Guest post by Laurie McLean, Partner at Fuse Literary. Laurie represents the wonderful REUTS author, J.M. Frey.

When I first read The Untold Tale by J.M. Frey, I was amazed at both its audacity and its storytelling energy. The characters were like none I’d read about in an epic fantasy novel. The hero was the spymaster for the king masquerading as a fuddy-duddy second son whose older brother was a hero of legendary proportions. The heroine did not fit into preconceived notions of women in this fairy tale world. There was also something very mysterious about her background that we don’t find out about until mid-way through the book, so I won’t spoil it here.

Suffice to say that I loved this book and I set about trying to sell it to eager science fiction and fantasy editors in New York. I pitched the book and they all wanted to take a look. Months passed, as they do during the submission process. Then the rejections began to amass. It was too “meta.” The hero was not “alpha” enough. It was too long. It was non-standard. And the always popular and very general, “It’s not right for my list.”

I don’t know about all of you, but I am tired of reading the same old tropes in my sword and sorcery or quest fantasy novels. I search for new tales and new ways of telling them. I look for diversity in both characters and setting. I want the thrill of the adventure, but in a new way. That’s why I loved J.M. Frey’s The Untold Tale, as well as the second book which is launching in December 2016: The Forgotten Tale.

Frey strives for the diverse and unexpected in her books. This made it difficult for me to sell it to mainstream publishers who wanted more of the same that had sold so well in the past.

Frustrated beyond belief that I was unable to sell this series, I was giving a keynote at a writers conference in Seattle, and I mentioned that everyone’s path to publishing was different. I urged the hopeful writers in the room not to compare themselves to successful authors who had come before them (although everyone does), and I told the tale of my difficulties in selling a book of my heart.

Afterwards, as I was getting coffee (it was cold in Seattle that fall), two young women approached me and said that they appreciated my speech. They wanted to know more about the book I was having trouble selling. So we sat down and I waxed on and on about The Untold Tale and why I thought the quality of the writing and storytelling was superb, and how I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been able to sell it. One of them asked for my card, and as we exchanged information, she told me that she was an editor at a small-but-growing publisher in the Pacific Northwest called REUTS Publishing.

Bottom line: At that very conference, Kisa Whipkey asked to read The Untold Tale. She saw what I saw in that manuscript and bought not only book one, but all three books in the series plus several additional novellas, short stories and other bonus material in that world that would accompany the main event. Not only that, she also liked the second series J.M. Frey had shown me, about the first female pilot in a mechanized society reminiscent of World War I, The Skylark’s Song, and she eventually bought that as well.

The Forgotten Tale, the middle book in the series, is one of those rare breeds of middle books that actually carries its own weight. It is a rousing story in and of itself, and a worthy sequel to The Untold Tale. It deals with an apocalypse most of us readers would surely find horrific: the classic stories of our world are disappearing, and Forsyth Turn and his wife Pip must solve this mystery before all stories are erased forever. THE HORROR!

I hope I’ve intrigued you sufficiently that you’ll pick up a copy of The Untold Tale and its successor, The Forgotten Tale. J.M. Frey is just about done with the final book in the series, The Silenced Tale, and I am sure it will be equally enthralling.

‘Til then, I will remain a champion for all tales, comfortable and itchy, magical and harshly realistic, epically long or quickly consumed. To the bookshelves!

-Laurie McLean, Partner

Fuse Literary Agency

The post The Untold Tale…That Almost Went Untold appeared first on REUTS | Boutique Book Publisher |.

As August comes to an end and September looms, transitions are on the forefront of everyone’s minds. Kids go back to school, leaves start to fall, the scorching heat of summer gives way to pleasantly cool breezes and stormy nights, and another batch of post-its shifts into the overdue pile on my Infamous Wall of Post-it Deadlines. But there’s also something exciting in the wind: REUTS Publications will be open to submissions again!

One more time for the people in the back:

Starting tomorrow, REUTS will once again be open to submissions!

Our brief hiatus from the slush pile is over, and the doors will be flung wide. We’ve been working behind the scenes to create an improved submissions process, and we’re eager to test it out. It’s more automated, more streamlined, and should help dramatically improve the response times. You will have to create an account, but don’t worry, it’s completely FREE. And it absolutely will not be used to spam you unnecessarily. You’ll receive correspondence pertaining to your submission and nothing more. You have our promise on that.

**For those of you still waiting to hear from us, please be patient. We’re working our way through the list and should be in touch shortly. You do not have to resubmit.**

What should you expect from this shiny new system? Well, everything you expected before, just better.

• Wait times for queries (and hopefully full manuscripts) should be significantly shorter
• We will still respond with a personalized response to each and every query (a lack of response does NOT equal “no”)
• We will still accept manuscripts without agent representation (but we’re always happy to see agent submissions as well)
• We’ll give you an insider look at our tastes and thoughts via #REUTSsubs and this weekly blog post series

So, all in all, sounds pretty good, right? We’re excited about it; hopefully you are as well. #REUTSsubs will be kicking off this week, so be sure to watch my twitter feed (@kisawhipkey) if you want to catch those in real time, otherwise, the first compilation post will go live next Monday. But for now, I’ll give you a little preview of what we’re looking for, the official REUTS Publications Manuscript Wishlist, as it were. We’re always open to anything that falls within the YA or NA category, but these are specific requests from our acquisitions panel.

• New twists on paranormal creatures (bonus points for vampires or zombies)
• Dark fantasy in the vein of Uprooted by Naomi Novik or Fire by Kristin Cashore
• Thriller/Suspense (think Gone Girl for a YA audience)
• Intricate, multi-layered narratives a la Inception or The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack
• Science Fiction (space opera or soft sci-fi, specifically)
• Dystopian in the style of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard or Legend by Marie Lu
• Mythology/Fairy Tale infused fantasy (Preferably not urban fantasy or paranormal romance)
• Gothic fantasy and/or romance (Jane Eyre by Emily Bronte, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux are personal favorites of the team)
• Historical fiction (any time or place, as long as it’s accurate)
• Contemporary fiction (romance is fine, but not required)
• Paranormal satire in the style of Christopher Moore

Remember, those are specific requests, and they certainly aren’t the only things we look for. So if I didn’t list your genre, but you feel like it could still be a good fit, go ahead and submit! We’d love to see it. After all, our next favorite read might be in a genre I haven’t listed above. All we ask is that it be original, innovative, well-written, and contain emotional resonance. How you achieve those things is entirely up to you.

— Kisa Whipkey
Acquisitions & Editorial Director

The post Adventures in the Slush Pile: 8/31/15 Edition appeared first on REUTS | Boutique Book Publisher |.

Queries. Pitches. Synopses. Three words that strike fear into every author’s heart. And rightfully so — selling your book to an agent or editor depends on your ability to encapsulate your story’s heart into a few simple sentences. For most people, that’s a nearly impossible challenge. But perhaps if we look at why this practice is necessary, it will help you understand how to do it. So, for my first installment in this new series, I’m going to show you what I look for in a query. Keep in mind these are solely my opinions, and other agents or editors may look for something else, but if you plan to follow along with #REUTSsubs this next week, this will give you a glimpse at the thought process behind my decisions.

Let’s start by looking at the three potential ways you go about introducing your work to an agent or editor. They are:

1. The Traditional Query Letter & Synopsis
2. Pitching in Person
3. Elevator Pitches on Social Media

All three serve the same purpose — hooking your audience into asking for more. That’s a phrase I’m sure you’ve all heard thrown around in writing seminars, but what does it actually mean? In essence, it means you break through someone’s focus enough to grab their full, complete attention and get them to react. In other words, it’s a sales tactic.

Now, I know many of you just groaned. Sales is about as far from writing and creativity as you could possibly get. But the truth is, publishing is a business. There are bottom lines to be met, production costs to worry about, returns on investments that have to happen, etc. So when you send in a proposal (which, let’s face it, is what these things really are — sales proposals), what you’re really doing is arguing why we should become your business partner for this venture. And you’d darn well better be convincing. Don’t you think?

So, how do you achieve that? What makes a sales proposal appealing to the potential buyer? How do you turn indifference into “OMG, yes, I must read this”? Well, I look for a couple of key ingredients:

• Interesting concept and premise
• Unique attributes
• Market Potential

That’s it. Every time. Seriously.

Whenever I’m reviewing a pitch/query/etc, I ask myself the same three questions:

“Does this make me excited as a reader?” (This is more of a visceral reaction than a true question. Basically, I’m looking for that internal pique of interest, that “oooooo” factor.)

“What makes it different from everything else in its genre?” (The more specific the better on this front. Diverse cast? Unique twist or angle on the familiar? New setting?)

“What is it similar to/where would I put it on a shelf?” (This is ultimately the most important because it tells me a: where it fits within the REUTS catalog, and b: where it fits in the larger market and who its readership might be.)

All right, now let’s look at how you apply that insight, shall we? Because each type of pitch listed above is a slightly different opportunity to sell your work, and you shouldn’t use the same blanket strategy for each.
 

The Traditional Query Letter & Synopsis

 
First off, a query is not a synopsis and vice versa. They’re two separate entities used to achieve the same goal, but one is the lead singer, and the other is the band. You need both, but they serve completely different roles in the process.

Your query letter should be no more than 2-3 paragraphs, and its sole job is to pique the reader’s interest. It has to fit that criteria I listed above. It needs to give just enough information for me to tell whether or not it could be a fit for REUTS. So focus only on the most important aspects — the conflict and stakes that drive your story, sprinkled with a little info on the world/character and just a hint of what makes your manuscript different from the rest. Give me the heart of the tale; I don’t care about the rest yet.

Other things I need to know are genre, target audience, and comp titles (comparable books that might bear similarity to yours). Genre tells me where it fits in the bookstore and who it might appeal to, target audience tells me who I’m going to get to read it, and comp titles give me an instant snapshot of what to expect in terms of feel/tone/theme/style, etc. (One caveat on choosing comp titles: aim for ones that aren’t genre heavy-hitters, but that are prominent enough I’m likely to have heard of them. Also, the more unique the mash-up, the quicker I’ll be able to pin-point my expectations as reader.)

And that’s it. Two paragraphs should easily be enough room to capture all of that, once you isolate the key things an agent/editor looks for. Your final paragraph should be about you, what you bring to the table in terms of experience, etc. Honestly though, most of the time, we kind of skim that info. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it to us, just that more weight is placed on the content of the story than your particular pedigree.

IF you’ve achieved your goal and hooked my interest, I’ll dive right into the sample pages (because a great pitch does not always mean great execution), and if those pass the quality test, I’ll check out the synopsis. A synopsis is a glorified outline. It tells me the highlights of your story in 1-3 pages. It should capture the emotions, the main conflicts, some of the character motivations, and the entire narrative arc. The details of your world, sub-plots, supporting cast, etc, aren’t as important; the structure of your overall story is.

Manage to hold my interest through all of that, and guess what? You’ve just earned a full manuscript request. (I’m pretty sure this is the process most agents/editors go through, but some of the particulars may vary a little.)
 

Pitching in Person

 
Ah, now, this is a whole different game — one part speed dating, one part American Idol audition, all rolled into a giant ball of anxiety for everyone involved. But it’s a very viable option if you have the chance. Out of 55 total pitches I heard at the Willamette Writers Conference, I requested samples (and even some fulls!) of 48 manuscripts. The idea behind this is much the same as the process above, except you only have 10 minutes, if you’re lucky, and have to talk to an actual person. Terrifying stuff, for sure.

So what’s the key in this scenario? Be a human. Don’t stiffly recite your memorized query letter while you stare at the table. Engage with us! Take that query you wrote above and hone it even more. In a 10 minute pitch session, your pitch should take up no more than 2-3 minutes, max. Literally give us the bare bones, the core of your story, and then let us come to you. Think of it like baiting a wild animal; you don’t give away the whole dinner up front, you toss out some crumbs and lure us into the trap. In other, less poetic words, give us time to ask questions.

A face-to-face pitch session should feel more like a conversation, and every agent/editor will hone in on something different. So leave yourself room to answer questions. If you don’t and you babble through all 10 minutes, you might end up not getting a request. Because that tidbit in the middle that you glossed over was the one thing that agent/editor was looking for, and you didn’t give them time to find that out.

Your mission in an in-person pitch is simply to get that business card (See? American Idol golden ticket, right?) and a request to see more. That’s it. You’re not going to be signed on the spot, and you’re not going to give us your entire book on a silver platter. It’s simply the first step to a longer conversation.
 

Elevator Pitches on Social Media

 
Have you guessed the reason behind this order yet? It’s because they get progressively shorter and shorter. Much like pitching in person, an elevator pitch on social media should comprise the basics of your story. It should only contain the hook, the thing that is most likely to get people to stop and say “ooo, that sounds good.” You have 140 characters, so every letter has to count. Which is why you really only want two things (aside from genre/audience): the stakes/conflict, and what makes your story different. Again, you’re not trying to cram your whole book into 140 characters; that’s madness. You’re only trying to get us to want more. Which is why including that unique-factor is crucial.

To win this round, all you have to do is get a favorite from one of the stalking agents/editors, which then results in a submission of what? The first type of pitch: a traditional query letter and synopsis. It all comes back around to create a massive circle.

So there you have it, a breakdown of both why pitching is necessary and my particular thought process for evaluating them. Over the course of this next week, I’ll be starting #Pubsubs on Twitter, giving you a chance to see this in action, and periodically, I’ll add articles that may or may not be helpful to those navigating the query trenches to this blog series (along with the weekly Tweet compilations, of course). If you have any suggestions for topics you’d like me to cover, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

Until next week, happy pitching!

— Kisa Whipkey
Acquisitions & Editorial Director

The post Adventures in the Slush Pile: 8/17/15 Edition appeared first on REUTS | Boutique Book Publisher |.

Welcome to the newest addition to the REUTS blog!

As you well know, the staff of REUTS Publications believes in transparency, and there’s nothing we enjoy more than finding new and creative ways to offer authors insight/advice on navigating the murky depths of the publishing industry. We’re certainly not the only ones with this philosophy, though, and I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit where it was due. See, what I’m about to unveil was inspired by the acts of fellow industry professionals at the Ruben Literary Agency, Inklings Literary Agency, Red Sofa Literary, and many others, all of whom are responsible for creating the Twitter hashtags #tenqueries, #500queries, etc.

Recently, I asked authors how they felt about those very hashtags and the possibility of seeing one from REUTS. The answer was an overwhelming and resounding, “YES, do it!” Because, as you may have noted above, the people who usually participate in these kinds of activities are agents, not presses. But agents and editors (especially small press editors) don’t always look for the same things, and it was abundantly clear that some of you out there are curious to see how we differ.

Therefore, I’m launching #REUTSsubs and following in my predecessors’ footsteps. As I browse the slush pile looking for gems waiting to be snatched up, I’ll tweet my thoughts/verdicts. The point of these, while hopefully entertaining, is to offer authors insight into the way an acquisitions editor makes their decision. The queries will remain anonymous; I’ll only list the category, genre, and my overall opinion. Sounds just like the others, doesn’t it? That’s the idea. However, there is an added component that I haven’t seen the others do yet.

Once a week, I will take all those tweets and compile them here on the blog. Twitter captures a snapshot of the decision process — the ultimate verdict — but it doesn’t allow for a lot of explanation as to the thought behind that verdict. Personally, I believe that’s the portion that will be most helpful to the authors battling it out in the query trenches. From personal reasons, to catalog clashes, to components that could have been done differently, there are a plethora of reasons as to why something might be rejected. And fitting that into Twitter’s limit is nigh impossible. So, to that end, the weekly blog summary will allow for additional commentary that can’t be squished into 140 characters while also providing a handy location to catch them all.

Also, REUTS does their acquisitions by panel, meaning that no one person has the final say. So it would be deceptive to say that the verdict you see from me on Twitter is the ultimate verdict on a submission. Sometimes (frequently, actually), we end up with split decisions, resulting in more discussion and eventually a majority ruling. To reflect that process more accurately, I’ll be adding commentary from the other acquisitions members to the blog posts as well. You may also see them pop up on the hashtag every once in a while. Though, for the most part, I’ll be the one curating it all. (Don’t groan too loudly; I might hear you. )

So, that’s it. Keep an eye on #REUTSsubs in the next few weeks if you’re interested in my humble opinions, and look for the first summary edition of “Adventures in the Slush Pile” to go live on Monday, 8/17/15. (Why not next Monday? I’ll be attending the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland, OR for most of this week, so I’ll be accepting pitches in person, as opposed to wading through the slush pile.) See you then!

— Kisa Whipkey
Acquisitions & Editorial Director

The post Adventures in the Slush Pile appeared first on REUTS | Boutique Book Publisher |.

In the publishing world, there’s a lot going on behind-the-scenes even when it may not look like it. In fact, the bulk of a publisher’s (or agent’s or writer’s) efforts aren’t publicly broadcasted. When an announcement is made or a book is released, it comes on the heels of weeks, or even months, of behind-the-scenes teamwork. Because we like full transparency and providing an inside look into how we do what we do, I wanted to touch on delays; why they happen, and why they aren’t always a bad thing. So in a fashion similar to Editorial Dir. Kisa Whipkey’s What Not to Do When Querying article, here’s:

“Hey, what’s taking so long?”
The Delays in Publishing.

For organizational means, I’m going to break down “publishing” into the main phases an author and publisher go through. Please note this is specific to REUTS and how we move through these individual phases. Though other pubs may have similar processes, there isn’t a “one size fits all” method to publishing.

Submitting

Number one delay: Slush.

Now, don’t assume that’s bad. Slush is just a term to describe all the submissions we receive. Some are good, and some are not so good. Kind of like snow—you’ve got the pristine, fresh snow, and then the mucky, brown snow. Mix them together, and you have slush. Not bad, just how it goes. Every publisher or agency has slush, and everyone has their own method of trudging through it.

Delay’s happen here from an overwhelming number of submissions. If you have 100 submissions looming in the slush pile, and each includes a query/synopsis and the first ten pages of the manuscript, there’s quite a lot of reading involved at the very start of the process. And, in order to make the most informed decision on whether or not to request the full manuscript, we read them all. This causes a delay at REUTS because of the unique method we’ve adopted to handle submissions. Instead of submitting to one Acquisitions Editor who then decides yay or nay (and if yay, has to convince the rest of the team to feel the same way), we have a panel consisting of the four REUTS directors. Each of our directors reads through each submission, provides their thoughts, and submits a decision. It then comes down to a majority vote. Only after a majority vote has been decided can we respond to an author regarding their submission. And at REUTS we provide a unique response email to all of our submitting authors, regardless if it’s good news or bad news.

Only then can we move a manuscript out of the “submitting” phase, and into the “reviewing” phase.

Remember, requesting an update only delays us further, since the time it takes to look up your manuscript, track down the email with any discussion, and respond back takes precious time away from actually reading your submission. Here are REUTS we always respond to a submission made. No exceptions. So if you haven’t heard from us, that’s actually better than if you had and received a rejection.

Reviewing

Number one delay: Reading.

If a submission makes it to the “reviewing” phase that means we’ve requested a full manuscript for further . . . review. Makes sense! This is, without a doubt, the longest part on your journey toward receiving that beloved contract offer. In requesting manuscripts with a minimum word count of 50,000 (and many times a story is well over that), it means an acquisitions team has to read a full-length book before making a decision. Just like in the “submitting” phase, our panel of four REUTS directors are involved in reviewing the full manuscript. Each director reads the manuscript, and then there’s the discussion. Since people read at different speeds, with their own set of different delays (remember: our directors have responsibilities to already signed authors outside of their acquisitions duties) there’s no way to accurately gauge how long it will take all four team members to read a manuscript. Then there’s the discussion, which is absolutely necessary, as each of our directors brings a different perspective to the table. Editorial Director Kisa Whipkey weighs in on the amount of work involved in bringing a manuscript up to publication standards. Marketing Director Summer Wier weighs in on how marketable the title would be in the current—and future—marketplace trends. This method, along with many other factors, allows us to determine whether a title will work within our collection or whether it isn’t a good fit.

We take our job very seriously, as I’m sure all Acquisitions Editors do, and that means taking our time to make sure our accrual of a new title will benefit both REUTS and—most importantly—the author.

Production
(editing, cover design, marketing, etc…)

Number one delay: Life.

Your editor won’t be your cover artist. Your cover artist won’t be your marketer. That right there means there are at least four people working together to produce your novel. And, guess what, those four people all have lives independent of each other, independent of REUTS. Yes, you’re included in that four, too. We don’t expect an author to focus on their manuscript 24/7, just as we don’t expect our production team to focus solely on your manuscript 24/7. It’s a fact many tend to ignore: life gets in the way. Sometimes you can’t control it. Sickness, death, children, leisure . . . delays sometimes happen because of the things you can’t plan for. It doesn’t mean your editor/cover artist/etc . . . isn’t fully vested in your project. It doesn’t mean you’re not a priority in the eyes of the publisher. It just . . . happens. As much as we try to account for life-based delays, let’s face it, they’re unavoidable.

In addition, on top of those life delays each team member involved in the production of your title has at least a handful of other books they’re also working on, simultaneously, and trying to make sure all authors receive the same amount of attention, especially if one of the authors has a book release looming sooner than another.

Sometimes this means we miss the original publication date, and it has to be pushed back (trust me, this happens a lot in publishing, and not just to independent presses). Many times that means scrambling until the very last second before a release day, making sure everything is set and ready to go. But always this means we’re working our very hardest for you and your manuscript. A delay doesn’t mean otherwise.

So you see, there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle that come together, from start to finish, to produce a book. Delays aren’t necessarily a bad thing. We’d much rather delay any phase of the process in order to give your story the time of day it deserves. In the “Submitting” phase, that means actually reading through your submission, and determining if we’re the best fit as a publisher or not. In the “Reviewing” phase, that means reading every word of that 50,000+ word story, becoming emotionally invested in your characters/world/etc… and trying to find a place for it in our collection. And then finally, in “Production”, where if everything wasn’t done digitally, our blood, sweat, and tears would stain your pages because we want to put out the very best product possible.

Publishing is largely a waiting game. That should come as no surprise. But just remember what they say:

Patience is a virtue.

The post “Hey, what’s taking so long?” The Delays in Publishing appeared first on REUTS | Boutique Book Publisher |.