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Hi all. I know it's mid-January already, so I'm delinquent. Again. But I've finally compiled my stats for queries received in November and December. I'll do them month by month as not to muddle the numbers.

Trends:

• Numbers were down overall these two months. I feel like November makes sense because of National Novel Writing Month. And then December took a dive at the end when the holidays hit--which I think is 100% okay with me. I'd much prefer that that a sharp spike with novels that were just finished and not ready for prime time. Plus, we're all lazy around the holidays.
• I am seeing lots and lots of dystopians again. I know it's in the water. I've sold 4 of them already. So it's not that I don't love them when I turn them down...it's just that it's crowded.
• In spite of stating quite clearly that I don't rep picture book manuscripts and you must be the illustrator also, I am getting quite a few queries to that effect anyway. 

But here are the numbers...

November:

• Total: 204
• Requested: 5
• Categories of Requested: 4 YA (2 contemporary, 1 dystopian, 1 sci-fi) and 1 MG (historical/comedy)

December:

• Total: 175
• Requested: 1
• Categories of Requested: contemporary YA

So...I'm leaving the numbers simpler this month. Not going to get into funny numbers with weird stats. Obviously, these two months combined were about what I get in an average month the rest of the year. So take all that for what it's worth. I've been seeing more strong YA than middle grade, and don't really know what that's about.

But...onward into January!

And in case you missed it, I need an intern. Send them to this link here!

Let me take this opportunity to introduce myself. 

I'm Katie Shea, the newest agent here at Johnson Literary Agency. I am thrilled to be starting my career as a Literary Agent. I graduated with Honors from Marist College in 2008 with a BA in Journalism. I have always been one of those over-achiever types. By my senior year of high school, I was a proofreader with the local newspaper in my hometown of Princeton, New Jersey. Once I moved to the beautiful Hudson Valley for college, I immediately was hired as a freelance writer with another local newspaper in Poughkeepsie, New York. I mainly focused my attention on lifestyle articles and the arts. During college, I was able to take the opportunity to travel and study in Melbourne, Australia. There, I hit up the East Coast of Aussie, making stops at the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast, Sydney, Brisbane, and the Great Ocean Road. I also flew to down to New Zealand, rented a car and drove along the entire South Island, hiking a glacier, skydiving in Queenstown and bungy jumping at the world’s first bungy site. I do not regret one minute of those six months. What an adrenaline rush!

Once returning back to New York from my amazing, unforgettable trip, I had a year and a half left of school. I met an extremely smart and fun Woodstock author while waiting tables at a small diner. She ended up hiring me as her Research Assistant to work on her 7th edition of HUDSON VALLEY & CATSKILL MOUNTAINS: AN EXPLORER'S GUIDE. She was what truly made me realize my niche and love for working with books. 

Post college, I began working in Manhattan as a reader for FinePrint Literary Management. Not knowing anything prior about literary agencies, I was completely amazed by this profession. I learned the trade by reading as much as I could and understanding what agents were looking for in today's market. Moving along, I then assisted agents with Folio Literary Management and Langtons International Agency. By then, I knew there was nothing else I wanted to do other than be an agent. 

As of now, I am looking to build my long-desired client list. I am focusing on beautifully written literary fiction, commercial fiction, with a strong and sassy voice, heartfelt memoirs, narrative nonfiction, diet, and health & wellness. I look forward to working closely with my clients and guiding them to a published product. 

Some of my favorite authors may explain my taste further: Jeannette Walls, Elizabeth Gilbert, Joan Didion, Augusten Burroughs, and David Sedaris.

Until next time! Happy reading, happy writing! 

Do you need some summer laughs? Of course you do! Well, good news. Laura Toffler-Corrie's debut middle-grade novel, THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF AMY FINAWITZ, will be released into the wild next week.

It's a hilarious novel, with a brilliant and wacky cast of characters, and I know you'll be that person who guffaws on the subway while reading it. Because I still do. 

So. We're running a contest: a Fortune Cookie Twitter contest!

"Why fortune cookies?" you ask, innocently. "Well," I say, "fortune cookies play an important part in our heroine Amy's story."

One awesome way you can get a feel for Amy's fortune cookie flair is to read the sample chapter here. But here are some examples of fortunes Amy finds in the book:

• When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
• When you make change, come back a dollar.
• 7/5ths of all people do not understand fractions.

Your task: Tweet us your fortunes. What kind of fortunes? Well, fortunes specifically for writers! The fortune cookie you’d want to open if you were a writer working on a revision, or waiting for a review, or trying to get published, etc. The sky's the limit!

Let's start with the prizes to entice you.

• The GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the FORTUNE COOKIE contest will receive:
  • A signed copy of THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF AMY FINAWITZ
  • A critique of 10 pages of your work by Laura's super-editor Nancy Mercado!
• Runners-up prizes: A pack of these hilarious and evil fortune cookies! 

  THE RULES:

1. Follow author Laura Toffler-Corrie on Twitter: @LauraTofflerCor.  
2. Enter your fabulous, fortunes on Twitter. (Fortunes posted as comments to this blog post will be enjoyed, but not judged.)
3. You MUST use this hashtag in your tweet: #amyfortune (If you don't use it, we'll never see it!)
4. You may enter up to 10 (TEN) fortunes.
5. As we know, good fortune should SPREAD. Share the love! Spread the word about the contest! 
6. Laura, Nancy, and I will be the sole judges of the contest.
7. The deadline for this contest is 9AM Eastern Time on Tuesday, August 3rd (release day!). Winners will be announced Friday, August 6th. There are no exceptions to this! If any fortune tweets are sent after that time, they will NOT be read.

Now get thee to Twitter and start predicting!

Hey querying world,

I am taking a summer break from submissions. The pile has grown way up above my ears, and I'd like to be able to catch up on everything, and requested manuscripts, AND client work. So...

From August 1st to September 1st, I am not accepting queries. I'll update this on the submission page as well.

What will happen if you query me during the month of August?

Easy. You'll get a nice auto-response and the query will be moved to the trash. Please feel free to resubmit in September if you still think I'm a good fit for your project.

Thanks!

I promised. So here we go...

• Total: 351
• Requested: 8
• Categories of Requested: 3 MG, 3 contemporary YA, 1 YA fantasy, 1 narrative nonfiction 
• Queries with attachments: 15
• People who wrote thank you notes: 18

So compared to last month, I saw a 22% increase in queries. My request rate also went up a little. But...it's still only just shy of 3%. (Isn't that scary?) And again, there were some spam queries that all the agents I know, and some I don't, were CCed on. I delete those right away, mark as spam, and don't count them. 

My thoughts...

Style

There were a few notable events in the query pile this month that show me how little people must research ahead of time. There was one email in a pink font on a flowery pink background. My eyes hurt just opening it, and I didn't even care what the content was. Had it been on paper, I'd have expected glitter and perfume. There were also several letters that barely qualified as letters. Either incredibly casual, like "Hey there, can I send you something?" or just reeking of "I don't know what I'm doing." Those are hard to deal with, but by and large I try to find what the book is somewhere (if it's there) and send a rejection.

There's also still that weird syndrome of a lack of sample pages. I really think every listing of mine says: please include the first 3-5 pages of the manuscript in the body of the email. If it doesn't somewhere, can someone let me know? 

I included the number of thank you notes I got for my form rejection letter. It's nice when people are polite. It's less nice when they also ask me if I can recommend another agent. I don't write back to these.

But at least compared the number of people who are still sending me attachments, there are more polite people than sloppy people. The number of unsolicited attachments I got DOUBLED this month. Probably a fluke, but it goes to the point that a solid 10% of people just aren't paying attention AT ALL. And many more just plain don't get it in the first place.

Requests

I seem to be on a middle-grade kick, which is good. I'm looking for good middle-grade, so my requests fit that bill. The concepts on each of these seemed promising, hence the requests.

Obviously the narrative nonfiction was an exception, since I so rarely do those books, but I loved the writing. 

As for the YA, the contemporary YA seemed to be stronger this month in terms of writing and premise. I may also be burned out of dystopian and fantasy. Bear in mind, I already represent 3 authors who have published or about-to-be published dystopian novels. As much as I love them, I'm going to be picky. I don't want to be a one trick pony.

And that's April! Time to dig into May...and I enjoy this now, so stay tuned for the next installment next month.