Co-authors

Hope To The Horizon said:

First, I'm completely impossible to get in touch with. I don't have a phone and never check my e-mail. I'm never around during normal business hours even for my family to give me the message if an agent were to call.

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I don't really have an answer for you, but I'm just curious. What the heck do you do? I mean, as your occupation???

Well

I'd just create an email account for business (writing) use and maybe invest in a pay as you go cell phone. And maybe also yoga classes. Meditation, pre-conversation.

Just have your mom take a message.

Work on mellowing the attitude.

I will tell you if you do get an agent or editor you WILL have to be available and you WILL have to develop a professional attitude. Working with an agent for the submission process and with an editor during production requires much time and communication.
It also requires a business sense for your book to do well.

Yeah, I would work on not coming across as arrogant and opinionated, not trying to figure out a way to get your mom to handle all your calls. I mean, say your book sells, you can't very well send her on the author tour, can you?

Hope To The Horizon said:

I quit working last year to write full time (since others in my household work).

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Okay so now my question is, if you're writing full time, how the heck are you not at home to answer calls?

I can understand about hating to talk on the phone-- I avoid it like the plague-- but if someone were calling me to offer a book deal? I'd return it!

Here's an idea, though: Many authors use pen names. Submit your work as if your mom were the author, and use your name as the pen name. Generally this is indicated under the title of your manuscript (while your "real name" would be everywhere else). So they would respond to your mom and contact her rather than you, but if you got published, it would be your name on the manuscript.

Sounds to me like your mother is more of a manager than a co-writer.

Give them your mother's e-mail address. Any interested parties will still use your name as the contact. It's not as though they check who owns the e-mail account. Or create a new, business-only e-mail address and give your mother the password. It will be easy enough for your mother to correspond with them in an e-mail if you can't. Although, if agents are responding to you in e-mail, they'll expect a delay anyway, so you could answer them yourself.

If they call you on the phone, your mother could pretend to be you, I suppose, but I really think it would be best to speak with them yourself.

In any query letter, you could add that the phone number is not a personal line, and it would be appropriate to leave a detailed message with anyone who answers. If you get a message, it would give you time to go over it with your mother to come up with a diplomatic response, if need be.

Here's an idea, though: Many authors use pen names. Submit your work as if your mom were the author, and use your name as the pen name. Generally this is indicated under the title of your manuscript (while your "real name" would be everywhere else). So they would respond to your mom and contact her rather than you, but if you got published, it would be your name on the manuscript.

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Keep in mind that with this scenario, your mother's name is the one that would appear on the checks. She'd have to sign the contracts, everything.

I would list her as your secretary

I would think any of the above arrangements would quickly prove a turn off to a prospective agent/editor. They would expect to have an open line of communication with the author, and not have to play chinese whispers through someone else. Seriously....this could be an insurmountable obstacle. In this situation, you can either...

1. Change your attitude. C'mon, it's not so hard. Eat a little humble pie until you're some bigshot best selling author, then you can be as difficult as you want.

2. Accept you'll never find an agent, and be happy just writing for yourself.

In practical terms,
what one does is get a telephone answering machine and a business e-mail address.
One checks them every day.


In practical terms,
one talks, on the phone, once, in a polite, businesslike manner to the agent and editor. This conversation takes maybe 20 or 30 minutes.
After that one corresponds entirely by e-mail and snail mail.

Nobody else can hold that talk with the agent and editor.
It has to be the writer
because the conversation is about writing.


If it is truly impossible for you to talk on the telephone, once, for twenty minutes,
or respond in a timely fashion to e-mails,
then do not put your telephone number and e-mail address on the submission.

Correspond only by snail mail.

If your writing is good enough, you will find someone who will deal with you on this basis.

Hope To The Horizon said:

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my initial post. My mother WILL be the contact for agents and editors, there's no doubt there. I'm not much better at returning messages then I am at checking my e-mail (I absolutely HATE talking on the phone, so I always put it off, and off, and off....). Should I make her co-author and how do I state that in a query?

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You were clear, but it doesn't change the facts. Listen to these people! If you can't develop a professional attitude you won't get anywhere. You can't play diva until you are a diva.

Get a phone. You don't have to answer it as your machine can. You can call back at your leisure. And as for hating to check your email... ??!! To bad. Not every part of a job is fun but you have to do it. Also, I can't imagine an agent and editor going through your mother. It won't work. Period. If it help you any, they are not your bosses, think of them as your partners in crime.

I don't know. I would list your mother as preferred contact person as your secretary or whatever. I'd also prepare myself to talk on the phone with any interested parties myself.

Sounds a bit like you want to have your cake and eat it too. As far as I am aware, you don't have any disabilities which prevent you from using the phone or checking your e-mail, and this reluctance is a matter of personal preference. Well, I'm afraid its unreasonable to expect life to always be on our terms.

Sometimes we have to do things we don't like and sometimes we have to change how we behave to fit into an environment. I don't really like this idea of being 'difficult to work with.' Is someone/something else in control of the way you act? If not, I don't see how you can use that as an excuse when it's all up to you how you act and, to an extent, how people perceive you. It sounds like you're just being stubborn. Personally, I would think that when you really want something in life, you do everything in your power to achieve what you want, and if that means changing the way you are, then so be it. Otherwise, you don't really want it enough, do you?

Seeing as you've said you don't actually care about being published anyway, and it's more of a family thing, well... I don't know what to say about that. I don't like the idea of relying on other people to motivate and direct you in life - I'm quite an individualistic person in that respect. If you are a great writer, it does seem impractical to 'waste' that talent and not seek publication, and I would think you should be able to reach that conclusion yourself without your family pushing you.

At the end of the day, unless you get lucky, you are unlikely to achieve great success in life without being 100% committed to what you want. And in this particular case, I wouldn't have thought many agents or publishers would want to work with someone who isn't passionate about their work and the prospect of publication, and therefore willing to sacrifice comfort/step outside their boundaries to achieve that end. While writing may be a solitary effort, publication is a team effort, and being 'difficult to work with' is just setting yourself up for failure.

Going off on a tangent here, but if it helps, I hate being told what to do as well. However, I've learned over the years that sometimes people do talk sense and are worth listening to. And when there are times that I think I know better than someone else, I either approach them about it and discuss it, or humour them and do what they say, saving hassle. It's all a matter of ego, I guess. The mature thing is knowing how and when to keep the monster in check. After all, humility goes a long way in social situations. We all have egos, small or large, and bruising other people's to protect your own is never a good thing to do.

I don't know if any of this applies to you or not. It's unfair for me to make a character judgment based on a few posts, but on the off chance that it helps you or someone else, I thought I'd say it anyway. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful regarding practical matters. I guess you could list your Mother as a secretary or co-author, but at some point an agent or publisher will need to talk to you, and if you refuse they may just get irritated by the circumstances and forget it. Plus, listing her as a co-author when she hasn't actually helped write the piece is technically a lie. All the advice I've read has suggested being totally upfront about things.

Yeah, if you REALLY want this you're going to have to leave the attitude at the door.

If you are deemed hard to work with then people won't want to work with you no matter how much talent you may have. (See Lindsey Lohan for details.) Why should they? I am sure there are many other writers out there just as talented as you are but those writers are cooperative and open to communication. Publishers and agents literally have people knocking at their doors wanting to be published. They have no shortage of talent to choose from. Why pick somebody who is hard to deal with or doesn't want to talk to them?

If you were an agent or publisher what would you do when dealing with a person like you?

Why would any agent or editor agree to this kind of relationship? What's in it for them? Every change, every suggestion is going to have to be worked through at least two phone calls, separated over a period of time: Agent makes suggestion for revision to mother. Mother tells writer. Writer tells mother what to answer, maybe yes, maybe no, maybe some new suggestion. Mother phones agent. Lather, rinse, repeat. Who would agree to work that way?
Since you don't care about publication, I'd save yourself the hassle and just Lulu the thing.

katiemac said:

Keep in mind that with this scenario, your mother's name is the one that would appear on the checks. She'd have to sign the contracts, everything.

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And pay the taxes. If you end up with a runaway bestseller, your mom can't just sign the checks over to you or you'll be taxed twice for the money. It's a financial morass.

If you do decide to list your mother as your coauthor, keep in mind that this may not preclude you from a phone conversation with an agent or publisher. I coauthored a book and before we signed with an agency, we had a phone conference to go over all questions and discuss expectations. You could talk as little as possible there though.

For disclosure of coauthorship, we listed both of our names on the query letter and title page of the manuscript, and we used "we" in the query letter. That sufficed.

Hope To The Horizon said:

You see, I really don't care about getting published. I'd just as soon write the best book I could, print it out, put in a pretty binder, and keep in my desk drawer forever. However, my family disagrees.

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I think YOU have to want it in order for it to happen.

JMHO

I think YOU have to want it in order for it to happen.

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I second that - if YOU don't even want to be published, then why bother? There are plenty of people out here who DO want to be published and are willing to do the work involved.

But, one thing I didn't understand. You say you quit your job so that you could write full-time because other people in the house work - yet, you don't care about being published? Did you ever stop to think that the people that want you to get published may also want you to do your share as far as household finances? And, they may not understand why you want to quit your job to write if all you want to do is 'stuff it in a drawer'?

Just my humble opinion.

Are you KIDDING me?! The other people in this forum may be all supportive all the time but come on. I'm not about to sugar coat this. You're acting like a spoiled child. Basically you're not doing these things because you don't feel like it. You could easily check your email once a day. You could keep the cell phone in a pocket or taped to your friggin hand for all I care. You decided to take a year off because "other people in your house are working." So you don't contribute at all? I'm thinking you're very young, still letting mommy fight all your battles for you. Time to grow up. If you want to be published then you have to deal with all that comes along with that. If you're not willing to do that then there's always self publishing. Publish America will work with anyone right??? Have you sent your ms out to anyone besides your family for feedback? Mom always says it's good enough to be published. Especially since she wouldn't want to see you throwing a hissy fit with arms and legs pounding the floor if she dared suggest some edits (GAWD forbid!!). Grow up. My advice? Shelve it for ten years and when you're mature enough to handle it, send it out again.