I've finished a novel. What do I do next to get an agent? -- Questions from the Inbox.

Aspiring writers often email me seeking advice on their journey to publication. I decided I ought to share the advice I give on my blog so that others might see it as well.

Today's question goes something like this:

I've just finished my novel. What should I do before submitting it to an agent? Should I hire a professional proofreader to edit it? Also, do you have advice for me on how to find an agent? Any tips on writing a good query letter?

Disclaimer: I only submitted to one agent, and she offered me representation. We're still together, and very happily so, at least from my perspective. (I can only speak for myself.) We're still crazy after all these years. :) So my advice on finding an agent comes more from years in this industry than from personal experience. It also comes from from countless conversations with other writers, and with many agents I'm fortunate to call friends. Each might have their own unique twist on these questions, so I make no claim of providing the last, definitive word on the subject. My advice, such as it is, is below, and I think it's pretty sound. It's free, at any rate. Here's my letter in response to those questions.

Dear Aspiring Writer, 

Thanks for reaching out to me. Congratulations on finishing your novel!

To your first question about hiring a proofreader, I guess it depends on how cleanly you write, but really, I don’t think proofreading is what’s needed next. Proofreading suggests to my mind a cleanup of spelling, commas, accidental word choices, and the occasional run-on. That’s not what should come next, and it’s not even what an agent will really care about. Agents are entirely looking for original voices, strong characters, and compelling storytelling. If that’s not there, perfect spelling and grammar won’t help you; if voice/character/story are strong, bad spelling and grammar won’t be a serious issue. (All the same, it’s good to write cleanly if you can, as it looks somewhat sophomoric to have a manuscript that’s studded with errors.)

The kind of feedback you need next is smart editorial feedback. If you don't have a professional editor at a national trade publisher in your back pocket, the next best thing is to get a critique from a skilled, experienced reader/writer/critiquer. Feedback from a strong critical reader who reads a great deal and can articulate for you what’s working and not working in your draft is an essential next step in the process of moving toward publication. I’m pretty sure that no one’s first novel, in its virgin state, is ready to be shopped around. Librarians, teachers, and serious, committed aspiring writers are all good sources of critique. Someone with a creative writing MFA will be experienced in the process of giving expert critiques. I strongly urge you to take this step next. Perhaps you can trade critiques, and offer them constructive feedback on their work in progress. That process will teach you more than you might imagine about how to spot the weaknesses in a working manuscript.

To your other questions, how do you find an agent? And do I have insights on query letters?

Query letters: I’m mystified by how these are treated as some sort of holy grail. Keep it incredibly short, sweet, and to the point. “Dear Agent, I’m writing to see if you would be interested in reading my _genre_ novel/picture book/etc for _age group_ readers. Combining the humor of _funny book_ with the twists and turns of _exciting book_ [make your own best comparisons], the book tells the story of _character_, an _age_ year old boy/girl with _quirky/special trait/power_ who lives in a _setting_ and faces _problem_ in her pursuit of _goal._ I’ve enclosed the first two chapters, coming in at _page count_ pages. The finished novel is _words long._ [New paragraph.] I work in _my career and/or industry_ and I hold a degree in _relevant major field_ from _school_. My interest in _subject matter_ stems from my _personal experience with subject matter_ [I breed llamas or whatever]. I can be reached at _my contact info_. Warmly, My Name.”

If, in the process of writing the query letter, you think of  clever ways to inject humor and personality into the writing of the letter, great, but err on the side of keeping it light and straightforward. Just the facts, ma’am. Short, sweet, and to the point. If your pitch is remotely interesting, the agent will start reading the first page or two. They’ll know in a hurry of they want to go on. If they sense strong voice, character, and/or story, they’ll continue, and if they like what they see, they’ll ask for more.

As for what agents to query, research agents at literary agencies specializing in the kind of stuff you write. Your best option is to pick your dozen favorite books published in recent years and check the acknowledgements section to figure out who represented those books. That’s likely to be your best starting point as a submission list.

I hope this helps! Best of luck to you. Definitely find a good critical reader, or two, or seven. This process takes time. I imagine you’re probably eager to submit sooner rather than later. We all are. But do take the time to obtain and consider smart feedback on overall story and structure elements. You’ll be glad you did. 

Cheers, Julie Berry

A Phone Call, Bathrooms, A Celebration, and Lies: The Passion of Dolssa and its ALA Printz Honor

Well. This is embarrassing. This is a blog post I wanted to write a year ago, about the The Passion of Dolssa receiving an ALA Printz Honor, a year and change ago.

In my defense, the reason it’s taken me this long to write it is that in the middle of the ALA summer conference, I moved. MOVED. As in, I put the last box in the shipping container in Boston, swept and locked my empty house for the last time, zipped my suitcase, went to the airport, flew to Chicago, put a nice dress on for the Printz ceremony, and another dress for the dinner, and then flew from there to LA to see my new home for the first time. After racing around setting up the new house, I embarked on an epic summer and fall of Very Much Travel, lecturing and speaking all over the place, which was super fun but fairly hectic. In airports and on airplanes, and in any spaces I could find in between, I feverishly read and researched my next YA novel, Lovely War (more on that very soon). The crazy wound down by Thanksgiving. From Black Friday onward until, oh, two weeks ago, I pretty much locked myself in my office and wrote like a madwoman. I wrote a couple of other books, too, in between there, and I’ll talk more about those down the road. But, It Has Been A Year, and then some.

Printz winners & honorees pose with committee members.

Now it’s July, and Lovely War has gone into copyediting, which means that, for the most part, it’s done. So NOW I can revisit summer 2017’s ALA conference in Chicago, and the whirlwind six months between getting The Phone Call and walking up onto that stage and praying for all I’m worth that I wouldn’t trip. (Because fancy heels are essential for rare moments like these, even if they did leave me with a Dolssa Blister afterwards. Not kidding.)  

The Phone Call was pretty awesome. This moment may never strike again in my life, so it’s worth reliving in some detail.

Enough people had said they thought Dolssa could be a Printz contender that I couldn’t pretend not to hope that maybe, maybe I might get a call. I try not to hope where awards are concerned, because that way madness lies, and there’s just no telling what book will ever win anything, but I’m nowhere near Zen enough not to have wiggled and worried and wondered.

With teacher/blogger Karyn Silverman @ Penguin booth

I was sure, though, that if a call were coming, it would come in the evening. I spent that Sunday afternoon at church, teaching my hilarious Sunday School class of 10-yo whip-smarties, with the ringer of my phone turned off. Class ended, and I escorted the kids to the larger room for singing time. At this moment, I surreptitiously sneaked a peek at my phone, to see if my husband, then living in LA, had sent me his usual Sunday “good morning” text. (Time zone difference.)  

There was no message from Phil yet, but there was a text message from a writer friend, whom I’ll call “Writer Friend.” It read, “Did you get a call yet?”

Oh, Writer Friend, I thought, don’t say that! It’s hard enough to stay sane as it is!

Only then did I see that underneath her text was a notice of two missed phone calls from Chicago.

I blinked. I gulped. My eyes popped. My stomach flopped. We just don’t have the right clichés for a moment like this.

I am not proud of what I did next. I was in church, for heaven’s sake, with the Sunday School children. I told them, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Maybe it wasn’t quite a lie. I probably could’ve gone to the bathroom. I probably should’ve gone to the bathroom. What I did instead was slip out the door, go outside to the parking lot, dial the missed number, and then say, to the answering Hello-er, “This is Julie Berry. I just missed a call from this number,” in what I hoped was a relaxed, professional voice, as if I wasn’t bursting right out of my own skin like a baked potato.

Being, um, Neal's Angels? I take no responsibility for this. L to R: me, Louise O'Neill, Nicola Yoon. Recumbent: Neal Shusterman. 

The Hello-er put me on speaker, and told me that she was from the ALA Printz committee, and they were all present and delighted to let me know that The Passion of Dolssa had won a Printz Honor.

I’m not sure what I managed to say next.

The rest of the call was brief. On speaker phone, they cheered and applauded. They were eager, they said, to meet me at the summer conference. Congratulations, they said. Thank you thank you I can’t believe it oh my goodness thank you, I said.

With Kendra Levin, my editor at Viking.

And then I called Phil. That was, I think, the very best part of all. He was as joyful as if the award were his; more so, I believe. His delight in the Printz Honor meant more to me than my own.

Next, I texted my editor and my agent, something I would NEVER do on a weekend, and asked if, you know, they could maybe spare me a few minutes for a quick conversation. Those were fun calls, too.

Let us pray, for the sake of my immortal soul, that after that I did visit the ladies’ room. I really can’t remember.

I had to keep the secret from the kids for the rest of the day. If they noticed Mom being extra bouncy and cheerful, they never mentioned it.

The announcement was made the following morning, and the resulting flood of congratulations was a Facebook birthday times a million. In the following days, cards, flowers, and treats showed up at my door. The kindness of the kidlit community and of my dear friends is pretty spectacular. I really didn’t know what to do with it all. My cheeks hurt from smiling.

My bathroom renovation project.

The next six months were a blur of normal life, mom stuff, writing, listing my home for sale (sniff!), renovating its bathroom (glurg), selling it (whew), packing (gaaaah), and moving (ugh). But then I went straight to Chicago, which became, for me, a temporary fairyland. I met authors I’ve admired for ages. Rode in an elevator with Sarah Jessica Parker, and I was so chill, I said nothing. Ate fabulous Russian food and deep-dish pizza and posed for selfies with Phil beside The Bean (the Cloud Gate sculpture). And when the time was right, I put on those dresses and heels, smiled a lot, and gave lots of hugs, hoping I wasn’t sweating as much as I feared I was.

Phil and me at The Bean (Cloud Gate sculpture)

It was an honor and a thrill to be on the same panel as Representative John Lewis. We’d met earlier that year at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival party and ceremony, so now we’re practically BFFs. He’s as humble and genuine as anyone you could ever hope to meet. In the wacky world we inhabit, I’m grateful for heroes and leaders like him. It was wonderful to meet the other honorees: Nicola Yoon, Neal Shusterman, and Louise O'Neill. Any jitters I'd felt vanished once we started chatting on the panel. 

Nicola Yoon, me, John Lewis, Felicia Frazier & Nate Powell

One thing I don’t think I fully anticipated in Chicago was the enthusiastic welcome from the Printz Award committee. This was no cool, detached panel of people who made a decision and then gone home to floss their teeth. These were librarians who cared so desperately about young adult literature that they were willing to devote a year of their lives to reading and discussing hundreds of books. By the time they’d made their selections, I think they thought of the selected books, and by extension, their authors, as dear friends. I loved meeting them. One conversation, in particular, I’ll remember always, with a librarian telling me, in earnest, heartfelt tones, how much she loved Dolssa, and thanking me (thanking me?) for writing it. I never quite know what to say when I’m thanked for doing what I desperately wanted to do anyway. But I know how it feels when your heart sings with love for a particular and precious book. It’s humbling and almost perplexing to feel that a book I’m written might offer the same gift to another reader.

(Incidentally, I’m sure that the committee members DO floss their teeth. But they love books first. It’s the order that matters.)

This was waiting for me at my new home in LA. Good kids! 

It was a heady time. A thrilling year. An honor beyond comprehension. I’m grateful to have had this moment. There’s always an abundance of worthy contenders, and there’s almost no way to predict what way things will go. Another committee might easily have made other selections. But I knew I had worked harder on The Passion of Dolssa than on any other book to date, with my editor’s tenacious help, and to have that effort acknowledged felt pretty swell. Another year and another book may be just as effortful and worthy, and yet I won’t win, and so it goes.  

I was once the nerdy, slightly snobbish kid in school who made sure to read all the books with shiny ALA stickers on them. A sticker of my own is pretty great, and well worth a blister. Not going to lie about that, even if I might occasionally lie about the bathroom.

The Emperor's Ostrich, now in paperback!

I’m thrilled to announce that The Emperor’s Ostrich comes out in paperback today. This novel has been so much fun to share with readers and students. The ridiculously goofy characters always make me smile, and the cow-ostrich romance never gets old for me. How could it? The course of Moo Love never did run smooth.

It’s been a blast sharing Ostrich in school visits, because it actually originated from a workshop I conducted with Mindess Elementary School in Ashland, Massachusetts, where a brainstorming exercise led to randomly chosen words, which we combined to create story ideas. As I’ve repeated that workshop around the country, sharing Ostrich with students, it’s been fun to prove that brainstorming and play aren’t ‘pretend writing.’ They’re the real deal. That’s where ideas come from.

The paperback edition, published by Square Fish, an imprint of Macmillan, features bonus content including an author Q&A, and the first chapter of The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place. More Julie Berry goofiness.

My two favorite reviews for this book call it “silly and elegant at the same time,” and “a Five Snort read.” I’m so proud. I hope you snort your way through it too. Here's a review from book vlogger Matthew Sciarappa that cracked me up:

And here, of course, is the trailer, featuring art by the brilliant Liz Starin:

Don’t bury your head in the sand! Order The Emperor’s Ostrich at your local Indie bookstore.