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By: Lee Wind, M.Ed.,
on 7/31/2016
By: Lee Wind, M.Ed.,
on 7/30/2016
A new opportunity at the SCBWI Summer Conference, these informal conversations with faculty members including agents and artist reps (Ginger Clark, Erica Rand Silverman, Tina Wexler, Kirsten Hall and Brooks Sherman) and editors and publishers (Krista Marino, Neal Porter, Sara Sargent, Melissa Manlove, Stacey Barney, Kat Brzozowski, and Reka Simonsen) are a big hit!
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| Attendees with agent Ginger Clark |
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| Attendees with Publisher Neal Porter |
By: Jaime Temairik,
on 2/14/2016
Ginger Clark has been a literary agent with Curtis Brown since 2005. She represents many genres and categories of books in addition to representing the British rights for Curtis Brown's children's list. She's lots of fun on Twitter, and from there you may have learned she's really into wombats and Peter Capaldi, but aren't we all?
Sarah Davies and Ginger Clark tag team on describing how a rolling auction works. All of the bidding publishers give their bid, and then the lowest bidder is asked if they can match the highest bid, and the other bidders are approached in turn, and this can go around a few times, perhaps up to seven rounds.
Compared to a best bids auction, where Ginger asks for editors to name their ultimate bid and no additional rounds of bid-taking happen.
For most books Ginger has sold she's initially sent out the submission to 12 editors. In special cases she's sent the submission out to upwards of 27 editors (and she notes that 25% of those 27 were at Penguin Random House, which is the strange reality of big houses merging into even bigger houses these days).
The most important 'gets' in a contract to Ginger are:
Translation rights, British rights, audio rights, joint vs. separate accounting on multiple book deal royalties (you want separate accounting!!) Ginger will only take joint accounting deals unless there are no other offers OR the publisher is offering them an insane amount of money. Other than that, deal-killers are up to the client, says Ginger.
Ginger's last bit of advice:
When picking an agent, pick someone you think will be a great advocate for you and will be a great, professional advice-giver—don't pick someone only because you think they could be your best friend, or that reminds you of your mom or Peter Capaldi, or because they own a wombat.
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| (l-r) Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker; wombat from How To Negotiate Everything |
By: Lee Wind, M.Ed.,
on 2/14/2016
By: Erin Cashman,
on 11/29/2014
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By: Erin Cashman,
on 11/29/2014
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By: Maryann Yin,
on 10/3/2012
Happy October! In honor of the Halloween season, we’ll be interviewing horror writers to learn about the craft of scaring readers. Recently, we spoke with young adult novelist Gretchen McNeil.
In September, HarperCollins Children’s Books published McNeil’s latest novel. When Barnes & Noble decided not to carry this title in their stores, she launched an internet marketing campaign called the “Army of TEN” and offered incentives for readers who helped to promote the book.
Currently, this title holds the #88 spot on Amazon’s list of bestselling teen books in the “mysteries” category. Check out the highlights from our interview below…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
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By: Kathy Temean,
on 5/23/2012
Before I leave as Regional Advisor, we will have one or maybe two Networking Dinners in NYC with editors and agents. Space is limited, so if you want to attend, you will need to e-mail me to let me know you want a spot. Please put “Networking Dinner Spot” in the subject area and I will get back to you.
Date: June 26th
Time: 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm Networking, dinner, dessert
Cost: $145 per person. Includes dinner and drink.
Place: Private Room Morton’s Steakhouse 551 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10017
3 to 1 ratio of attendees to Editors/Agents/AD
OUR GUESTS FOR THE EVENING:
Ginger Clark, Literary Agent with Curtis Brown LTD
Daniel Nayeri, Editor at Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Lucy Cummins, Associate Art Director with Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Connie Hsu, Sr. Editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Melissa Sarver, Agent at Elizabeth Kaplan Literary Agency
Kate Sullivan, Associate Editor, Little, Brown, and Co. BFYR
Tamra Tuller, Sr. Editor at Philomel Books
Allison Wortche, Associate Editor at Knopf Books for Young Readers
Tamson Weston, Editorial Consultant, Published Children’s Book Author, and Editor with over 15 years of experience at several prestigious publishing houses including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Disney Hyperion.
The posted illustration was submitted by Mary Zisk for May. Mary is a mild-mannered magazine art director by day, and an author/illustrator on weekends. She wrote and illustrated “The Best Single Mom in the World: How I Was Adopted,” published by Albert Whitman in 2001. She has a picture book dummy,”Oliver’s Week,” that is under consideration. By attending NJSCBWI events, Mary is learning to write her middle grade novel, “The Art of Being Remmy,” which takes place in 1964. And she’s a Jersey girl. www.maryzisk.com
By: SCBWI,
on 1/29/2011
Ginger Clark has been a literary agent with Curtis Brown since the fall of 2005. [Curtis Brown has been around since 1914, and has three agents that focus on children's books. Curtis Brown was founded by the legendary Marilyn Marlow.]
By: Suzanne Young,
on 8/1/2010
Ginger Clark is an agent with Curtis Brown LTD. She reps science fiction, fantasy, paranormal romance, literary horror and young adult and MG fiction. She also reps the British rights for the agency and attends the Bologna and Frankfurt Book fairs.
Ginger Clark said that of the queries she receives; only about 30% are usable for her. In the queries she prefers business format with one paragraph for plot. Mention any publishing credits you may have, address her by name, and include all of your contact information.
Industry recognizes the need to be as visible as possible on the internet. When asked about how many clients an agent takes on in a year, she said that so far this year she’s taken on about 3 clients out of thousands of queries.
By: Martha Brockenbrough,
on 7/31/2010
By: Lee Wind,
on 7/31/2010
The Agents Panel is starting!
From Left To Right: Ginger Clark (Curtis Brown), Ken Wright (Writers House), Josh Adams (Adams Literary), and Lisa Grubka (Foundry).
Team blog is covering each agent individually - look for those posts coming up in the next minutes...
By: SCBWI,
on 7/13/2010
How can it be that the SCBWI summer conference is only a few short weeks away? Is it that the weather has been so cold it doesn’t seem possible that the end up July could be that close? Okay, I suppose that only goes for those of us in the Pacific Northwest. But still! How excited are you to be there? Or…OR are you still deciding?There’s still time. You don’t want to miss the many fab agents attending and critiquing, like Ginger Clark.
I’m going to be submitting to agents and editors in the next few weeks, after I’ve done a few more tweaks to my manuscript and managed to write a good query letter (which will probably take just as long as it took to write the novel), so it’s a good reminder from literary agent Kristin Nelson to beware when finding a good agent.
Kristin wrote a blog post this week reminding us about the great work of the Writer Beware and Predators & Editors sites. These sites are must-visits when we’re compiling lists of agents we want to send to.
When we’re looking for an agent to represent our work, we should not be looking for someone to sell this one project; we should be looking for someone who can be our partner, our advocate for the rest of our career — a long career. We should be as picky about who our agent should be as agents are about their clients. We should research lists of agents (start with the various books and web sites); research their latest sales on their websites (if they have one) and through Publishers Marketplace (you have to subscribe, but the small fee is worth it). Research the types of books they have sold already, who their clients are and what they’re looking for. Read as many interviews with them as you can find. Go to conferences and watch them speak. All this will help you figure out a good list of agents that you think you can work with. Also, don’t submit unless your type of manuscript is on their list of wants.
Now, figuring that out doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll automatically be a good match. The agents might not get into your work as well as you’d hope. But that’s ok, because someone else will. You just keep sending to others on the list. (This is, of course, after you’ve made sure your manuscript is in publishable state, after being read at critique groups, etc.)
Once you’ve done all this research, don’t burn your bridges if the agent you think you’d love to work with rejects your manuscript. Don’t do what some people have done to agent Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown. Don’t email the agent back cursing at the agent. For one thing, it’s rude and unprofessional. For another, you’ve lost your chance with that agent and potentially with others. They know each other.
Remember, this is your career, your book. And you want to give that book the best opportunity it can. Do your research, then be polite and professional. You’ll attract much more with honey than vinegar. It’s cliche but true.
Write On!
Uh, that's "write" not "right," right?
•Step one, right a great novel.