I am still recovering from the RT Convention, and the awful cold I had the whole time I was there, which I ignored and for which I paid yesterday by sleeping about 24 hours straight. I plan to blog extensively about my adventures in sunny Florida, never fear. If you want a preview, do visit one of my partners in crime, Michelle, where you can see photographic evidence of me acting like the giant dork I am. Hooray!

In the meantime, I'm delighted to announce that the Q & A with my fabulous agent Julie Barer is ready!

After working for six years at the prestigious New York literary agency Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Julie Barer started her own agency, Barer Literary, in 2004. Julie represents a wide range of fiction writers who publish across the literary spectrum, from short story collections to young adult novels. She also represents a variety of nonfiction clients whose specialties include biography, memoir, narrative nonfiction, history, and popular culture. You can visit her website at www.barerliterary.com


Q: Are you Miss Snark?

A: Ha! That’s funny. No, I’m not Miss Snark (although if I was, would I admit it?). I will admit that I’m curious about who is behind the Miss Snark blog. I’m also amazed that any agent has the time to both do their job and write about it. I barely have enough time to watch the most recent episode of Top Chef.

Q: Would you consider having the Barer Blog? How do you feel about the agent blogs that are out there now?


A: I think blogs in general can be really entertaining and useful sources of information, but personally, I’m just too busy to be able to have one myself. I just read that and realized it makes me sound very self-important. What I mean is that I think if I didn’t spend the little free time I had trying to have some kind of life outside of work, I’d become a very bitter and unhappy person very quickly, and that in turn would make me a bad agent.

I think there’s a lot about the publishing industry that can be confusing and overwhelming for a first time author, and if there are agents (or other publishing people) out there willing to take the time to answer those questions and provide that information, that’s great.

Q: How did you become an agent?

A: I started out as an assistant at a big agency, where I was lucky enough to have a lot of support and encouragement. After a few years of learning the ropes, I started taking on my own clients and developing my list. Recently, I left and started my own agency, which has been an incredibly exciting and rewarding experience. Before that though, I worked at Shakespeare & Co.- a wonderful independent bookstore in New York, My favorite thing about working there was being able to recommend books that I loved to customers and then see them come back for more suggestions. In many ways, agenting is a similar form of hand-selling (among other things), and I can’t imagine a better job.

Q: Do people meet you at parties, find out what you do, and start pitching to you?

A: Of course! But that’s okay- you never know where you’re going to discover a great book or interesting author. And at least it’s a conversation starter: there’s nothing like announcing you’re a lawyer to get people to stop talking.

Q: What was the weirdest/most inappropriate pitch you’ve ever received? (I was once accosted in a bathroom, and I’m not even an agent!)

A: Oh how do I pick? I’ve had the bathroom approach (at a conference) and the note slipped under my hotel room door (another conference), and once a bank teller tried to pitch me their book, but to really get a sense of some of the oddly personal and/or inappropriate pitches I get, you’d have to take a look at my mail.

Q: What does a normal day look like for you?


A: I spend most of my time when I’m at the office answering emails and phone calls, dealing with contracts and submissions, talking with my authors and their editors, and reading through the fifty or so queries that come in every week. Most days I have lunch with either an editor or an author, or someone in the industry. At nights and on the weekends I’m at home reading manuscripts and proposals and editing them, or going through literary journals and magazines to look for new clients. Every day is different, that’s part of why my job is so fun.

Q: What are you looking for in a client?

A: Besides a talented writer with a compelling and original story whose book I love, I’m looking for someone who is serious about their work, realistic about their expectations, self motivated, and willing to put themselves out there. These days, being a successful author is about more than just being a great writer or having a great book. For example: while I’m happy to help brainstorm with my clients about ways in which they can get their name and their books out there, I want them to be doing some of that on their own. I also want someone who’s not a diva- someone who recognizes and respects the fact that it takes a number of people, from your editor to your editor’s assistant, to the art department and your publicist and your copyeditor (and yes, your agent) to help make a book successful. I like authors who play well with others, and who are interested in developing long term careers, not just being a one-hit wonder.

Q: According to Jenny Bent and Irene Goodman, among others, chick lit is dead. What do you think?

A: I think that novels about 20-something assistants who have expensive shoe habits and mean bosses, who work in the publishing or fashion industry and who are sick of always being the bridesmaid and never the bride are incredibly tough to pitch these days- there are just too many of them out there. But if you define “chick lit” as funny, light-hearted, entertaining and plot-driven fiction by and about women, then that’s a different story. The key, I believe, is to expand the category more broadly so that it includes a more diverse set of experiences- not all women’s lives are the same – and yet still taps into those very issues (family, money, body image, true love, passion, career etc.) that most women can identify with.

Q: Some agents hate e-queries. Others hate snail mail. What’s your biggest pet peeve?

A: My biggest pet peeve is when people try and use gimmicks to sell me their work, rather than approaching me in a professional, articulate and non-accessorized way. I also find it frustrating when a writer hasn’t taken the time to research the agent they are querying- you can see from most agency websites and listings what kind of books we’re each looking for, and I find it a waste of everyone’s time when I get queries for thrillers, for example, or self-help books, neither of which I represent.

Q: What is your favorite song at this very moment?


A: "Long Time Gone" by the Dixie Chicks

Q: From one of my blog readers: Is anyone out there buying male "confessionals" that weren't written by Nick Hornby?


A: Male “confessionals” are tough sells in part, I think, because young men don’t really buy much contemporary fiction. Men, in general, don’t buy books as much as women and most women seem more interested in reading “female confessionals” that they can identify with than their counterparts. It makes sense: if you’ve just had your heart broken because your man won’t commit, the last thing you want to read is a (possibly sympathetic) novel by a guy about a man who can’t commit.

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: Besides the 5 or so manuscripts I’m currently in the middle of? I just finished Bill Buford’s forthcoming non-fiction book HEAT (partly about his time working at Mario Batali’s amazing restaurant Babbo) which I thought was incredible, and a must read for anyone who loves to cook. I’m currently reading Eric Puchner’s MUSIC THROUGH THE FLOOR, a short story collection given to me by a client and represented by my friend Dorian Karchmar, and BEYOND BLACK by Hilary Mantel, which I picked up on a recent trip to London. As soon as I have five spare hours to sit down and read uninterrupted I’m going to tear through Naomi Novik’s THRONE OF JADE, the second book in her utterly brilliant series about an 18th century naval captain and his dragon (yes, I am a nerd.) I’m also looking forward to reading the new Gary Shteyngart’s ABSURDISTAN, and SUITE FRANCAISE by Irene Nemirovsky. Usually I have at least 3 or 4 books on my bedside table that I’m reading simultaneously.

Q: If you could claim any book in the world as your own, which one would it be?


A: Just one?! Impossible. Contemporary novels that I wish I had represented? Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken, An Ice Cream War by William Boyd, Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, the Harry Potter books…

Q: What is one thing you wish you could personally tell all the writers out there?

A: Keep buying books! Seriously, keep buying fiction, and you will be supporting the very industry that you want to be a part of- if you send the message to publishers that there’s an audience for those books, in a (albeit indirect way) you’re helping make it more possible for your own work to find a home.

She Said/She Said: Julie and I Tell The Story of How We Started Working Together:

Megan:

After I had written my 400 page book, and set it aside for a year, and then resurrected it, I decided that I should send it out. I had no idea what this meant, but a friend encouraged me and I thought I should too, because why not? I thought I would try to send it to this woman I knew about, who I'd known in college but hadn't really seen since, who was a literary agent. I knew from a friend's experience that she gave really good criticism when she declined to represent you. So I figured I would send it to her, she would reject me, and I would use her notes to revise my manuscript and send it out to others. It never occurred to me that she would do anything but reject the manuscript.

So that's what I did, except when she responded with her expected rejection, she said that if I was willing to revise the book she'd be happy to look at it again-- in fact, she told me that she would give me pointers on how to do that revision, if I was interested. I had nothing else to do but sit in the north of England and supposedly work on my doctorate, so I revised. And resubmitted. And not long after, got a really cool telephone call that, it turns out, changed my life.

And that's the story of how I got my fabulous agent, with one random email, and no query letter at all!

Julie:

I get an email or a phone call practically every week from someone who has a roommate/sister/uncle/colleague who has written a book, so when a friend mentioned that someone we went to college with had a great novel and asked if I wanted to take a look, I was interested, but not overly optimistic.

Then the novel came in, and though it was about 100 pages too long, there was obviously something there. It was sharp and funny, and really entertaining, if in need of little shaping. I especially liked that it was the story of a young American living in England, since I had spent a year living in London after college, and could identify with many of the main character’s observations of British life. I tried to offer some suggestions as to what I thought could help slim it down and focus the story more sharply, but in the end, I felt that the book as a whole needed to be tightened in a way that I couldn’t quite articulate, and it was just going to be up to the author to see if she could take it to the next level. I offered to reconsider the manuscript after she revised it, since I thought it was so promising. A few months later the manuscript came back and she had done exactly what I had hoped for – she took some of my suggestions, but most of all she had used her own intuition and talent to focus in on the real essence of the story. I loved what I read, and I called her up right away. That was 3 books ago!




Thanks for stopping by, Julie!