Beth Fehlbaum, YA fiction author, educator, freelance editor

I’m querying my fifth novel, sixth book overall. My latest is FIND THE MOON, about a teen girl whose truth that cost her everything just might save her. Read more about FIND THE MOON here.

In the process of all this querying, I’ve been educating myself because even though I’ve been a traditionally published author for over 10 years, I still want to stay on top of what publishing currently looks like. I amicably parted with my long-time agent last year because I knew that I was nearing the completion of FIND THE MOON, and I wanted to switch gears to a representative for whom YA fiction is a more significant focus of their efforts.
I am encouraged that I’ve gotten requests for the full manuscript pretty quickly after querying. I attribute this to FIND THE MOON having a very strong premise by virtue of working on it with Kate Brauning of Breakthrough Writers’ Bootcamp. She outright “fangirled” over what she was seeing in the pages, which was reassuring and gratifying!

As of this moment, 3 agents requested (and have) my full manuscript, and 1 has the first 50 pages, but since I have not yet had an offer of representation/ signed on the dotted line, I’m still carefully researching and querying agents who seem like a good fit for my work, and I’m hopeful that I’ll sign with an agent by July.

Through my search for a new partner-in-publishing, I discovered resources that are helpful, surprising, and, in one case, revelatory of what is apparently sort of a secret in the publishing world. . .but before I begin sharing these resources, I feel that I should disclose that I do have queries and/or the full manuscript on submission with some, but not all, of the following agents/agencies. While this could appear to some cynics as maximum sucking up to the agents, my purpose in sharing the following is to help my fellow writer-types gain insight into what can feel to new and intimidating to authors (and not-so-new authors, like Yours Truly). Chalk it up to my other profession–I’m an educator–a high school English teacher–so sharing ways for others to better understand tough stuff is in my bones.

Cracking the code to “inside publishing” can feel like trying to scale a daunting (oil-slicked) wall in an attempt to gain a quick glance into an “agents-only” clubhouse, but the following very-helpful agents/agencies effectively step out of the clubhouse, open a portal in the wall, and invite authors in. I sense graciousness in these respective agents’ resources for authors, and these offerings are both valuable and reassuring to those of us who volunteer ourselves to be vulnerable when we query, since the very act of doing so is risking rejection of our book baby. The whole process is daunting and anxiety-provoking, but as the old saying goes, “Knowledge is power.”
Here we go with resources from helpful folks:

BookEnds Literary
Bookends has a great informative blog that syncs with their YouTube channel. Thus far, I have found their blog entry/video on simultaneous submissions, The Unfairness of an Exclusive Submission, to be the most memorable as I go through this process of cold-calling people that I hope will find what I put on paper to be what they’re looking for.

When I was a newbie author, circa 2006-2007, and I queried agents with my first novel, I contacted one agent at a time, and since publishing is a glacial process, finding an agent took the better part of a year. Back then, my perception of the expectation was that one should query just one agent at a time, because to do otherwise was disrespectful to the agent. But Jessica Faust helped me understand the process differently. She writes, “Giving an agent an exclusive takes away the opportunity to interview all possible agents. Simply because no one else has your material. It would be like hiring the first contractor who shows up at your house without the chance to get bids from others.”
The insight gained from agents Jessica Faust and James McGowan in this blog post/video also clarified my understanding of what to do when one has simultaneous queries out and an agent requests an exclusive, for example, if the agent gives significant feedback and requests revisions, it’s reasonable for that agent to expect an exclusive submission. Jessica tells us what to do with regard to the other agents who are likewise considering the manuscript at that time.

Tia Rose Mele, Talcott Notch Literary Services
Tia is a junior agent and the director of audio rights at Talcott Notch. Her outreach efforts add to authors’ abilities to increase their knowledge about publishing because she solicits questions from her followers about what they’d like to see on her blog, which addresses her agenting life. Her voice is authentic, and the commentary is indicative of interest in helping authors understand the world of publishing more clearly.
My favorite blog post of Tia’s so far is “My Submission Process,” because this is something that is not always clear to authors. Tia does state in her blog post that all agents have their own processes, but I appreciated her drawing the curtain back on how it works for her. (As a side note, I cannot find the Twitter thread at this time, but I @Tia and asked her about her process for keeping her authors informed as to the progress of submissions, and she told me that she creates a Google Spreadsheet and shares with the author the list of editors to whom she has submitted, as well as feedback received. I really liked that.

Print Run Podcast
Erik Hane and Laura Zats, the agents who comprise Headwater Literary, have a phenomenal podcast called Print Run. According to their site, “Its aim is simple: to have the conversations surrounding the book and writing industries that too often are glossed over by conventional wisdom, institutional optimism, and false seriousness.”
And they deliver. I like the Print Run podcast because it does not pretend that agents are anything but regular people, just like authors, and everybody has the same goal: to produce a damned fine book.

The following is the above-referenced NON-Shameful Secret: Erik and Laura’s episode titled Work Life revealed something that I had no idea about: most agents and editors have full-time jobs in addition to agenting, or, at the least, they are working other part-time jobs to make ends meet. This is in such conflict with the image I had of most agents, and I think many others do, too– which is why I’m so grateful that there are people in publishing willing to tell it like it is. Erik and Laura reveal that it’s frowned upon in publishing to reveal this truth about having to work jobs other than agenting to make ends meet, as if to do so somehow casts a shadow on the concept of agents as living glamorous lives. They stated that talking about the other jobs they have is “frowned upon.”
Think about it, y’all: when you see a literary agent portrayed in a movie, they’re not, as Laura shares she has done, sharing a hotel room with another agent to save money at a conference that they had to pay their own way to attend, and taking along a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter so they can eat while out of town!
I find that just like the impression people have of agents, the general public has an impression of authors that comes from the movies, not reality. (Castle, anyone?) The majority of authors also have full-time jobs that actually pay the bills–even prominent authors–of which I am not.
When I landed my first publishing contract, my fellow teachers at the time assumed I was going to quit my job and live the rich writer’s life. I laughed. I would love to be offered a huge advance–who wouldn’t?– but the majority of authors do not receive huge advances. Plus, we receive royalty payments twice a year, and our agents get paid when we get paid. Agents work on commission. They, like their authors, do not make money if their authors’ books don’t sell. While Erik states that there are some salaried agenting positions, he and Laura are really up front and bold about telling the truth about what they have to do in their own lives to make enough money to pay the bills.
I’ve been a traditionally-published author since 2008, but my day job as a teacher provides money for bills, health insurance and a pension; my job as an author does not. When I am eligible to retire in two years, I intend to supplement that pension by freelance editing and writing full-time, but I am realistic enough to know that even with my backlist and when FIND THE MOON and my subsequent books sell to a publisher, the odds of writing making me a wealthy person at any time are very low, but I don’t write for the money. I write because, as Harper Lee said of reading, “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
I suspect that most people who are agents or editors likewise cannot imagine themselves not working around books in some way. I just hope most are lucky, as I am, to be able to have the ability to create using words in both my jobs, and I hope that if folks in the publishing industry are ashamed of having to work jobs outside of agenting to pay their bills, they will let go of that dark shadow. There’s no shame in it.

Speaking of shame (awesome segue, right?) another topic the Print Run podcasters address is the issue of rejection, which leads me to another highly recommended Print Run episode: Am I Good Enough? This one really helped me be less anxious about submitting to agents because there is so much out of our control that may lead to a rejection at that time.

In addition to offering for free the ebook, audiobook, & lesson plans for my novel, Courage in Patience in my capacity as an author, I have also been busy-busy-busy in my day-job as a high school English teacher. I have completed compiling resources that will result in writing a dystopian short story. As a basis for this, I used Christina Gil’s unit on Teachers Pay Teachers–IT IS EXCELLENT AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. I had to put materials together in such a way that I could email them to my administrators and have them print out hard-copy packets for our students without access to the internet/technology/or whose internet data limit is depleted, crippling their ability to participate on Google Classroom.
If you are interested in my lesson plan/resource PDF to ease your own burden with respect to submitting your lessons, please contact me, but also purchase Christina Gil’s unit on Teachers Pay Teachers. You need her unit and its awesome information and the way she explains and builds the foundation in order to maximize success for you and your students. Even if we get to return to school prior to the end of the semester, I will still be using this unit. In addition to the materials in Christina’s Dystopian fiction unit, I pulled the texts off the internet where necessary and found nearly all the transcripts for the videos that are used in the unit, because I wanted to provide all the info even if kids can’t access the videos in the plan, and also included supplemental videos that I felt would be useful to aid student comprehension. Hit me up if you would like me to share with you what I submitted to my principals for them to print for students. http://bethfehlbaumbooks.info/contact/

I bought the audiobook, CALM THE F*CK DOWN. So far I like it a lot… it’s also inspiring potential blog posts of what I, a person with diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder, am doing to cope. I’ll tell ya a couple here–in case you, like me, are kinda wired to easily freak out:
(1) One thing I learned when I was in therapy was that having a PURPOSE is key to getting out of my own head. That’s also emphasized in the book, TRAUMA RECOVERY- SESSONS WITH DR MATT- that I cowrote with Matt E. Jaremko, Ph.D., who is my former therapist. He taught me that altruism goes a long way to pulling one off the pity pot. Even though we are socially isolated, I try to think of something I can do to ease others’ burden–and one thing I did was join with SCBWI in providing resources for teachers. Check out this page–and help yourself to downloading my first book, Courage in Patience. There’s also teaching resources there–and I’m halfway through recording the audio of the novel. If you prefer an actual ebook rather than a PDF, it’s on Amazon for .99 http://bethfehlbaumbooks.info/courage-in-patience-novel-un…/
(2) I also learned that having a PLAN is HUGE. To-Do lists are still a HUGE part of my life. I teach high school English and we are of course moving to remote instruction. At first I spiraled, trying to come up with ideas of how to best teach– and I think I’ve found it: we’re doing a unit on DYSTOPIA! Timely, right? I’ll share those lesson plans with y’all too, once I get them completed today. There are plans through the last week in May, even though we haven’t yet been told we’ll be out through then. I will simply adapt the lessons to in-person–happily so!- if we get to return.
(3) I’m also planning further as an author–I will be hosting Zoom meetings to talk about writing–but I’m still working on those (for obvious reasons, the day-job that pays the bills takes priority there..) AND I’m also querying literary agents, so that’s giving me something to do as well.

🙂
(4) I know y’all can’t tell based on my newsfeed–but I’m really limiting my consumption of political TV. I repost credible info here–but shows like Morning Joe are just feeding my anxiety–so I turn that off –turn the TV off completely–and listen to music instead. The Avett Brothers soothe me immensely. Speaking of music– go here–http://drmattbook.com— and check out the PLAYLISTS that accompany our book, TRAUMA RECOVERY: SESSIONS WITH DR. MATT. There’s music videos, suggested TV shows & movies–lots of good stuff that goes with concepts in the book.
STEADY ON, Y’ALL! We will get through this by being kind to each other, thinking of others, not just ourselves, having a plan, washing our hands!–and staying HOME!

Well I’ve been lockin’ myself up in my house for sometime now
Readin’ and writin’ and readin’ and thinkin’
And searching for reasons and missing the seasons.
The Autumn, the Spring, the Summer, the snow.
The record will stop and the record will go. Latches latched the windows down,
The dog coming in and the dog going out.
Up with caffeine and down with a shot.
Constantly worried about what I’ve got. Distracting my work but I can’t make a stop
And my confidence on and my confidence off.
And I sink to the bottom and rise to the top
And I think to myself that I do this a lot. World outside just goes
It goes it goes it goes it goes it goes
And witness it all from the blinds of my window.
Three, four I’m a little nervous ’bout what you’ll think
When you see me in my swimming trunks
And last night in New York I got raging drunk
Remember one time I got raging drunk with you Now, I can recall a time when we made the city
Streets our playground, kissing in the fountains
Filled with cigarettes and bottles
Sped through Italian city streets of cobblestoneBecause we had to
Because I loved you
Because the damned alcohol
Because what ever at allNow I’ve grown to aware of my mortality
To let go and forget about dying
Long enough to drop the hammer down
And let the indolence go wild and flying throughBecause we had to
Because I loved you
Because we had to
Because we had to
Because we had to
Because we had to
Because we had to
Because we had to

Source: LyricFindSongwriters: Robert William Crawford / Scott Yancey Avett / Timothy Seth Avett

To celebrate my upcoming birthday, I’m raising money for Building Better Kids. This is an organization within my school–although separate from the district–that provides food and more for some of our most vulnerable students. AND-because my FAVORITE part of my birthday is giving to others, everyone who donates at least 50.00 will receive a signed set of my PATIENCE TRILOGY! (See http://bethfehlbaumbooks.info/the-patience-trilogy/ for more info on those.) Your contribution will make an impact for Building Better Kids, whether you donate $5 or $500. Every little bit helps. Thank you for your support. Here’s where to donate: https://www.facebook.com/donate/229764884721557/10157762139163190/
Thanks!

I went to a rheumatologist today in hopes of getting answers to a year’s worth of mysteries (see yesterday’s blog…) and I got some encouraging news (for now, at least… I hope it’s permanent good news, or at least as permanent as good news is)–namely, he believes I have osteoarthritis rather than rheumatoid, and he’s not as on-board with the theoretical propositions that I have any serious stuff going on like myositis (which causes muscles to deteriorate/weaken). But the reason I am dropping in to add a blog post is that this doctor was amazed that I have lost a hundred pounds (imagine how he’d have responded if I told him it was the SECOND time I’ve done it , ha ha ha,) although I’m positive I’ve lost those same pounds hundreds of times in my life), and he was also blown away by the attitude I have, which is, “I’m strong because I’ve worked so hard to be strong, and nothing is going to get in the way of me continuing to be strong.”
He told me somebody should tell my story [me WHISPERING to you: I didn’t tell him my first 4 books are, in many ways, my story, and that my 5th book contains the most directly personal stuff since it’s non-fiction.]
He said, “You’ll be able to handle whatever is going on with you; I can tell. So–what makes you such a determined person?”
I said, “I rebuilt my life after it fell apart. I have worked incredibly hard to have the life I have today. I had a very traumatic childhood, and I had a mental breakdown when I was 38 and went through years of intensive therapy to become the person I am now. Being strong and feeling strong is very important to me. I don’t let things get in my way.”
I thanked him for giving me HOPE and told him I am incredibly ENCOURAGED. He did say I have more osteoarthritis in my hands than most people my age, but that he does not see evidence of the sorts of conditions I’ve been told I probably have.
Then he shook my hand and told me someone would come get me soon to schedule an appointment in 6 weeks–he wants to see me after the muscle biopsy results are in, and to see if the steroid he’s giving me for a few weeks to make what he called “the achies” to go away, works.
So I was on Cloud Nine, and I went into another room to wait, then somebody came & got me. I said, “Are you the scheduler?”
This lady said, “No, I’m supposed to take blood.”
I thought, “Wha—?”
Then asked her what she’s testing for, and I was told a laundry list of conditions including autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, etc… in other words, all these things I was just told I probably don’t have. I was like this.
So, to quote my husband, it’s more “Hurry up and wait.”
Guess we’ll see…