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AuthorMBA Q&A with agent Holly Root
© 2008 AuthorMBA -
All rights reserved.
originally posted
5/27/08
The AuthorMBA blog team is delighted to welcome agent
Holly Root from Waxman Literary Agency. Holly is both savvy and
wonderfully approachable, so she's been a gem to host on the
AuthorMBA blog. She has sold projects for fiction authors (including
USA Today bestselling romance author Susan Kearney and YA author
Serena Robar) and non-fiction authors (including zenhabits.net
founder Leo Babauta and CHERRY BOMB author Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna)
and is still actively building her list. Holly's complete bio can be
found at the end of the Q&A.
Holly has also graciously agreed to answer your questions today, so
please don't be shy about asking what's on your mind. Welcome,
Holly!
AuthorMBA Q&A, Part I –
The Basics
1. Tell us about your agenting specialty. What genres are you
most excited about?
My list is very commercial and, for fiction anyway, mostly
female-oriented. I love reading and representing books that are
sharply drawn—funny, smart, instantly memorable—and immediately
transport the reader outside of the daily grind and into the world
of the book. I handle a range of nonfiction projects as well as a
good amount of women’s fiction (everything from book-club fiction to
what used to be called chick lit) and romance. I’m actively building
my YA list, and I’m also looking for some mysteries (I love a
high-concept cozy) and certain kinds of thrillers.
2. What kinds of stories are you drawn to in those genres?
I’m a sucker for voice—all of my clients have a killer sense of
voice, fiction or nonfiction. I’m much more likely to keep reading
if I instantly know from that first page that this character (or
author, in the case of nonfiction) is someone who interests me,
someone whose life I’d like to curl up in for the next two hours.
3. Can you share some of your recent sales?
A couple of recent sales: I recently placed a fantastic humor/career
book with Adams Media on how to survive that soul-sucking retail job
(or if you can’t survive it, at least go out with a splash), by an
author who’s clocked two decades in high-end retail. Then there was
a women’s fiction project, WHISTLIN’ DIXIE IN A NOR’EASTER by Lisa
Patton, which sold to Thomas Dunne Books; it’s a really funny
fish-out-of-water story, about a Southern woman who moves North to
run an inn, hilarity ensues. I also recently did a deal for a debut
YA author; the book was preempted in a multi-book offer amid lots of
publisher interest--that was a very fun phone call to make to the
author! All three authors are utter delights and I was thrilled
beyond words to do the deals for them.
4. May our blog readers query you? If so, what do you prefer
to see in the initial query/submission and how should they contact
you?
Of course! I prefer email queries; check out my agentquery.com
listing for detailed guidelines, but basically, no attachments and
it’s OK to put the first ten pages or less in the body of the email
below your query. People get very stressed about queries, I know
that, and trust me—agents want to like yours. Don’t get bogged down
in retelling the plot. Give me a good hook and enough to intrigue
me, and don’t micro-edit to the point that you lose the spark to
your voice that makes me want to read more.
5. What is your typical turnaround time on queries, partials,
and fulls?
Oh, sigh. As my business grows, this definitely becomes the weak
spot. I’m currently running about 4-5 weeks on queries but working
on getting faster (I’d love to get back to no more than 2
weeks--giving the go-ahead for people to include pages has made
reading them slower but allows me to request more judiciously); on
requested materials, I’ll say that I currently have a backlog but
with lots of late nights and weekends, I’m approaching my
more-optimal response times again. I’m hoping to be back to 4-6
weeks on partials, 6-8 weeks on a full soon.
AuthorMBA Q&A, Part II –
The Business
1. How do you approach career planning with your clients?
I love it when authors combine a proactive attitude about their
careers with a sense of their place in the market. If you haven’t
sold yet, there’s really only so much you can do, and once you do
sell, you need to be realistic about the publishing climate. You can
only control so much. What you can control, you work your heart out
on, but I always want my authors to be 1) flexible with their plans
and open to feedback about where best to focus their efforts; 2)
respectful of the people in their publishing house who are working
on their behalf. Many times authors mistake “career plan” with “tell
your publicist/sales rep/art department what to do,” which I do not
recommend! Always be professional, polite, and gracious while
advocating for your book.
2. How much editorial feedback do you like to offer before
marketing a client’s work?
I almost always have some sort of notes for my clients before
submitting a project. It’s always good for them to have a fresh set
of eyes, and the market is too tough to send a book out with
deficiencies I can see and fix. With some authors, I’ll help
brainstorm concepts from the ground up; with others, it’s helping
the author decide which of several projects to pursue; and sometimes
it’s a more specific edit of a completed project.
3. How do you feel about author-driven marketing efforts?
Remember that anything that’s hypothetical rather than already in
place is going to be of negligible value in selling a book to a
publisher, so it’s important to keep expectations in check. “I have
a column in XYZ Magazine” is a platform; “I will pursue a column” is
not. For nonfiction, platform is huge, and without it, particularly
for prescriptive projects, your idea must be absolutely smashing and
your writing exquisite, and even then it’s still going to be tough.
For novelists platform is less essential, but those connections and
such never hurt. Having a Web presence is a plus, as are great
contacts or blurbs from well-known authors. I’m always glad to see
solid, actionable, realistic plans for how to promote the book. I
don’t find it persuasive when people say (in a query, for instance)
“I’m dedicating $X to promotion and marketing.” The details show
more planning than the dollar signs do. Writers do that thinking the
publisher will see it and say “Score, free ride!” and dole out a
contract without a further thought, but it just doesn’t really work
that way.
4. How do you feel about web sites, blogs, and other web
venues like MySpace as marketing tools for writers today?
When you read work you like—from published
or unpublished writers—do you review the writer’s web site?
I do. I’m looking for any signs that trouble lies ahead as well as
more of a sense of someone’s voice and other projects. Don’t be
inappropriate or unprofessional. Be yourself, but don’t name names
or point fingers. It’s a very small industry.
What is your perspective on using a blog as
a marketing tool for writers? Does your view change if they are
unpublished vs. published?
The best author blogs and sites, for me, serve to reinforce the
author’s professional image and provide more information for the
reader who just couldn’t get enough of that world, that author.
Professional, appealing, updated frequently, a healthy blend of “I’m
an author” and “I’m a real human being.”
5. Do you have any final tips for our blog readers?
-- Remember that you, your agent, and your publisher have a shared
goal—to sell books.
-- Be the author who is polite yet firm, and you will garner a
better response than the author who leads with angry and aggressive.
-- Everyone’s busy. Make it easy for people to do what you’re asking
and your chances of getting it done increase.
-- Don’t compare yourself to other authors on your loop, in your
critique group, etc. Unless you’ve seen their royalty
statement/contract/marketing budget, you can’t know what’s really
going on, and getting embroiled in their business will not help your
business.
About Holly Root
Holly Root is a literary agent at Waxman Literary Agency who
represents authors of commercial fiction and nonfiction. She began
her publishing career in her hometown of Nashville, TN before coming
to New York and joining the William Morris Agency’s agent trainee
program. She then moved to Trident Media Group, where she worked as
audio rights agent, before joining Waxman Literary Agency to
represent her own list of authors. Her interests include commercial
women’s fiction, historical and contemporary romance, YA and
middle-grade fiction, and on the nonfiction side, compelling
narrative nonfiction, pop culture books, and prescriptive projects
that are as engaging as they are informative.
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