that through. We're talking now though about publishing even shorter books, as an experiment, you know, in order in Ontario for an Ontario publisher to get the Ontario tax credit, which we need to publish a book, a book needs to be 48 pages long. And so technically it's possible. We're actually thinking about doing it. The editor who started this ball rolling said, Oh, she's looking for works that are up over a hundred thousand. My heart sinks, when I get a submission that's over a hundred thousand words, for fiction in particularly, biographies and journalistic nonfiction are a different question because they have to go into depth on subjects and they can be long. And honestly we're just about to publish a 700 page biography-- that's a work of scholarship, so it has to be that long. But for work of fiction, literary fiction, if it's something well over a hundred thousand words long, I'm immediately suspicious that there are bits in it that are repetitive and I'd be looking to cut them out. I'm skeptical before I even start.
Kathryn Willms:Right. And so would you call literary fiction a genre of its own, with its own conventions?
Russell Smith:No, I wouldn't. I would distinguish between literature and genre fiction because the very thing about genre fiction is it relies on, as Amanda said, convention. So it relies on certain tropes and certain expectations which must be met and-- the very-- and that's what defines all genre. And I would say that what defines literary fiction is that it does not belong to a genre.
Kathryn Willms:Yeah. So I think from an agent perspective, you know, I think in some ways I'm in between these two worlds a little bit, because, and so I'm signing a wide variety. I have authors, you know, that I've only ever seen three chapters of their work. I have authors who-- I have one author who's doubled the normal, conventional size of a manuscript that I've taken on. I have authors who are potential authors. They have not yet actually written anything that I'm, you know, sort of aligning myself with. Because I think they should write a book. So obviously it doesn't determine the acquisitions, but it's something I'm very conscious of when it comes to submissions to places like Dundurn and other places. I just don't want to put editors in position where they're going to say no. And I think a thing that I think we're agreeing on, Russell, is I'm also like if, if they're outside of sort of any sort of conventional word count, I want it to be a selling feature of the book, not a problem that you have to overlook. I want to be like, Look, it's 561,000 words and it's called War and Peace. And like, for it to live up to the billing, right? Like that's the-- you know-- that's a pitch. Or a very similar thing you could do for, you know, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which did you know, at 257,000 words, is longer than Moby Dick. So I did do my half-ass Internet research for this podcast. But the point is, I'm just going to say that, you know, for most project, you're not gonna do that. And I do think there's a lot of good reasons for that. Some of which you've already alluded to, Russell. So I guess maybe the next question I have, you know, are word count preferences intrinsic or extrinsic? Is it a question of outside forces like genre conventions, paper costs, production ramifications, or is it more of a personal preference or tied to the specific story? What do you think, Amanda?
Amanda Sun:Well, first I'd like to go back to what you said about Harry Potter-- the length of the word count there. That again is an established author starting to get away with more and more with each book and the same with The Song o f Ice a nd Fire. They get progressively longer because the audience is trusting, the people want the long book, they've proven themselves. It's the same idea as when you're-- you have to learn how to write first, and then you can break the rules. You have to prove that you know how to write first, within the established word count, I think, before you can start breaking the word count rules. And I think it's really true when it comes to acquisitions, or trying to find an agent. A lot of agents are going to dismiss you if you have a word count outside what's expected. And there's two reasons for that. One, they're going to think that you haven't learned what is expected of the genre. And the second is they're going to think maybe you don't know how to kill your darlings and cut down to what is really, truly, deserving to be in the story. And so that's going to cause a little bit of apprehension. Oh, is this writer somewhere in their writing path where I can work with them yet? So I think there is that sort of built in bias at first and you're saying, Well, I don't wanna miss anything, but there are a lot of automatic rejections that are happening, just right off the word count.
Russell Smith:Well, yeah, I think Amanda is absolutely right, that if someone is a very established author, I'm going to look at something of any word count. Somebody is an unpublished author I've never read before and they submit a 500,000 word manuscript, it's kind of a non-starter because the costs in printing that, would be so great that the risk, the financial risk, would be too great. And if the writer hasn't proven him or herself, then the risk is-- we just can't take it. So for me, yes, only with really really long books would I automatically dismiss something like that.
Kathryn Willms:I did some math for this podcast and, for, Atlas Shrugged is 562,000 words. So for a regular copyedit 1200 words per hour, at$40 an hour, it would take an editor 468 hours and they would charge$19,000 dollars for it. And I think that that is for one tiny bit of process. And I just think that sometimes authors are not always aware, like there's a sunk cost. It's like Bitcoin. Like it shouldn't be the primary issue, but it really does in fact becomes untenable at some point.
Russell Smith:I know an author who complains that editors always want him to write much longer than he likes to write. And I think we should tolerate the short, particularly in literary fiction, much more.
Amanda Sun:It's funny because that does happen to me in mine. I tend to turn in a shorter first draft and I do sometimes get a little bit of prejudice, saying, Oh, well, this isn't long enough for a fantasy. But part of my editing process is adding in that extra 20,000 or 30,000 words and seeing where I need to add more story. And I, for my writing, it works a lot better than having to cut large portions of writing. So I think everyone is different in that case.
Kathryn Willms:Yeah, I think I would definitely agree. You know, I think as an editor or as an agent often, you know, almost anything will benefit from cutting, and just crystallizes the ideas and you end up most often with a better work of art. So maybe you just quickly-- do you wish word count didn't matter? Any thoughts on that?
Russell Smith:I wish all economic considerations didn't matter.
Kathryn Willms:There you go.
Russell Smith:But unfortunately they do.
Amanda Sun:I think it's disingenuous to write a story to a certain word count just to fit in. It has to matter to the story at the end of the day and your readers will know if you're just adding things for the sake of adding or taking away, and not telling the whole story. It has to come across as genuine, but of course there's also, you know, no reason that you can't genuinely write within the word count.
Kathryn Willms:Thank you so much, everyone. It was a pleasure to discuss, book size with you all.
Amanda Sun:Thank you.
Russell Smith:Thank you.
Kathryn Willms:Thank you so much. That was Russell Smith, acquiring editor at Dundurn Press and Amanda Sun, author of the Paper God series.
Sam Hiyate:Loglines, borrowed from the film and TV world, are becoming more and more important in pitching books. Jennifer Chevais gives us five tips to make your loglines sing.
Jennifer Chevais:My name is Jennifer Chevais, assistant agent at The Rights Factory. And today I want to talk about loglines. Picture it, we're in the post-pandemic world. You're at a conference mingling, and you find yourself face-to-face with an agent or editor. If you're lucky, they'll ask you to pitch them your story. Or, you want to participate in a pitch event on Twitter. You've got 280 characters for your comps, otherwise known as comparable titles, and a one-sentence pitch for your story. We could also call this pitch a logline. So what's a logline? Loglines are a brief summary of your story with an emotional hook. The term can be tied to the TV and film industries, but they make a lot of sense for the book industry too. For example, The Hunger Games could be: a young woman volunteers to replace her little sister as tribute, saving her from playing a deadly televised event, pitting young people from different districts against each other. Is the logline for your manuscript ready? Here are five tips to nailing your logline. One-- look at your story like a reporter would: what's the who, what, where, when, why and how. Two-- what does your main character want? And why does that matter? Three-- is your story ominous or is it light? What kind of words make that obvious? Four-- you've got one sentence to get to your story's essence. Make every word count. Remember that the logline is the bait to reel decision makers in. Five-- now practice it, out loud. Is it easy to say on the fly? Does it sound weird in your head? Are you stumbling over the words? If you feel uncomfortable saying it, it could be uncomfortable hearing or reading it. If it takes you 31 tries to get it right, that's okay. As you're crafting your logline, remember that agents are looking at the long game. We want to see manuscripts adapted to the screen. By putting together a logline, you've now got a hot little marketing tool that'll work in your favor. You'll be ready when you find yourself face to face with one of us at a conference. And I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait for that to finally happen.
Sam Hiyate:It's no secret that writers can literally take months to work on their pitches, but the even bigger issue is do agents and editors even read the whole thing? To explore the idea of how far agents and editors read before they stop-- and how you can get them to keep reading-- ideally right to the end, we've assembled this panel. Also, between the time we recorded the panel and its airing, Rachel Del Rosso, one of the panelists has left Wise Wolf Books. Hello everybody. Today we have an amazing YA panel. And the question we're asking everybody is how much of a submission do we actually read? So, first up we have the person who came up with this concept, who is Stacy Kondla, agent at The Rights Factory.
Stacey Kondla:Hi Sam.
Sam Hiyate:Hey Stacy. It's good to see you again. It's been a while-- we missed you on the podcast. I'm happy to have you back. We also have today, Kalena Miller, one of Stacy's authors and the author of the YA debut novel just out, The Night When No One Had Sex, which sounds like a pretty good title, actually.
Kalena Miller:Hi, thank you.
Sam Hiyate:And, last but not least, we have a publisher, somebody from the other side and this is Rachel Del Grosso, the publisher of Wise Wolf Publishing.
Rachel Del Grosso:Hey Sam, thanks for having me.
Sam Hiyate:Okay. So I want to start with, just as every athlete has a pre-game ritual, every agent and editor must have their own way of approaching their emails and submissions in the morning. You come in, you're like, What am I going to get today? But before we get to, in this case, an agent, an editor, I want to ask Kalena, the writer, what she, like, What do you think that the editors and the agents are doing? Because I k now, I mean, you submit, you press send. And you're like, Oh my God, I really want somebody to fall in love with my book. that I've wrecked two years of my life trying to write.
Kalena Miller:Right? Like I can't wait until nine months from now when I hear something. I don't know. It's always interesting because I always, you know, like we all think we're the center of the universe. And so I'm always imagining like, you know, you've gotta be at the top of somebody's to-do list, of course. Right? And then I'll see agents or editors tweet, like how many submissions they got that month. And it's just like an overwhelming number. And then it's like, you drop in the opposite direction. Like there's no way they're ever going to read my book. They have 30 million books that they're reading. So I think this is a really interesting question that I think will be helpful for authors to kind of think about how quickly they do have to get somebody's attention and how much they have to hold onto their attention and keep them interested. Because I know obviously we spend forever reading our own work. Right? And to imagine that you only get 10 minutes-- I don't, I don't know like that-- that's, that's stressful to think about for sure.
Sam Hiyate:Well, you said 30 million, so let's go with that. So Stacy, we'll start with you. Do you, how many, what does your inbox look like and, how do you approach it?
Stacey Kondla:Yeah, so I mean, my queries since the beginning of the summer have been zero because I closed to submissions. But before that, while I was open to submissions, you know, I was getting probably five to 10 a day, which is a lot. Right? And it's a lot to go through. So--
Sam Hiyate:But I mean, if it's a picture book, can't you just like read it in a minute and say, No,
Stacey Kondla:Yes, I could. But also it depends on what else is going on in your day. Right? But when you're getting five to 10 a day, you're not just getting five to 10 picture books a day. Right. You're getting all sorts of projects.
Sam Hiyate:Yeah. I'm just joking.
Stacey Kondla:Yeah. It can be a lot. But my pre-game ritual basically is I really like to focus on queries and give them the attention that they deserve. And so I tend to not look at them very much throughout my work week because I'm distracted with too many other things. I'm doing client work, I'm having meetings with editors. I don't have the head space for queries throughout the work week. So I save my queries for Sunday mornings with my coffee, when I can just devote my head space to them. That's my pre-game thing. I'm up early Sunday morning. I've got my coffee in one hand, my laptop on my lap and I'm ready to go. And I dig in from there.
Sam Hiyate:Great. And, Rachel, what's it like, you know, you're the publisher, you have this fast-growing company. I can't even imagine what your life is like. I mean, I know a little bit of our side, on the agenting, but what is it like for you?
Rachel Del Grosso:So, you know, we're still relatively new, right? So right now, we're in a relatively unique position where we're still sort of unknown in a way, right? So we're not, I'm not receiving hundreds of submissions a day. I don't have email upon email.
Sam Hiyate:Maybe you should never have agreed to come on this podcast. Because you might be, you might be getting those, after this airs.
Rachel Del Grosso:Yeah. I mean, we should only be so lucky. Right. But you know, so when a submission comes in, it's pretty likely, you know, I'm at least glancing at the synopsis. Almost quite, you know, almost right away. And so, if something pops up in the synopsis, I might shoot a note to the publishing assistant and say, Hey, take a look at this. That, you know, it would bring it to her attention a little quickly. She's seeing them, you know, the publishing assistant, seeing them at the same time I'm seeing them. So we might kind of just flag, flag some that catch our attention, and they might be looked at sooner than later. And you know, if we get a submission from an agent that we've worked with before, we're probably going to look at that a little quicker. You know, at this point we do try to look at submissions and respond to them within 90 days. There are times we can respond a little bit sooner. Sometimes it's a little bit longer than that, but you know, we try to respond as quickly as we can.
Sam Hiyate:I love your 90 days goal because I feel like it's only maybe within this window of your-- the career of the publisher-- that you have that kind of grace. And I feel like, I remember, you know, talking to a big five publisher. And I said, you know, If you guys get unsolicited, how long does it take to get back to them? And they're like, well, once in a while we get an intern to just clear the whole thing, but it's like an intense, you know, internship where somebody goes through everything. And then if they catch some-- once in a while, they'll flag something, but you know, it could be six months. It could be a year. So I think 90 days is a great goal. That's really exciting. Do you guys have any techniques of dealing with overwhelm? So let's start with, we just ended with you Rachel, so let's go back to Stacy. So you've got your Sunday coffee, you've gone through stuff. What happens when you feel that sense that you're never gonna get through everything? How do you deal with that moment?
Stacey Kondla:Yeah, so I feel like because I'm an agent and I have Query Manager as my tool. I have the added benefit that I can just say, Okay, I'm drowning in queries. I'm overwhelmed. I need to close so I can catch up. I don't think that editors at publishing houses have that same liberty. Right? Like they typically just cannot close to submissions.
Sam Hiyate:Because what if they missed the next Harry Potter?
Stacey Kondla:I know, but that being said, I know of at least one, one publisher that has closed queries until the new year, just because they are so drowning submissions and you know, some smaller presses only have specific windows that you can send in submissions. Right. So I mean, different publishers approach it differently. But as an agent, I just get to say, okay, I'm overwhelmed. I'm gonna close to queries so that I can spend the next few months just catching up on top of my client work. I don't like to close to queries because I also have FOMO. I don't wanna miss out. Right.
Sam Hiyate:Oh, I know that feeling well. And Rachel, what do you feel about this? So t seems like we got you at such a good time that you're actually able to look at most of the stuff, but maybe we can get more detail about that. If you're not, you don't get overwhelmed that you're like, okay. Oh my God, I can't deal with all this. You know, we need more assistance. We need a bigger team. So how much-- are you in that luxurious point where you can actually read as much as you want? Or do you have some, are you starting to put in place some kind of rules? Like if they don't get us in the first chapter or the first page, like a lot of editors are, you know, this, kind of strict, like do you have any thoughts on that, or any feedback or anecdotes?
Rachel Del Grosso:So, I mean, as I mentioned, we're pretty new, we're not getting five submissions a day. You know, on a good week, we might get 20, but in talking about what would make me stop reading or keep reading. I think one of the first things is if you start reading something and you think Hmmm... I've heard this before, right? That's, that's a big no-no for me, right? It's, it's one thing if you're kind of emulating authors that you look up to and whatnot, but you still have to be telling your own story, right. Originality is still going to be key. And then something I've seen is that sometimes authors seem to be talking down to the readers, like the writing's coming from this preachy place. That'll definitely turn me off. I won't read too long. Another one of the big things, and I think this is maybe something that differentiates Wise Wolf from bigger publishing houses is that honestly, before we even look at a manuscript, we're looking at the social presence of the author. They don't need to have thousands and thousands of followers. But we want to see that they're online, that they're trying to reach out to readers. So, you know, if we come across a manuscript and there's zero social media, it's unlikely that we're even going to look at it.
Sam Hiyate:So you're saying that platform really, is that important to you because you-- is it because you feel like the author needs to have a sense of engagement with the world and you're looking at social media as a measure of that?
Rachel Del Grosso:Yeah, exactly. I mean, like I said, they don't need to have 20,000 followers, but we want to see that they're at least putting themselves out there and trying, and especially in the YA genre. I mean, you have to be on, you know, Instagram or TikTok or whatever it is. You need to have a presence.
Sam Hiyate:Okay. I'm going to move over to Kalena. So, sorry. Kalena, as an author, this platform thing is interesting, but before we get to that, how do you feel when you, you talked about, you submitted and you're like, Oh my God, is it gonna be nine months? I know-- and just in my dealing with authors, I often have this Tom Petty video that I send them, which is the waiting is the hardest part. And nobody knows how hard it is until the thing that they've spent so much effort and time giving me, and they're trusting me to get it out. And I tell them, it's out to the editors. Let's just fingers crossed. This is the hard part. We could hear back. I mean, the fastest I've heard back is 24 hours. Like Sam, we want to pre-empt it. Oh my God, I wish has happened to every submission. But, and then of course the worst thing is what happens is nothing. So somewhere between a pre-empt, a fast pre-empt and nothing happening, we have to manage our expectations. So, I don't know if Stacy ever sent you that Tom Petty video. She might next time, just so you know, but, so how do you feel about this? And then I want to ask about social media afterwards.
Kalena Miller:Yeah. Well, I'm a really impatient person, like in all aspects of life, which would seem like it would, make it worse, but it actually really just makes this seem like yet another thing I'm impatient about. So it really doesn't affect my day-to-day that much, like I refresh my email every five minutes just as a compulsion. So it doesn't really change my day-to-day that much. I will say for me, what's hard is knowing that some of them will never respond, ever. That's stressful. Like if I knew that everybody, even if it's gonna take'em a year, if I knew that everybody at some point would respond, then I think that would give me a little bit more comfort of knowing like, okay, there's an end date where we can like close this book literally and figuratively. But the fact that it can sometimes just seem to go on forever and ever, and ever, and it's like, are they going to respond? And then Stacey follows up, and we hear nada. And I think that's kind of frustrating just because it's like, I don't even know if, if they exist.
Sam Hiyate:Well, at least they now know your secret, which is The Night That No One Had Sex. So in terms of social media, how do you feel about that? Are you actively trying to build a bigger platform or be more engaging with your community? Or are you just like, I'm too exhausted by just the writing? I can't do both.
Kalena Miller:No, I do a lot of social media. I really enjoy it. For the most part. I mean, not that like Twitter doesn't make me want to pull my hair out, but generally speaking, I'm on Twitter, Instagram TikTok, used to be on Tumblr, kind of use Facebook, like, you know, any and all, right. I think it is about like in the YA space, then yes, you're connecting with readers, but I think what is also really important is that kind of being your landing page, when someone goes looking for you, like they're not necessarily looking for your website anymore, they're typing your name into Instagram. And so being a place where they can see a little bit of who you are and what you're like and what your vibe is and what you're working on, is great. Both for readers and for other writers or whoever in the world trying to connect with you. Right. And so I think obviously if people like despise social media, then that's gonna be stressful. But I think if you can find some platform or some aspect of it that you don't loathe, then like exploit that for all you've got, right.
Sam Hiyate:Awesome. So, I wanted, because we have that rare moment where we have, an agent and an author here. I wanted to ask a bit about how you guys connected in terms of like submissions, reading, like using the frame of our topic today. Give me a bit of the story. And I love the idea that you're both here, so feel free to interrupt each other. Let's just make it really messy and a good combo. So who wants to start? So let me start with you. You wrote this query, you sent it to how many agents?
Kalena Miller:A lot? Well, I had queried one book before, and I'd had a really terrible experience with an-- not an agent that I signed with-- but she just like had all these revise and resubmits, and she just like led me on for a really long time. And then that ended up like crashing and burning. Right. And so I had this new project and I queried it pretty widely. Like--
Sam Hiyate:Did you always have that great title because the title had me at hello? You know?
Kalena Miller:Yeah.
Stacey Kondla:No, that was the second book that we pitched. There was a book that I signed Kalena for that--
Sam Hiyate:Oh my god, so there's more to the story than I know.
Stacey Kondla:Yeah, exactly. So.
Sam Hiyate:Okay. Sorry.
Stacey Kondla:Kalena, keep going.
Kalena Miller:Oh right. OK. So then, this other book was another YA Rom-Com. It was a little bit of a younger YA, and so that is what Stacey initially read. And you liked in theory.
Sam Hiyate:And did she have R and R notes for you or was she just like, I want to work with you, and you were like, I've sent it to 50 other agents. I need to think about this.
Kalena Miller:It wasn't 50, but yeah, no, she, she liked it. We talked about it. Yeah.
Sam Hiyate:How did she win you over?
Kalena Miller:Well, I was at Valley Fair, which is an amusement park in Ohio and I got the email, and I was like freaking out because she'd been a person who I thought was a really good fit. You know how there are some agents when you submit to them and it's like, I feel like you would like me, if you would like actually read this. Right. And so Stacy was one of those. And so it honestly didn't take that much winning over because I like kind of had a lot of information going in. I wasn't too hard to convince.
Sam Hiyate:Stacey's like a hard riser. If you look up Publisher's Marketplace, I don't think anybody at this agency's ever done the volume of deals in such a short time that she has. So that was a good call. So Stacey, what was it like from your point of view, like getting the pitch and knowing that there was competition in terms of agents?
Stacey Kondla:Yeah. So I mean, at that time, that was when I was just a brand new agent with The Rights Factory. Right. And I was building my client list and I was getting a lot of emails because I was still taking my queries through email at that time, hadn't moved over to Query Manager yet. And I got this query from Kalena and I liked the title of the project. That's what grabbed my attention. First of all, was the title. And then I read the pitch and I'm like, Oh, this sounds like a lot of fun. Right. Because the pitch itself had quirky characters. It had some humor. It was about a destination wedding, you know, like there was just all, all this fun stuff going on. So I opened up the manuscript and started reading and didn't stop. I loved it. Like I loved it. And like to this day I weep inside that it hasn't found a home.
Sam Hiyate:I'm sure that could be easily be repositioned as Kalena's third or fourth novel when she becomes famous and gets that Netflix adaptation that we're all waiting for.
Stacey Kondla:Yeah. But I was really happy to have an opportunity to chat with Kalena. We got to know each other a little bit over the phone and I was able to offer representation and just really, really happy that it worked out in the end.
Sam Hiyate:Let's pause there, because this will be interesting to our audience. So you said, I want to rep you, I love this book. You know, you've had this conversation. So Kalena, what did you do then? You had somebody excited. Did you-- It's kind of like dating, right? You're like, wait, are we gonna be exclusive now? Because I think there might be some other fabulous people I can't give up right now. I don't know.
Kalena Miller:I don't know. I wasn't, I feel like maybe I'm like this with dating too, but I like knew what my-- I wanted going in. You know what I mean? So like it wasn't really like she was, there weren't really anything that could be like a red flag or like, Oh, I need to check with other people. Right. Like I had made my decision before we got on the phone. So it was a very easy decision for me because I'd already made it.
Sam Hiyate:Yeah. That's so good. I never heard this story, but I'm really happy that-- and obviously I know you guys have a second book that you've announced that you're working on. So that worked out well. So just so that Rachel doesn't feel cut out of this. So Rachel, it wasn't me, it was actually Natalie Kimber at The Rights Factory who sent you Runaway Train. Do you remember what it was about that story that got you?
Rachel Del Grosso:So that was actually one of the very first submissions that I got from an agent, which was really exciting. So, I mean it was set in the nineties, right? So it's this grungy music scene and everything, which was super exciting to read about. I mean the title right away, Runaway Train, you know, you're thinking what's going on?
Sam Hiyate:You thought of the song.
Rachel Del Grosso:Yeah. And so, you know, every chapter is titled after a song in the nineties and it was just, it was just so-- the idea seemed so original to me and, you know, I started reading and it was one of those ones that I just couldn't put down. I mean, Lee, Matthew Goldberg, he's a great writer. And we were just excited to have him come onboard.
Sam Hiyate:I think Natalie told me too, that you guys were so bullish about it. You were like, We want a series. And it was like this conversation with Lee. Like I think for him it was maybe a one off, but then now, I mean, it could be this great series that I know the second-- the third-- book, I think he just finished. So it's like, he's so fast. I'm just so impressed that you guys saw that-- had that vision going into it. So that was impressive. Are series something that you're looking for?
Rachel Del Grosso:Yeah. We definitely, you know, our parent company, Wolf Pack Publishing, that's what we've kind of built our backlist on and everything. Right. We really know how to sell the series. So yeah, when we got this submission of Runaway Train, I mean, it was pretty obvious. We're like, yeah, this could be a series-- it has great potential. And we did release a second book, Grenade Bouquets, and then, yeah, he did just finish writing the third book and that will be coming out the first quarter of 2022.
Sam Hiyate:I have one last question for everybody and that is so we just, I feel, I mean, maybe I'm an optimist, but I feel we're coming out a little bit out of the pandemic. What do we think? What do we think about this? Do you guys have any thoughts about the future of like this kind of process of writing, submitting, reading, responding. I'll just go through everybody one after another. So let's start with Stacey. What are your thoughts on this?
Stacey Kondla:Yeah, I don't think that things are going to get faster anytime soon. Honestly, I feel like we all need to be preparing ourselves to wait, even though it's the hardest part.
Sam Hiyate:So cue Tom Petty,
Stacey Kondla:Exactly.
Sam Hiyate:Kalena, any thoughts, any thoughts from your point of view?
Kalena Miller:I mean, Stacy sold two of my books during the pandemic, so I don't feel too badly about it. And the one we submitted before the pandemic didn't sell. So like--
Sam Hiyate:Maybe you're just a brilliant writer.
Kalena Miller:Yeah. That, that must be it.
Stacey Kondla:Super brilliant.
:I mean, no, I mean, I know things are trending longer, but like what? To me it's like, well, what's the difference between six months and nine months? Like very little so, I don't know.
Sam Hiyate:Because you're impatient anyway, like you said in the beginning.
Kalena Miller:I don't, you know, on the micro level then I don't feel that much different about it.
Sam Hiyate:That's such a funny way of looking at the world. I just think of you. It's like, Well, it's gonna take a week to get a response or nine months, which-- each one would probably be just as frustrating. So I don't really care, but honestly that's really awesome. Rachel, any, so for you, I imagine as time goes on and your company becomes more established and you have more books like, Lee Matthew Goldberg series, and other YA books coming out, you're going to get more pitches. You're gonna get more agents. You're gonna get more agents bugging you saying, Hey, we got, you know, we have other interest. Do you want to come in on an auction for this book and your stakes are going to get higher. What do you think you're going to-- how do you think you're going to respond to this? Or do you have any plans for the future?
Rachel Del Grosso:If that happened, we'd probably have to bring on more people to be looking at submissions. Because right now, yeah, it's two of us. If we, you know, hopefully we do get to that point where it's, we're taking a year to respond. I mean, that would mean we're doing something right. So I give myself a little pat on the back.
Sam Hiyate:You have millions of queries in your inbox.
Rachel Del Grosso:Right.
Sam Hiyate:Okay. Well, so good to chat with all you guys today. Thanks for being on our panel. We're so grateful and good luck on everybody's books. I'm excited to see where your book goes. I know Stacey, you're still pitching your guts out and Rachel, I'm sure you're reading away and you're probably gonna have to decide when you're gonna stop for the year and say that's i t, this is going to be r ead next year.
Rachel Del Grosso:Yeah.
Sam Hiyate:Okay. Thanks. And bye everyone.
Rachel Del Grosso:Thank you.
Kalena Miller:Thank you.
Stacey Kondla:Thanks, Sam.
Sam Hiyate:Another Agent Provocateur episode done. If you've made it this far, we only have a lot of love for you. As you know, we love getting attention. Thanks to all the TRF staff, all of our guests, and our producer, Andrew Kaufman. By the way, I know I've asked all of you to keep rating and reviewing us, online. And so far after some profoundly deep investigations, I've only found one person who's rated us a one on Apple Podcasts. So we're one for one, how's that for an agent spin on it. See you next week for the last episode of season two, as we respond to your brief audio pitches.