Literary events like autumn leaves in Texas

 For some creatures, hibernation is a winter event. For Texans, it occurs during the deadly heat of late summer. But while I've struggled to keep my garden alive, other Texans have prepared an autumn-long list of state literary events. 

Note: Updates are now available for AuthorPalooza, Mayborn, Tulisoma and the Texas Book festival.

September 1: The Dallas Mystery Writers Laree Bryant Memorial Scholarship contest is this Monday. It's a contest dear to many Dallas-area writers, celebrating Laree's life and legacy. As I've posted previously, the rules are simple:

• Be on the DMW mailing list. It's free, by clicking on the link at the website.
• Don't have published fiction for the public (traditional or self-published) within the last five years
• Open to all genres. 

See the site for formatting details of your writing sample and a brief biography, sent to sandysteenwrites@gmail.com. The prize is a ticket to the DFW Writers Conference (see more below) valued at $500. The winner will be announced at the DMW's meeting September 6.

September 12-14: ArmadilloCon is Austin's convention for science fiction, fantasy, and horror fans, now in its 47th year. See the site for details and registration. Entries for the associated writers workshop are now closed, but I plan to attend. If you see me, say hi!

September 13: Trinity River Book Festival is a Fort Worth multicultural event with multiple books, authors, ad running. Yes, get your heart pumping with the run-to-read event. Free, but see the site for event schedule and to register for promotional giveaways, updates, and notifications.

September 16: Tickets (free!) for the Richardson Reads One Book event are now available. Or add a $35 luncheon ticket with Rowan Jacobsen, author of the 2025 RROB selection, Wild Chocolate, about the quest to revive ancient cacao and produce the world's finest chocolate. 

The deadline to purchase luncheon tickets is September 10, but space is limited. 

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. lecture are available (limited to 2 per order) on a first-come, first-served basis. Again, space for the event at First United Methodist Church Richardson, 503 N. Central Expressway in Richardson, is limited.

See the site for details or email richardsonreadstx@gmail.com for additional information.

Image by Carlos Villada for Pixabay

September 27-28: AuthorPalooza 2025 fills the Ley Student Center, 6100 Main St., Houston (on the Rice University campus) with favorite authors and books. Sponsored by the Houston Writers Guild. See the site for tickets and additional information.

Update: Houston Writers Guild reports AuthorPalooza 2025 was cancelled for reasons beyond its control. Ticket holders should have already received notification and full refund. For additional questions or feedback, contact the Guild.

October 4-5: The DFW Writers Conference returns to the Hurst, Texas, conference center 1615 Campus Drive, in Hurst. Events include keynote speakers Kelly Bishop (The Third Gilmore Girl) and literary agent Carly Watters, more than a dozen literary agents and editors (one complimentary pitch session with ticket) and classes and workshops galore.

See the site for details and registration.

October 24-25: Registration for The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference is now open. More details still to come. See the site or visit maybornconferenceinfo@unt.edu.\

Update: Registration for the Mayborn is due by October 13. Full conference pass to all events including $20 documentary film series day pass is $150. The film series pass may be purchased separately for $20. Full pass registrants may also add a $50 writers' workshop registration. Registration for the writers' workshop closes October 1, and materials must be submitted by October 3. See the site for additional information, including hotel accommodations.

November 7-8: The 21st Tulisoma: South Dallas Book Fair connects readers with Black authors, publishers, and storytellers from across the country. At the African American Museum in Dallas Fair Park, 3536 Grand Avenue. Free. See the site for details.

Update: Tulisoma hours are 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Events include workshops, more than 40 authors sharing their work, and featured speaker Dr. Linda Hall Searight, author of I Am God's Property, sharing insights that led to the creation of her award-winning choir in the 1990's. See the site under "events" for additional information. 

November 8-9: The 30th Texas Book Festival returns to multiple venues in and around downtown Austin and around the Texas Capitol. Check the site for ongoing details, including the author lineup to be unveiled later this fall.

Update: More than 300 authors are lined up for the November 8-9 Texas Book Festival. The festival is free but tickets may be required for some events and activities. Tickets to headliner talks are now available for purchase. Best sources of information seem to be the festival's social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram and X.

From manuscript to published book: Part 2

 How to keep an agent happy by doing her job for her -- The Query Toolbox Homework

As discussed in Part 1 of From manuscript to published book, the first step to traditional publication (after writing an amazing manuscript!) is to find an agent looking for that type of story. No matter our compelling our romantic comedy is, it's unlikely to catch the eye of an agent who's only interested in books about gardening. But how do we find agents who love rom-coms, or whatever else our heart is into?

Luckily, agents are more than happy to tell us where their hearts lie -- on their (or their agency's) websites, at sites such as Manuscript Wish List, MSWishlist, Twitter #MSWL, Query Manager, and Agent Query. I'll add, also check the acknowledgement section of books we love. The writers will often use it to thank their agents and editors. And don't overlook other social media sites -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. -- that are more frequently updated. And follow, follow, follow to get those updates.

To see what agents are selling to publishers right now, check out Publishers Marketplace, which is available by monthly subscription. (Agent Amy Collins suggested signing for a subscription, researching it like mad, and dropping it once we've picked all the fruit it has to offer. Not that she admits saying that!) There's also a shorter, totally free version, Publishers Lunch.

Now with our manuscript and a list of potentially interested agents, we're ready to do the hard work of assessing a book's market viability. This is the topic the agent will use to pique the interest of the person at the next level to publication -- a publishing house's acquisitions editor. For this, I'm using copyright-free material Amy Collins provided for attendees at her DFW Con workshop -- The Query Toolbox Homework.

Market viability has three components, all of which should be included in our queries to agents:

• Comp titles
• Readership
• Unique selling points

Our homework, Collins said, begins with a starter list of 12 comparable authors. Who writes the books we love to read, in our genre or a related one? And how much do other readers love them?

Her starting point is the free weekly bestseller list from USA Today. It's a list of sales searchable by genre and date of sale. (Please note, at this time the list is on hiatus, with most recent sales only listed as of December 1, 2022. I'll keep checking for updates.)

Another of Collins recommendations for author listings is What Should I Read Next. This is a subscription service, free for the first five days, and $39.95 a month thereafter. Again, as for Publishers Marketplace, consider researching the heck out of it during free, or initial subscription period.

Goodreads also lists books by authors we follow, and books similar to those we've read recently. Access to these requires a Goodreads account, but it's a free service.

Not mentioned by Collins, but also useful is Novelist, a searchable service free with many public library accounts. Check with your local library if you can't find it in your account. Or if you need to set up an account! 

We've got authors but what about those comparable titles?

Image by Davie Bicker from Pixabay

Having now compiled a list of 12 comparable authors -- who we're following, right? -- we only need to find three comp titles from their writings to titillate the agents we've chosen to query.

What exactly makes a previously published book "comparable" to our manuscript? How "comparable" does it have to be? According to Collins, the three comp titles should be similar in either voice, setting, or POV. No single comp title needs to be similar in all three. 

And they don't need to be similar in plot because, "who wants to read the same plot?" Collins asked.

However, comp titles must be books which have sold well in their categories recently. Collins recommended searching Amazon for titles from our authors that possess at least one of the necessary similarities to ours. If we're unsure of the genre of those titles (authors may write in more than one), Amazon also helpfully lists those in its sidebars. 

Now things get harder. Collins recommends only using as comp titles books that have garnered at least 5,000 reader reviews. This goes to the "readership" component of market viability. Books by best-selling authors are musts as comp titles for our own manuscript -- one of the reasons she recommended looking at best-seller lists.

On the other hand, those best-selling authors can't be too familiar. Not iconic, in Collins' words. Who's a best-selling author but not iconic? Collins' suggestion was to think Ken Follett as best-selling but not iconic. Lee Child, however, is iconic. My suggestion is, if the author is someone who's name you see on your grocery store's paperback rack, they're probably iconic.

Collins also turned thumbs-down to books made into movies or TV series. If it's just optioned but not yet released, she's still OK with using it as a possible comp. She's also OK with using the latest book in a series, provided it meets all the other criteria mentioned. Be warned, these are Amy Collins' recommendations. Other agents may differ. Again, check what your dream agents are saying.

And -- these 5,000+ reviewed comp titles should have been published within the past 18 months, tops, Collins said.

At this point, an audience member asked, what if your comparable author publishes a book no more frequently than every two years. Or so. What if your comparable author is, say, Jonatha Franzen? (OK, Collins said. For Franzen, two years. But don't push it any further!)

Now, looking back on the first two components of market viability -- comp titles and readership -- we can work that information into a query to an agent who we know from our research has shown interest in our genre. Examples include, "because I love your recently sold (comp title), I believe you'll love (my title)." Or "(My title) is great for people who just finished (comp title)." Note that reference to the agent's own sales can add extra credit. 

Having covered two of three tests for market viability, what's left is the selling point unique to our book. Think of what the twist would be. Collins noted that loglines are not the same as comp titles, but they can be helpful guides for capturing why our book is similar but different.

Is it "Pride and Prejudice" but in outer space? Or "Romeo and Juliet" but in the Old West? "The Three Musketeers" in modern warfare? (Caution -- all these titles are way too old to be actual comps!)

So, writers, there's the query toolbox -- comparable authors, comparable titles with extensive readership, plus our own secret sauce. 

Please note: this isn't the entire query. We also need to introduce ourselves to the agent, explain why we think they're a good fit to represent our book, give a brief overview of the plot (but not the end, unless the agent asks for it), and told the agent why we're the person to write this book. But we have done the hardest part -- next to writing the manuscript in the first place.

And for still more information about writing and publishing, note that the DFW Writers Conference 
returns this year, October 7-8. See the site for early-bird registration.

***

Next up: Tales from the North Texas Teen Book Festival

From manuscript to published book: Part 1

 If writers think getting a literary agent's eyes on our manuscripts is tough, wait till you hear how many eyes the agent has to get to sell that precious opus. A bunch, according to Amy Collins of the Talcott Notch Agency, speaking at the DFW Writers Conference. (Which, yes, was last fall, but there was so much to cover I'm still digesting it all.)

Amy Collins herself knows the publishing industry from multiple perspectives -- as agent as well as a book buyer, sales director for a non-fiction publisher, and founder and president of one of the largest book sales and marketing companies in the United States. Oh, and she's also a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. 

Here's the trail Collins laid out for her audience:

• Author -- wants to convince the agent they can make her lots of money
• Agent -- wants to convince her boss -- the acquisitions editor -- that this book will make lots of money
• Acquisitions editor -- wants an amazing book to take to editorial director of their publishing house
• Editorial director -- wants an amazing book that will make lots of money to take to the house's Pub Board
• Pub Board -- wants positive answers from teams for sales, marketing, production, distribution & art (at least!) before approving that amazing manuscript (which will make lots of money!).

Image by PollyDot from Pixabay

Of this chain, Collins noted, the Pub Board is the most important but least known link. Its members spend a lot of time thinking about money (strange how that word occurs so many times!). Because 20 percent of all traditionally published books actually lose money for a publisher, Pub Boards are always looking for something to take up the slack.

To that end, the Pub Board will ask questions from the most obvious -- have books like this sold well recently -- to the mundane -- how many of these books will fit in a shipping carton. This last consideration goes to a question writers often ask about the importance of page counts. Books need relatively standard sizes to fit in shipping cartons. Which is one of the prosaic reasons shorter than usual books, such as novellas, as well as much longer than usual tomes can be tough sells in traditional publishing.

Only when the Pub Board has received affirmative answers from all the remaining teams does the author's amazing manuscript get OK'd for printing and sales and distribution to bookstores. (Who also want money to keep the lights on!)

The point of Collins' talk was that every link in the publishing chain is effectively doing the work of the next higher link.

"My job (as agent) is to keep my relations with my (acquisitions) editor happy," Collins said.

And that acquisitions editor's job, effectively, is to keep the editorial director happy. And so on, up the line. Each worker bee's job is to do the work of the next higher been in the chain of command.

Knowing all this, what can we writers do to help boost our manuscript up the levels? The answer lies in our superpower tool -- the query letter. I've heard a lot, from a lot of sources, about what needs to be covered in a query letter. But what exactly does that entail? And why? 

Amy Collins had an answer for that, coming in Part 2, The Query Toolbox Homework

(And, in case you've wondered, the DFW Writers Conference is scheduled to return October 7-8 of this year!)