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Today. Today I ate lunch at my favorite Italian restaurant, Novita. I have been going there for years, seriously years already, and I always order the same thing, which is pasta with red sauce and a glass of white wine. I know, I know, sacrilege. Don't tell my Italian grandma. The best part about ordering the same thing every time is that I always get the extra fresh basil on my pasta without having to ask for it, and my white wine is always pinot grigio, and the waiter always smiles extra big at me.

Also, I tip really really well.

Today. Today my author Kassandra Sims told me a bunch of funny stories about staying with her mom in Ohio, and then posted a journal entry in which she said:

I have no great insight into my own "creative process". I MAKE THINGS UP. That's pretty much the whole process right there. I make things up, and sometimes the result is good, and sometimes it's self-indulgent crap. Hopefully those two sides even out.

Today. Today I am wearing all my Slytherin stuff: green eyeshadow, green jewelry. Green beaded bracelets and a green Monet necklace from the Met. If anyone feels like buying me a gift, feel free to hook me up with this totally Slytherin necklace that I desperately want. I also want this watch. I am greedy and I love the Met store.

Oh, and hey! I will answer a question:

burger_eater said: During his "Longshot" talk [at Writer's Weekend '05], Jim Butcher said that publishers keep one or two slots open every year specifically for new authors. Aspiring writers don't have to be better than Tim Powers, they just have to be better than all the other unpublished writers out there. He said. I'd never heard that before, so I'm looking for confirmation or refutation. Miss Snark was stumped on this one. Does Tor have spaces in their schedules specifically for new writers?

The quick answer to this is no, we don't keep slots open specifically for new writers. The quick answer is also that new writers should absolutely be better than Tim Powers and Neil Gaiman, or Laurell Hamilton, or Nora Roberts, or whoever your benchmark is.

The longer, more accurate, answer is that publishers and editors understand the reality that some books do better than others. Some books are going to sell lots of copies and some aren't. What we do have are slots for books that we don't expect to be bestsellers, or even in the upper midlist. They're not static -- these are dynamic slots, and they move around, and they aren't there for specific editors or specific books, and they are not even there specifically for authors who are brand new! Lots of really good authors who win awards get out lower numbers, even though they've been writing for years. So we have slots for them.

We have slots for building new authors, and slots for prestigious books that won't sell a lot of copies but will rain accolades upon our house.

Et cetera.

YMMV at other houses.

ETN: pnh goes into more detail.

The second part of burger_eater's question was: You said that listing publications on a query was a good idea, unless the publication was from a really small market which would make the writer seem small potatoes. Now, I'm not going to ask you for specifics (unless you want to slam some short fiction markets--in that case, go ahead) but where's the cutoff line for past publications that are more regrettable than commendable? Is it the SFWA criteria for pro markets? Half-penny a word and below? Never published a story that was later chosen for a best-of-the- year anthology?

The best answer I can give you is to say what I always say -- which is that you should use your common sense. Writing for a true confessions magazine doesn't help you sell a book. Having two short stories published in a magazine that lasted for six months isn't going to help you sell a book.

If you have done your appropriate research, you know which short fiction markets are ridiculous and which we take seriously. You know that coming to us with a publication under your belt in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet is going to mean something more than a publication in My Uncle Bob's Guide to Campfire Horror or whatever.

You want to watch yourself with the number of short fiction credits you use, too -- the more short fiction credits you have, the more suspicious we (or, at least, I) will be about your long fiction. 300 short fiction credits are great -- but what does that mean about your novel?

Anyway, the point is that in your cover letter, you should talk about things that are pertinent to your novel. If it's about a doctor and you're a doctor, mention that. If it spins off a world you created in a short story that won a Hugo award, mention that. Use your best judgement.

Remember: the worst that can happen is a form rejection.

If you have a specific question about stuff that I talk about in this entry, feel free to ask it! If you have a question that's unrelated, please go to this entry and ask your question there.

Comments

Re: Wow

[deza.livejournal.com]

Knitting is surprisingly easy once you get past the basic stage of "what do I do with the sticks?" ;) I highly recommend Debbie Stoller's book Stitch n'Bitch as an introduction to knitting. I've only been knitting for about *counts on fingers* four months now, and the bag is the first piece of intarsia I've tried. I'm trying my first set of socks at the moment.