Happy Summer! I hope this season finds you enjoying the outdoors and warm weather, and unplugging in whatever way suits you. Being a freelancing mother, I typically scale back my workload over the summer to spend time with my children. We garden, we play, we travel, we relax. I don’t know if it’s the increase in Vitamin D or the natural reduction in screen time, but summer fuels my creative energy and sense of possibility. How about you?
An Editor’s Tip
I was chatting recently with a client who’s planning to query agents with a Young Adult novel pretty soon. We discussed the best way to find “comps” — the comparable books that will be both your manuscript’s competition and its cohort on bookstores’ feature tables, and that should be listed in your proposal.
My first recommendation is to head to your local library. Librarians typically have a graduate degree in library science and a ton of experience hunting down references and obscure titles. According to my librarian friends, they also love to search for the perfect book recommendation or query comp. So bring them your sleuthing missions!
The next best alternative is to go to your local bookstore and ask the book buyer in your genre for their comp recommendations. Bookstores, depending on their size, might employ a few book buyers who each specialize in certain genres. In this case, consider buying a book or two after you get some good titles.
I’m always amazed at what librarians and booksellers will find and recommend. It’s a very special kind of expertise and I think we should keep them in business forever. But of course, another option to find comps is to use the internet. Google is always handy and so is Amazon, even if I grumble as I type this. And it turns out ChatGPT is a useful tool as well.
I noted in my April newsletter that Jane Friedman recommended using the AI tool to research comps. I will forever think of ChatGPT as “plagiarism software,” a term I read on social media though I can’t remember who coined it. The point is, if you use ChatGPT to write for you, it’s fair to assume the resulting text will plagiarize countless writers who came before you, whose writing has been gobbled up by the AI engine, algorithm-ized, then regurgitated in whatever shape you ask for. Sure, it’s cool, but it’s also deeply problematic. But if you use it as a search engine, in my view, the ethics are different.
If you’re querying, I hope the above three recommendations help you find the perfect comps. Let me know how they work for you.
News
There will be no Lunch Edits this month (today)! I am taking some time off in July to enjoy my family and travel. So I’ll see you on Wednesday, August 2, and can’t wait to catch up with regulars and newbies alike. (About Lunch Edits: on the first Wednesday of the month, I host a free midday Zoom call where we discuss all things writing- and editing-related. You can ask any burning questions or simply share what you’re working on and commune with other writers and editors. This is a collegial, casual gathering. Anyone is welcome. You can find the link here.)
A Gathering of Poets is a new organization fostering community around poetry in Tacoma, Washington. They host monthly gatherings to share and discuss poetry, and will publish an anthology called Voices of Tacoma next year (if you’re local, stay tuned for the submission call). Burl Battersby launched this project and received funding from the Tacoma Artists Initiative Program. A Gathering of Poets will offer several workshops over the next few months, and I’m excited to have been invited to teach one! More information coming soon.
I am booking editing work for September and beyond. If you have a manuscript in the works, an essay or a proposal that needs an editorial eye, or a website with content that could be tightened, contact me to reserve some time on my editorial calendar. I’d love to work with you! I’ve been offering coaching recently too, and that’s been a fun way to connect with writers and work through projects in real time. If you’re curious, please visit my website or hit reply with any questions.
A Question for You
I’ve been trying to be brave recently and submit a couple of essays that have sat in a metaphorical drawer for some time. These essays are in decent shape, but they make me cringe and publishing them may feel torturous. But sometimes that’s the best kind of writing: when writers dare to be vulnerable and share embarrassing stories, the content resonates.
What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever published, or written and been afraid to publish?
Literary Links
Here are articles I liked or bookmarked this past month. Enjoy!
The Ethics of Writing Hard Things in Family Memoir – Kelly McMasters, LitHub
Let’s End Things — Rebecca Makkai, SubMakk
7 Steps to Landing the Perfect Blurb for Your Forthcoming Book — Aileen Weintraub, Writer’s Digest
Elizabeth Gilbert Halts Publication of The Snow Forest — Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times
8 Good Writing Practices — Neil Gaiman, Gotham Writers
It’s Not Personal: Sarah Viren on Essayistic Visions of the Self — Sarah Viren, LitHub
Recent Reads
Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong — In this memoir in essays, the brilliant poet Jane Wong recounts her youth as the daughter of Chinese immigrants and restaurant owners, her experiences of racism, domestic abuse, and toxic masculinity, her tight-knit relationship with her ebullient mother and estrangement from her gambling father, and her love of writing and eating. It’s a lush, angry, hilarious book — I loved it.
The Night Flowers by Sara Herchenroether — In this literary mystery, a young librarian and amateur genealogist, Laura, turns to sleuthing to cope with her brutal breast cancer treatment. When she makes progress on a cold case — the murder of a mother and two children whose bodies were found 30 years before in the New Mexico national forest — her path merges with Jean’s, the nearly-retired police officer in charge of the case, who is wrestling with her own existential crisis. Ghosts also have a voice in this story, a twist both whimsical and dark. This is a satisfying whodunnit and a haunting novel.
The Laughter by Sonora Jha — This novel is deliciously cringy, written in the voice of a fifty-something white male academic who develops a problematic obsession with his Pakistani colleague and her troubled nephew. The writing is sharp and hilarious, deftly excoriating the hubris and insecurities of the white male in a changing world, and pointing its finger at the culture that shrinks from holding him accountable. The Laughter’s realism infuriates, while its sardonic humor gives the reader enough space to reflect and relax. Throughout, Jha showcases the humanity of her spectrum of characters with incredible nuance and with empathy toward both the flawed and the marginalized. This is the kind of satire that should be mandatory reading for white people.
You can find links to the books I read and recommend on my Bookshop page, and read longer reviews on my Instagram.
Thanks for reading my newsletter. I’m grateful you’re a part of my literary community. Have a great summer!
Jenny