Marketing REUNIONS.....as the Memoir Turns.....

I had a very nice agent decline my book this past week...Not too long actually after the other very nice agent requested the 1st 3 chapters. The declining agent gave me some very valuable advice: Reduce my word count to make the package seem less overwhelming and more marketable to an agent. Yeah, I get that...A shorter book is cheaper to put out, so I got busy on that this week to see what I could do without compromising my message and downgrading my characters to less dynamic people.

REUNIONS went on a diet and lost 10,000 words / 30 pages!

I think it's better-n-ever, actually! That agent might be an angel in disguise. Hopefully, the 1st 3 chapters were spiffy and impressive enough for the other agent anyway. Most of the make over happened in the middle of the story anyway, although the first three were also tweaked some. They were pretty awesome to start with. In fact, the 1st 50 pages rock, IMHO, which is what the agencies and publishers preach. My chapter technically cuts off at page 48, but that's probably OK.

In the meantime, I plug on. I plan to get back on Querytracker and plow further down the list of agents and agencies listed. They have 500....5 freekin' hundred!!!! That's a big project, but once I get a hit, and they actually want me, I'm in! Pretty simple plan in that way.

Persistency.....Persistency.....Persistency.....

P.

ANother REUNIONS Update:

Sometimes the Universe really does give us what we ask for...

If you've been keeping up, you know that I have put out a ton of query letters over the weekend. I got back some "rejection" messages today. Many were still very kindly worded. One lady apologized for the form letter. One man, who did not use a form letter and was very personalized told me that my plan wasn't going to work for him, but I had good stuff and to keep at it because somebody out there will see differently.

I was OK with all that. It wasn't rejection i the classic sense of rejection.

Then I received this little doozy:

"Dear Paige,

Thank you for submitting your query. I would like to request the FIRST THREE (3) CHAPTERS of your COMPLETED MS for REUNIONS.

Please send as a word .doc attachment to this e-mail address.

Thanks much, and I look forward to reviewing your work.

Best,____________
Fletcher and Company, LLC."

Can you believe it?

Of course I emailed my husband and my kid the thrilling news right away, but I had no immediate person to share it with. Kinda a bummer...I was at work with a bunch of 7th graders when the message came in on my phone. I was probably the happiest substitute in the best mood of any teacher they would have all day on a Monday...but I was not really in a position to talk about my book with these kids.

After work, I made a quick stop at the grocery to pick up some dinner quickies. Of all people, at the deli counter in back I ran into my former high school English teacher....The man who gave me the writing prompt assignment 32 years ago, which actually launched the book:

Write about a person, (not parents / grandparents) who has impacted your life or in some other way was really cool to meet. (Had to be a real life person you'd met.)

At the time, I chose to write about meeting my estranged cousin, "Weird Bob", who came for a visit and the impression he made and the advice he imparted on me.

So I had the chance that most people probably never get: to revisit an old teacher and thank them for helping with your current success(es). I told Mr. West about my book, and he was all excited for me. I told him he was the 1st actual in person- person I'd been able to share my news with, and that was very cool. Of all people. I told him that in my acknowledgement section in the book, he was one of the people on my "thank you" list because he was the teacher who taught me how to write. I think he was flattered.

I am so thankful I was able to tell him all that today.

Wow! Such a day!

Now off to celebrate my "win" with pizza and concentrating on polishing my 1st three chapters before I hit the "send' button!
P.

Memoir Progress / REUNIONS

It's been a while since I have done a post. Working during the day and tutoring has taken over, along with family matters. Actually though, the past couple of days have been most productive, and I have now sent out the "book baby" to 41 agents / agencies! I found a nifty little website called Qurytracker, and pulled up a list of about 400 agents who represent my field of writing. Wow! My goal is to contact nearly all of them, one by one.

So how do you get through all those names? Here's how I am screening and sorting:

1- I am only going to query agents / agencies that accept emailed communications. Why should I spend up all my paper, stamps and ink on a big fat maybe? I'm doing enough work already. I have only sent one paper query letter off out of 50 applications total. Man, these guys are nuts if they think I would print out hundreds to thousands of pages if all these enterprises wanted proposals, synopses and sample chapters too! No way José! Saving a tree is the way to approach this initially. I can always go back and snail mail the other old skool guys if I need to. Hopefully I will have success before I get to that point!

2- I am targeting female agents before males. Adoption, babies, child development and coming of age are typically more chick-themed than dude themed. Women would probably be more apt to pick up a read like mine, I would think. That doesn't mean I am not applying to male agents too. I am. In some cases, I am reading that agents in a company may work as a team and if they don't seem interested in my work initially, they may possibly pass my submission on to another colleague in their office.

3- I am finding anyone who might have something in common with me to appeal to, man or woman. For example, I found one with the last name of Adams, which is my maiden name and name of my adoptive family in the book. I found one agent with the same first name as me. Maybe she will find what I have to say in Chapter 1 about my name amusing or relatable. I found one who is a grad from the same college as me and another who is a grad from my daughter's college. I like reading agent bios and seeing who is a parent, who loves dogs and cats, who might be from my neck of the woods or was a former teacher / education major before a literary career. Ya never know.

The last agency / agent I queried this PM, before calling it quits for the night was Wally Lamb's agent! Woot! If you don't know, Wally Lamb is my fave modern literary fiction author!!! Man, can that guy tell a story! IMO, he's as good as Stephen King....just not as into the macabre.

One agent I will consider sending a paper mail packet to is the agent who represented David Pelzer, the man who wrote the CHILD CALLED "IT" series of memoirs. Since it is the exact same genre as mine, memoir about a foster / adopted kid (only his story was to the extreme), it's worth a send if I need to.

So..... Here are my stats so far: Roughly 400 agents / agencies to query. 50 queries sent out, 41 pending and 8 turn-downs so far. One OK response from the local publisher who told me to keep searching but definitely come back to her in a year if something else didn't work out before that because she could relate to Chapter 1 in my book submission!

P.