"Small World..."

By Tony Lee

So, as I’m in the airport about to fly to Rome, I saw a new UK science fiction magazine called DeathRay on the shelf. It looked professional, very slick, and similar in style and type to SFX and Total Film. I bought it to read on the plane. It was quite good.

So, when I got back I decided to contact the editor to see if they’d be interested in reviewing any of my books in their comics section. Quick to the hunt, I look for the editorial acknowledgements section and low and behold, it’s Matt Bielby, one time editor and writer for both SFX and Total Film.

And, nineteen years ago – my editor.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been writing as a freelancer now for two decades, starting when I was 16/17 years old as a fresh faced games journalist/reviewer for then cult Spectrum magazine Your Sinclair. The editor at the time was Theresa ‘T’zer’ Maughn but, after a year or so she moved on and, just before I moved on too - Matt took over the reigns of the magazine.

And now, almost twenty years later, I’m speaking to him again, but this time we’re both in two totally different positions.

And it made me realise that there’s a lot of this happening in comics. The ‘small world’ mentality is all over the place. One of my closest friends of the 90s now lives in Australia, and is a very good mate and lives around the corner of one of Warren Ellis’ filthy assistants. Lee ‘Budgie’ Barnett started writing for Radio 4’s ‘Weekending’ about three months after I left. And Francis Lee, wunderkind creator of the entire Tales Of Midnight phenomenon used to run my local comic store in the early 90s. Last year I wrote a five part story for him, and I’ve mentioned before about the things he has in the pipeline, including of all things, a Rock Opera. I would never have believed where we would be right now when, as a spotty 22 year old I bought Robin #1 from him.

But it’s the nature of the business, and an incestuous one it is too. We have writers becoming editors becoming writers, and shop owners becoming publishers becoming writers, the industry is fluid enough to warrant such change. But it is a tripwire, a minefield to walk through – you can’t piss off anyone in the industry. It’s not just the editors you need to be extra nice to – because the next thing you know the guy you pipped to the post for ‘Spandex Man’ two years ago is now suddenly your editor somewhere else, and he remembers your ‘Nyar Nyar’ blog posts from then. And at that point, it’s time to find a new gig.

Of course, sometimes an editor you have a problem with leaves, and perhaps even leaves the industry – this is usually a time for celebration, because suddenly you get an ‘in’ into that company. Of course, we go back to the incestuous nature again – be assured that even though he’s left company A, he’ll be returning in some capacity to company B to make your life hell any day soon.

So Tony’s guide to being a successful writer today? Is always make friends. Always make sure that you’re helpful, no matter who it’s to. You don’t know who the next EIC of Marvel is going to be. You don’t know what’s going to happen at Dark Horse, or at Image over the next few years. You can’t risk alienating anyone.

And remember – if someone doesn’t like you, they’ll make sure that their impressions are known to others – you may lose work at an entire publisher due to one comment. And of course the opposite also applies – an editor who likes you will speak well of you at their publisher. Good karma breeds good karma. Reap what you sow.

At the end of the day, I always find it best to be nice to everyone I deal with. I’ve not met many people that I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire, and even those I grit my teeth and smile at. It’s a factor of life in all situations, I’m afraid. And even the most cretinous muppet can have a moment of gold every now and then.

Luckily, I like all of my editors, or even all of the editors I ever deal with, pitch to, etc. Several of them I’m actually honoured to call friends. But this then means that my bar bills are higher…

So this week passed I was on vacation, and in the main I was very good and kept to the ‘vacation’ rules, I only answered three emails all week and I actually only did about 1,000 words total of my novel, The God Contract. Of course, I did spend a large chunk of walking around the ancient city of Pompeii going ‘Aha! I can do this! It all fits into place now!’ which amused my other half greatly. Not. And when I returned I found that last week seems to be the unofficial ‘Pitch Tony your story’ week.

Now, I’m not trying to be heartless, and Jen De Guzman at Slave Labor did the same thing on her blog, but here’s a quick suggestion to the people who send me massive form emails letters giving me information of their creator owned titles, with every character in detail in it etc etc etc out of the blue.

I had en email today – the third one from a particular fellow – with the exact same list of characters and ideas in it as the previous two. I’ve already told him I can’t read it, but he sent it anyway to me in my position as Group Editor of Markosia. The top read like this –

“Dear Mr. Lee,
(please excuse me if I wrote to you already, and you were not interested in my submissions, or could not help me in anyway, I appreciate everyone who answered back, and took the time out to give some advice, if anyone is interested in these characters in any capacity, call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx, or e-mail me back, if not interested just disregard, sorry to have inconvenienced you)”

Now, don’t worry, when I replied to him I mentioned I’d be using it here, but to spare any red faces I’m not going to mention his name. Because to be honest? It’s an identikit style to several others I’ve received, and would be unfair.

This one struck my eye, however. I’m all for blatant self promotion, but due to the fact that he a) hadn’t bothered to check if he’d sent it to me before, b) sent it to multiple publishers several times and c) had spelling errors all over the place, I sent him a reply. And I’m going to use this example to pass a message to any other prospective pitcher out there.

1) When you send me an email going ‘Dear Mr Lee, read this, it’s great!’ and follow it with your creation, the thing you’ve spent years toiling over, we have a problem. You see, I can't read your submission, because it is UNSOLICITED. That is, I didn't ask for it, and I wasn't asked if I wanted it in the first place. If I was, then I would have probably said fine, and we’d both know where we stood. But this? It's dead cold to me. And a cold pitch is one out of left field. And as such I can't look at it.

It might be the best thing in the Universe, but I cannot even look at a title, as if by pure chance it's similar to something I write, or any other title in Markosia, then down the line you might start saying 'Markosia stole my idea'. There might even be a court case. This happened to DC. It’s one of the reasons they stopped taking unsolicited mail.

2) If you send out a pitch to multiple people, never, ever do it in the form of a bulk mail form letter. I know this example was, because even though I was named at the beginning, the 'See what's free at AOL' bottom line, an advert that accompanies the email as a signature was repeated multiple times, which is the sign of an email that has repeatedly been altered (say, the name of the recipient) and then resent.

So, if you do this, remove the multiple lines at the bottom – having seen this, I already know that you've sent this to tons of publishers. So why should I bother looking at your work when I now know that you haven’t sent it to me first, or even ensure that I'm the only publisher looking at it at the time? No publisher wants to start discussions with a creator about a possible title, only to find that someone else is in the bidding - it's not worth my time, so I'd usually just pass due to that.

So. You’ve sent me a simple email with your work enclosed, and twice so far you've blown out. I’ve deleted the mail already, my friend - and both times it's nothing to do with your ideas and writing. As I said, they could be marvelous. I just can’t look.

But I’m not finished yet. Let’s go back to that form letter.

3) You’ve sent the mail to the publisher and you’ve started it with "please excuse me if I wrote to you already, and you were not interested in my submissions, or could not help me in anyway".

WHY DON'T YOU KNOW what you sent me? Surely you have it in the sent emails file? This makes you look incredibly unprofessional. Always ensure that you know what you've sent an editor. Because if they do reply, you need to know what they’re replying to. Use an email server like Gmail, where you can search, or organize your emails into specific publisher / editor folders – I know, that could be a problem with your sent items. So, always bcc yourself into an email – the editor won’t see it, and you get a ‘carbon copy’ to put into a folder. Personally, I use Gmail purely for the search function – I type their name into the field and I’ll get every message involving them – sent, received whatever. I never need to send the same email twice.

Additionally, you may not have had a reply from the editor. This does not mean they didn’t get the mail - they may be incredibly busy. I’ve had editors who are close to me taking months to come back on a pitch due to workload. Don’t re-send it; drop me a line enquiring if I got it, instead.

Because currently, I now have another email from you with something that you've obviously sent to everyone, at least twice now, judging from your statement.

Now, as an editor, even a group editor, that says to me that the project’s not good. If you send to twenty publishers and they all pass – hence the repeat email, it can’t be Eisner winning material. But again, that’s an impression I’ve been given, not a fact. I haven't read your proposal. Quite possibly, neither have the other publishers for the exact same reasons. You may have been rejected by twenty publishers, all of which haven’t even read it. It might be brilliant. But this is what your accompanying email and sending process has made me think.

So, writers of the world, people starting out in the wacky world of writing, in future take this suggestion. Contact the editor first, asking permission to send your work. Then, when they agree, send them a HIGH CONCEPT - the story in say twenty seconds. It's a world war 2 zombie tale? Then the High Concept is 'It's a World War 2 zombie tale'. It’s what you would say to sell your book to an editor if given twenty seconds at a convention. Don’t waste words.

Do a pitch - no more than a page, the entire story in it. Break the story down, explain why it's different. I don't need to know the characters yet. I need to know why this story is worth looking at. And then, and only then will I express interest.

And THAT is the point you send the whole shebang.

And THEN you might get somewhere.

Oh - finally - SPELL CHECK. SPELL CHECK. SPELL CHECK. It's not difficult. I put one email pitch through a spell checker and it had over one hundred and fifty spelling mistakes alone. And this isn’t rare; every pitch like this has the same mistakes. Now, why in God’s name would I hire someone who would send me such a shoddy pitch?

This is your supposed dream career. Do you really care that little about it that you'll send me a half arsed proposal that you can't care enough to run it through a spell checker? Do better. If you send me this, then you obviously rate me the level of this. And that is an insult to me.

Sorry if this is harsh, guys. I really am. And I’m sorry for the poor bastard I use as an example here - but if you're not told this now, you won't get better. And your enthusiasm will get you most of the way, but your talent has to do the rest.

You just need the right product.

Okay, enough bad cop. Here’s mad cop for you. Mister Boultwood, if you please?