Yesterday I shared part 1 of my interview with literary agent Iris Blasi of Carol Mann Agency about getting your nonfiction manuscript published. Today, Blasi discusses the specifics of selling memoir as a genre, author submission deal breakers, and how authors can best position themselves to get signed by an agent.
You mentioned memoir, where youre basically selling yourself. Is memoir different in terms of what it takes to sell one?
The ways memoirs are pitched to agents and publishers is different. Generally in the nonfiction world, books can be sold on proposal. Thats the summary, comp titles, marketing and publicity section, about the author, annotated table of contents and a couple sample chapters that show how you would do this if you had an advance and a book deal. The flip side is that on the fiction side, the vast majority of fiction is sold with a completed manuscript.
The only nonfiction that is usually sold in its completed form is memoir. The idea is that when you get an advance, you need time to report on the subject. Memoir is a lived experience that youve already had, so you wont need the advance to do that kind of heavy lifting or international global travel, whatever the case may be. And with memoir, you cant just promise I plan to look at X. Any acquiring editor would need to know the full arc of that story, just as they do in fiction.
There are lots of rhythms of memoir that mirror fiction writing. You hear people say my life is so crazy, people always say I should write a book. Memoir is tricky because you have to give people a reason to care about your story. It cant just be that its wild.
Hachette Books
You can see that successful memoirs tap into something thats happening, something thats topical or a universality of a lived experience. Stephanie Lands Maidfelt incredibly timely to me with a lot of the topics were confronting in the political realm. Its the same thing were asking for in all kinds of books. Its not just,This is a good book. Its, Why does it matter to us right now?
Readers have so much to choose from. Theyre not just choosing from a wide array of books. We have to get them to choose a book on top of cooking something for dinner or watching a movie or bingeing something on Netflix. Why are we going to publish something? We have to explain to the reader why its worth their investment of the 8-12 hours that it takes to read a book.
Do you have any other memoirs that are the kind of storytelling you would want to publish?
Buzz is actually a perfect example: Its a nonfiction journalistic approach to a topic that arises out of Hallies experiences. She talks about a formative experience seeing a sex toy for the first time, and she also delves into her tenue during grad school selling for a local in-home sex-toy sales business. You understand in the book why she cares so much about that subject matter.
Another favorite book I did in that vein was Peter Rudiak-Goulds Surviving Paradise: One Year on a Disappearing Island, which used Peters experience teaching English on a remote atoll in the Marshall Islands too talk about the threat global warming posed to the already precarious existence of these low-lying islands.
I love in particular books that are a hybrid of memoir and something else. Bill Hayes has done this kind of thing repeatedly by interweaving a personal narrative with a larger reported piece. His book Sleep Demons is a favorite of mine in which he co-mingles his own battle with insomnia with the scientific history of sleep research and clinical sleep disorders. He tackled the subject of blood in a similar way with Five Quarts which addresses the subject through the lens of living with his partners HIV status.
Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevichs The Fact of a Body maps the legal case of a pedophile murderer against the authors own history of sexual abuse and family secrets. Or I think, too, of Maggie Nelsons The Red Parts, which is nominally an account of the author attending the years-delayed murder trial of her aunt, but also delves into a meditation on memory, the fallibility of forensics, the grieving process, the justice system and moreits like Joan Didion meets Making a Murderer. Or one of my favorite books ever, Walter Kirns Blood Will Out, which is nominally a memoir about Kirns experience with the con artist who posed as Clark Rockefeller that is really an incredible rumination on identity and class. I think that the most exciting memoirs tend to do more than one thing.
What do you see in proposals thats a deal breaker?
Mass submission. Digital technology means you can send your manuscript to every agent who is alive and thats never a wonderful idea.
How does an author know an agent is the right fit?
Its somebody who understand what youre trying to do, who sees your vision, is passionate about the book. Nobody works in publishing for the money. You have to have that genuine enthusiasm. When you look at books that are successful, its because they all caught early, and that germ of excitement has to come at the beginning of the process. Its contagious. The author is excited about their work, they find an agent whos excited about it too, they make an editor excited, the editor gets their editorial board excited, and the publicity and marketing and sales teams all get excited.
People often ask how much I think a certain book can sell for. Publishing is very unpredictable and I never promise. People think a book is their get-rich idea. It can take a couple books to get to the level where they want to be. Not everybodys first book out of the gate will be that bestseller. Youre looking for somebody whos willing to put in that work with you.
All literary relationships are at the end of the day partnerships, but the editor/author relationship can feel more transactional because the publishing house is paying the author to write a book that they will then publish. The agent/writer relationship can feel a little bit more like being in the trenches together. You have to think about: who do you want down there with you?
What can authors do to best position themselves to be signed by an agent?
I want to work with authors who have not only lofty goals but an idea of the pathway to get there. They need to understand the building blocks. Im going to then meet them halfway by show up with all of the tools in my own arsenal so we can create this empire together. Agenting feels much more like being on a team with somebody because my financial future is very directly tied to theirs. I need to be working with people that I 185% believe in.
Thats what happened with Lindsay Goldwert. I reached out her in early 2018 because I admired her writing but I also just really respected her hustle. I wanted to know what book ideas she might have floating around in her head and how I could help make that happen.
Tiller Press
The ideas we originally talked about werent even the book we wound up selling: Bow Down: Lessons from Dominatrixes on How To Get Everything You Want, which will be published by Simon & Schuster imprint Tiller Press in January 2020. But when Lindsay said she wanted to write a book about what professional dominatrixes can teach the rest of us about confidence, power, and happiness, I was on board, and the book turned out so incredibly. Its a modern empowerment primer for women, but its also such an intimate and thoughtful look at Lindsays own evolving views on personal power and self-confidence. And its funny as hell. Theres no one else who could have written the book the way she did. Im so excited to see what Lindsay does next. I believe in her so much that I will back her on literally whatever she wants to do.
As an editor I would get letters from authors saying, Im looking for an agent. As an agent, I get people saying, Im looking for a publishing house. That automatically shows me theyre not paying attention to who I am and what I do. It starts with the little things. Use my name.
Im so public with the things I like in terms of my literary tastes. Take two seconds and look onTwitterorInstagram. Are we connecting with something there? Do you know any other books Ive ever published? Do you know other books that our agency has published? We have a 40-year track record with a authors including Paul Auster, Tim Egan, Erin Brockovich, Queen Latifah, DMC, Kitten Lady, Pusheen, and The Oatmeal. Its a huge range.
Is there any book weve ever published that you admire? Its helpful to know that, as not only does it mean that youre paying attention and that I should then pay the same amount of attention in response, but it gives me an idea of what youre looking to do so I can then have a clearer idea of what I can bring to the table to help you get there.
How much back and forth and revising of the proposal usually happens? What can they expect after you sign them as a client?
Because I come out of an editorial background, Im a very editorially-focused agent. I would say signing is just the beginning of the process. We would work together to make this be the best that it can be, whatever that back and forth involves. It may take months to get to the point where we feel right about submitting it.
It may not be just about the manuscript. It may be platform building. Because I also have experience in publicity and marketing (my last in-house position was a hybrid role where I was both Marketing Director and Senior Editor), that kind of coaching and consultation is something I offer that is somewhat unique to me as an agent.
We want to make sure the whole package looks the way its supposed to before we approach the publisher. Does that mean setting you up with a speakers bureau to book some speaking gigs? Does it mean that I help you write and place a high-profile op-ed before we submit the proposal to publishers? As an agent, I am on board for a clients whole career, so we can talk and strategize about some of that long-term planning as part of the preparation of a proposal.
What kind of timeline can they expect from signing with you to hearing back from publishers?
The submission timeline is as unique as every book. Id say generally it can be between one and six months, depending on what shape the proposal is in. You have to think about the timing of the rhythms of the publishing year and when the right time to go out with something is. Sometimes it does take a long time. My colleagues have worked with people for two to three years before they went out with a selling proposal. That can also happen. Its generally worth the time it takes for the book and whole pitch to become the best it can be. If youre looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, I would advise not writing a book.
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How To Land A Literary Agent, According To Iris Blasi Of Carol Mann Agency (Part 2) - Forbes