Stealing my thunder...?

As long as you've been submitting to legitimate agents, I wouldn't worry about anything leaking.

The fact stands that the Beatles are a marketable branding that will instantly attract the attention of any agent or editor and you DO have a very interesting angle on them. An inside look at this phase of the group's life is money in the bank, interviews on Larry King, and calls from Rolling Stone.

Soon as they're mentioned, it's going to shift an agent's expectations. They're not going to be interested in someone who happened to be there at the same time. They're going to want a "Watson" to write about the more flashy "Holmes."

You can try leaving mention of them out of the query and focus on what you did. In the course of the narrative, you mention them and how their presence influenced things, whatever.

An autobiographical book of a personal spiritual journey might get published, but it is a crowded market. Look for similar books in the store and sub to those publishers, ask the authors who reps for them.

The one thing that causes yours to stand out is the Beatle angle, like it or not. Of course your spiritual journey is much more important to you than the Beatles' journey, but it's a much more difficult sell. Tons of other people have already gone there.

If you want a sale that will get the door open, shift focus to the Beatles. The next book can be about YOU, just don't expect it to do as well.

Publishing is about making money. That will always be the bottom line.


No one is going to steal your stuff. That only happens after you're famous.

This essay by Joe Bob Briggs addresses that very point. Print it and stick it over your desk.



And stay away from Publish America. You're exactly the kind of customer they want hog-tied to one of their ripoff contracts. They present themselves as spiritually-friendly (they love waving the flag and praising Jesus) but they're a black hole. Books go in and are never heard from again.

Honestly, go for the Beatles angle. I am sure it is subjective but the thought of reading a story about "coming of age" in the 1960s is actually painful. Like, torture. It's something of a cliche, though you have a lovely exotic setting (India). Something new, and thus possibly marketable, would be the Beatles angle.

Rjo said:

Unfortunately, the most common response I've received so far is that if I just got rid of all that stuff about my coming of age in the 'sixties and made it another nice little book about the Beatles in India, it might be publishable.

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Everything Gill said...

But, just to add, I totally understand your situation. My first MS was a fictionalized version of my career as a war corespondent. I had an offer of representation from one of the bosses of the big agents...for it to be "retooled" as non-fiction. A straight-up offer, no rewrite and resubmit, just let's do this.

"But I made up all the good stuff," was my response.

"Where you in those places at those times?"

"Yeah, but I didn't capture Noriega or stop an Islamic terror plot..."

"You have my number."

If you want to write about the Beatles, then write about them. But if you want to tell your story, Gill's advice is spot on.

Rjo said:

Incidentally, what I've written is less of a spiritual journey than a relentless quest to get laid.

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Welcome to AW! You're clearly one of us.

I may be entirely off base here... But Agents are requesting a book about YOU to be turned into a book about THEM, right?

Why not use both and make it be a story of how that experience with the Beatles changed you into who you are today.. or what not.. Like instead of a book solely about the Beatles, make it a book still about you, but just you and the Beatles part.

Incidentally, what I've written is less of a spiritual journey than a relentless quest to get laid.

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Why didn't you say so??

Sex always sells!

Sex *and* the Beatles, connected to you or not = OI VEY, SIGN THIS ONE!!!

Rjo said:

Incidentally, what I've written is less of a spiritual journey than a relentless quest to get laid.

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Make it a screenplay! !

Make it a How-to

Wayne K said:

Make it a How-to

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Genius!

The Beatles are your hook, there must be some way to use them to spice up your material for a wider audience without totally overpowering it?

Did you have sex with the Beatles while traveling through India? Were you in on the plot with Yoko to break up the band?

Since you are unknown at this time in your walk of being published....you are not even a small cloud yet, you might want to use all the 'thunder' you can find to get there. I would consider what others have said and see how you might make some changes. Like Wayne said....lol

colealpaugh said:

But, just to add, I totally understand your situation. My first MS was a fictionalized version of my career as a war corespondent. I had an offer of representation from one of the bosses of the big agents...for it to be "retooled" as non-fiction. A straight-up offer, no rewrite and resubmit, just let's do this.

"But I made up all the good stuff," was my response.

"Where you in those places at those times?"

"Yeah, but I didn't capture Noriega or stop an Islamic terror plot..."

"You have my number."

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Yikes. Maybe this is just me, but non-fiction should BE non-fiction.

PoppysInARow said:

Yikes. Maybe this is just me, but non-fiction should BE non-fiction.

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Ha, I made that sound like he was suggesting I didn't change anything. He took the fiction version as a proposal for writing a non-fiction book. He was willing to sign me off of it, as opposed to a rewrite and resubmit. I had no interest in non-fiction.

Did I just read BenPanced has a love child with Yoko in Indiana?

I think you might be slightly paranoid.

Rjo said:

Of course it's not "my ideas" I'm worried might get pilfered, but some of the stories I'm telling and, as far as I know, telling for the first time, as they really happened.

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Is Mia Farrow in it? If so, then mention her in the query as well as the Beatles. In a query to an agent, you don't necessarily have to hammer home what your book isn't.

I can hardly compete with anything Gilly said because the advice, as always, is spot on. But as someone who specializes in memoir/biography, I'm always looking for the hook. Many memoirs cross my desk that lack marketability because they lack a hook, and the reason is the author is too close to his own story. As Gilly says, the Beatles are your hook, and you need to change that because that isn't what your book is about.

So what are you left with? Going to live on an ashram. Is this enough to get an agent's or editor's attention? Not really because there are a ton of those stories already out there.

However:

Rjo said:

Incidentally, what I've written is less of a spiritual journey than a relentless quest to get laid.

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That is one hell of a hook because it's so deliciously contrary. That would certainly get someone to sit up and say "oh, really...tell me more."

priceless1 said:

So what are you left with? Going to live on an ashram. Is this enough to get an agent's or editor's attention? Not really because there are a ton of those stories already out there.

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Can you let me know a few titles? I only know of Eat Pray Love.

aruna said:

Can you let me know a few titles? I only know of Eat Pray Love.

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Sorry, Aruna, I should have been more specific. I was talking religious enlightenment.