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You can replace this
by doing it other ways.
For instance, you can replace it poorly by following the editor's agent's blogs.
This is something that I would highly recommend that you all be doing anyway.
You should be looking for their blogs.
How do you find their blogs?
Trial and error.
And searching and...
I've tried that, and I'm not an idiot, but I can't find...
They are not terribly good at publicizing them.
But if you get onto like one of the industry blogs–some of them blog anonymously and you can just follow those blogs–
um, but if you get on one they will often have a blog roll on the side and you can kind of click on the others to start figuring out who people are.
Patrick Nielsen Hayden, whose an editor of Tor,
He runs Making Light which is mostly a left-wing political blog,
so if you happen to be left-wing political you're going to love his blog.
If you're not, then– you know. Yeah.
But it is his blog.
Joshua, my agent, runs a blog. I think it's linked onto his website.
So, I think it is probably awfulagent.blogspot but it might like blogger or something. I don't know.
He uses all sorts of different things.
I've got an rss, but I don't know what it is.
Look on his website, it will mention his blog somewhere I think.
Um. Follow their tweets, their twitter.
I mean, my editor, has a twitter feed that he doesn't update regularly, but he also has a Facebook page that he does.
And, you know, they are almost all going to have something like this.
I don't know because when I broke in, these things didn't exist.
So, I wasn't following them.
Blogging exploded... when did blogging explode?
It's like five or six years ago.
Blogging was like "Boom! Blogging!"
Maybe it was as early as like 2000, but I don't think it was
'cause in 2000– like, Google barely existed in 2000.
So, you know, I broke in in 2003.
I went–starting going to cons in 2000 and they were very useful for me.
But anyway.
So, you can kind of replace these things a little bit poorly by doing this.
You can also replace them by reading the books that the editors and agents have worked on.
Okay? This is harder.
Even harder than the blogs because it means you have to find out what they are working on.
But if you can figure out what they are working on and read those books,
you can start to judge whether or not you are a good match for that editor or agent.
Every time I say something like that around my editor or agent, they cringe because they're like,
"I don't want them to look at the books that I've published and just give me something like that. I will publ–
You know. If it's awesome, I'll publish it no matter what."
That's what they say.
Realistically, they will tend to have certain themes that they like.
Joshua has a certain type of book that he really enjoys and gets mine. That's my agent.
And if it is not that type, even if it's an excellent book, he won't choose to represent it.
So, being familiar with the type of books that Joshua represents can be very helpful for you.
So, knowing the names of the editors.
I think Tor's editors are all listed on Wikipedia.
Um. Learning the names of the different editors,
reading their books, being familiar with them,
at least can give you a bit of a leg up.
We go back to our hypothetical people sending books, you know, submissions to Tor, and you are the editor and you get one that is, you know,
"Hello... Hey–Dear Patrick Nielsen Hayden, I really like Cory Doctorow's books. I know you edit them and I have also read your blog and, you mention this and this and this.
And, you know, I have been very impressed with you as an editor.
I was hoping you would be interested in my book because of this and this and this that matches the sort of thing that you seem like you would like."
Of course, write it more professionally than that, but "Sincerely, Mark."
As apposed to, "Dear Editor, here is my book."
You gonna–That one is gonna mean a little bit more to you.
Now, as soon as you can replace those with some serious credits, um, you would want to.
The only real ways to replace those with serious credits without publishing a novel is to do short stories,
which I don't suggest if you are not a short story writer.
If you don't read them and you don't write them, then pursuing that venue, despite what the old guard would say, is not going to be very productive for you.
The old guard will say, "Go write some short stories. Get good at this business, and then you will get published."
If you're good at it, you like it, if you read them, go for it. It is a good way to get your foot in the door.
If you don't, do not spend the next ten years learning to write short stories so you can get a novel contract,
but you have't practiced writing novels in order to make use of. Okay?
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