Agent Interview with Lauren Ruth

I love the BookEnds blog. I've learned a lot from Jessica Faust's great council and really appreciate how much she and the rest of the BookEnds staff help writers.  This includes Lauren Ruth who has her own amazing blog which focuses on making query letters stronger.

I giggled when lauren agreed to be interviewed and judge a writing contest on my blog. Oops! I didn't mean to announce it this soon. Oh well. I'll save the juicy tid-bits for in a couple of days. :)

Please meet Lauren Ruth:

About Lauren Ruth: She started her publishing career as an intern at Simon & Schuster's Touchstone/Fireside imprint while earning her B.A. in English language and literature from Pace University. Shortly thereafter, she completed her second internship at BookEnds, where she fell in love with the literary agency side of the publishing industry. In February 2011, she joined BookEnds. She will soon have her master's degree in book publishing.

And she looks good in a hat.

She is seeking: Literary fiction, mystery romance, science fiction/fantasy, women's fiction, chick lit, historical fiction, steampunk, and young adult. In nonfiction, she's looking for memoir, parenting, family and relationships, food and lifestyle, business, popular science, popular culture, popular psychology.

Lauren, could you tell us some of your favorite things about working at BookEnds, LLC?

The best thing about working at BookEnds, by far, are the creative, smart and interesting agents who are my co-workers. Aside from that, I love my work—brainstorming with and guiding my authors and coming across new things all the time. Every time I read a query or a manuscript I’m excited—this could be great!

What are the greatest challenges of being an agent?

Agenting—and really any job in publishing—calls for a good amount of judgment. There is nothing set in stone, no type of manuscript that will, without a doubt, sell well. Experience and knowledge help, but it is challenging to rely so heavily on your own judgment. There is no way to do this “by the book.” What book?

On your blog http://slushpiletales.wordpress.com/ you do a great job of breaking apart query letters and showing writers how to make them better. Do you think there is a formula for writing the perfect query letter?

No. Every book is different, has different assets and drawbacks. Writing a query letter is the art of telling someone else, in approximately 250 words, what your book is, who it is for and highlighting your book’s assets. That information differs so widely, that it’s really impossible to assign a formula to writing a query letter.

What do you see as the ingredients for a “breakout” book in terms of commercial success, literary acclaim, and/or both?

There is no recipe for commercial or literary success. An author’s audience changes with current events, the times, even the economy. Finicky people, readers are. My advice to authors who want to be successful: do what you truly love to do, do it constantly to the very best of your ability, improve upon that ability any chance you get and you will find success. Don’t try to adhere to current trends, because once you’ve adhered, that won’t be the trend anymore. Don’t try to be anything you’re not, and don’t write with any voice but your own.

What is your most common reason for rejecting a manuscript? What mistakes are you seeing writers make?

Frankly, my most common reason for rejecting a manuscript is that it didn’t make me feel anything. In romance, I didn’t fall in love with the hero. In literary fiction, I wasn’t forced to see something I didn’t know about or think outside a box I didn’t even know was there. In mysteries, I didn’t have any fun. In self-help, I didn’t have the urge to act upon something. I think the biggest mistakes an author can make in a query have to do with confidence. It’s a turn-off for me when the author is overconfident to the point of cocky (“If you pass on this, you’ll be passing on the next box-office hit”). But when authors have no confidence at all in their work (“I’m hoping that there might be potential here for you to maybe like this, but I do admit it needs work and…”) I have trouble mustering confidence in it too.

Is there something you haven’t been seeing lately in the slush pile that you wish you were? What are you tired of seeing at the moment?

In my slush pile, I would really like to see more romance heroes with whom I’m head-over-heels in love. I’m getting really sick of the romance hero who is drop-dead gorgeous and super-strong, but otherwise boring as dirt. Also, since I’m listing things I’m really, really tired of seeing, the top of that list for me would be memoirs of authors’ childhoods. Unless your childhood was over-the-top extraordinary (like Jeanette Walls’) then this isn’t very marketable.

When writers query you, do you want sample pages or just the query letter? 

I’m going against the agent grain here, but I like seeing sample pages pasted into the bottom of an email query. I don’t always read them, but they can be helpful if I’m on the fence.

Are you accepting unsolicited submissions? What is the best way for a prospective client to get in touch with you? 

I accept unsolicited manuscripts by email only and the word “query” should be somewhere in the subject line so my spam watchdog doesn’t eat the email.

On your blog you mention you love to watch movies. What are some of your favorites?

I’m a genre-butterfly. I fly from one thing to the next and back. My favorite movies include P.S. I Love You, Gladiator, GoodFellas, The Sixth Sense, A.I., and almost every Disney classic. I also love horror movies (but I don’t accept submissions of horror). Last night, I watched Insidious, which scared me out of my shoes and has me still looking over my shoulder this morning, so for the moment that’s a favorite, too.

You’re stranded on a deserted island. You only have three items with you. What are they?

Let’s say that all needs of survival are met, so this will be interesting. Nobody wants to hear about matchbooks and bottles of water. I would need my Kindle, a vat of Starbucks’ Café Americano and a fully-loaded MacBook with magical wi-fi.

At some point in our lives we all have a moment, sometimes more than one. It’s a time in our life when everything just comes together and we feel truly happy and complete. Tell us about a moment you’ve experienced thus far.

I have two, both attached to BookEnds, ironically. There was the moment I was offered an internship with BookEnds, and I knew something was going to happen during my time there—I was going to learn things I couldn’t learn anywhere else. And there was the moment I got my job at BookEnds, and getting off the phone with Jessica Faust, my super-agent boss, and trying not to jittery-jump all over the place, I knew that this would be a very pivotal moment of my career. 

Thank you Lauren for taking the time to answer these questions! We are super excited for the upcoming contest!