Targeting the Market: Hitting the Bullseye
by Susan Vaughan
From my perspective, getting The Call is a
matter of hard work, persistence, and luck. This article is about focusing that
hard work to make a bit of luck for yourself. For those who haven’t thought
about targeting a particular publisher or market, I’d like to begin with a quote
from my favorite philosopher: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end
up someplace else.” If you haven’t guessed, that was Yogi Berra. And if you’ve
been afraid to try targeting a publisher, here’s another quote, this one
anonymous: “A giraffe sticks its neck out a long way to feed. It’s the only way
it grows.”
In order to prepare information about targeting and have more than just my
personal experience to draw from, I polled some authors on the email lists I
belong to. Some of their experiences parallel mine, and some are radically
different.
What happens if you don’t target a particular market? You can flounder with lots
of inappropriate submissions and rejections before you find the editor who loves
your book. One writer told me she didn’t write for a particular market but
perused guidelines until she found a publisher that fit one of her mss. It was
accepted, but her other mss. don’t fit that publisher, so she’s searching once
again.
My experiences in trying to break into children’s publishing have taught me that
targeting is more efficient--and cheaper. When I first began trying to sell my
young adult fiction, I sent queries to any publisher that did YA. I did make a
half-hearted attempt at discovering which ones published YA mysteries by reading
and checking back cover blurbs in bookstores. My YA romantic suspense Pentangle,
which eventually sold to Starlight Writer Publications, gathered 26 rejections
before finding a home. Some of that was due to inappropriate submissions.
Targeting is more difficult in children’s writing and other genres because most
publishers’ lines of books are not as defined as in contemporary romance. So
when I moved to writing adult fiction, I decided to study the romance market.
The rest of this article will address five areas--reading, editors, conferences,
contests, and style. I haven’t made a separate heading for writing for two
reasons. Suggestions would be different for every different line, a whole
workshop for each one. Because the writing has to go on throughout your
targeting strategy your writing is affected by all these other general areas.
READING
My strategy was to read widely in contemporary romance to find out the breadth
of the market and the styles of the different lines. I settled on Silhouette
Intimate Moments because I wanted to write what I liked best to read. I
subscribed to IM for about a year, reading and internalizing the structure,
style, pacing, turning points, the viewpoint ratio between hero and heroine,
types of heroes and heroines, external plot to romance ratio, etc. I still read
two to three IM’s a month. I learned that most IM’s have a strong external plot,
often suspense or woman in jeopardy, as well as a strong romantic conflict and
loads of emotion. The focus is on the romance, though, not the suspense. The
heroes and heroines are both strong personalities. Many heroes, and some
heroines, are in law enforcement or the military or they have been. Most IM’s
are highly sensual romances with two or three love/sex scenes. Point of view
switches between hero and heroine with nearly a 50% ratio, but there’s not
usually head-hopping. These eighty-thousand-word books are long enough for one
subplot with secondary characters. As far as theme, style, pacing, voice,
turning points, story content, those vary as widely as the authors.
In this time while I was studying the market, I completed two manuscripts that
were rejected, but I learned from both rejections. Among other things, I learned
to avoid the taboos--the theater and a heroine who was a novelist. The second
manuscript was rejected mostly because of weak internal conflict. I learned that
the success of a story largely depends on the strength of the internal
conflict--unless you’re writing a James Bond type thriller.
When the first chapter of my third romance manuscript,
Dangerous Attraction,
made the finals of the 1998 Outreach contest, the five of us in long
contemporary became an e-mail loop and support group for each other. We have now
moved to make it a critique group. Since that contest, four of us are under
contract and two of us are actually in print. So I had good resources for
questions about targeting.
Ann Voss Peterson, a Golden Heart Finalist in 1999, did same kind of study with
Harlequin Intrigue, but went a step further. After writing her second
manuscript, she took apart two Intrigues scene by scene to analyze the pacing,
the turning points, and so on. She also read the dedications of books she liked
to see who edited them. She then targeted a specific editor. Her Golden Heart
manuscript, Inadmissible Passion, was an August 2000 Intrigue release, and they
have also bought a second and third manuscript.
Linda Style, another 1999 Golden Heart Finalist, felt her biggest mistake was
not researching the market enough when she first started. Once she realized the
importance of recognizing the differences in the lines, she began reading across
lines. Again she homed in on the ones she liked the best, SIM and Supers. Linda
said, “I should add that while I lost a couple of years by not researching my
target market, it wasn’t time wasted. I continued to write and hone my writing
skills.” Her book has also made it to the shelves. Her Sister’s Secret
was a
June 2000 Superromance release. She has also sold Supers a second manuscript,
Daddy in the House, due out in 2001.
Other reading I recommend should be market news. The Market Update in the
RWR
has publisher guidelines and the names of editors. In some cases, it lists the
lines they edit. You can visit publishers’ and authors’ web sites for more
information.
CONFERENCES
I find conferences helpful in many ways. Meeting other authors, meeting agents
and editors, networking. Again, I’ll cite Ann’s experiences. At a conference,
she introduced herself to editor Denise O’Sullivan and asked what books of
Intrigue’s she should read to get a feel for the line. Denise suggested several
of the Intrigue authors and some titles.
Another important step at a conference is to go to the workshop sessions with
panels of editors and find out what their general likes and dislikes are. Attend
workshop sessions conducted by writers for the targeted line. Talk to those
authors; ask who their editors are, what they like. Romance writers, published
and unpublished, are incredibly unselfish with their advice and help.
I’ll end this section with another quote, this time from that poet, John Lennon:
“I get by with a little help from my friends.”
EDITORS
Regarding editors, an obvious method is first. Query an editor in the target
line and hope she will request your proposal or full manuscript.
At a conference, if you think you’re ready with a completed manuscript, sign up
for an appointment with the editor of the line you’re targeting. You get to meet
the editor face to face, so next time you’ll know her. If you’re standing around
the conference’s reception and you spot her, you can chat. You’ll find out
immediately if your manuscript is in the ballpark, or to stick with the archery
metaphor, if you have hit one of the rings. You may not find out for months if
you hit the target--a contract. Even if you don’t, if the editor likes your
writing enough, she may give you feedback in your rejection that will help you
improve your weapon, that is your writing, the next time.
I intended to pitch Dangerous Attraction to Silhouette editor Gail Chasan at the
New Jersey Romance Writers conference in 1998. However, prior to that, the first
chapter placed second in the NW Houston Lone Star contest, and final judge
Angela Catalano at Harlequin Intrigue requested the full manuscript. So when I
met with Gail Chasan, I explained the situation and that I had written it with
Intimate Moments in mind. Then I pitched a different, earlier manuscript., which
she eventually rejected. That was the one with weak internal conflict. Because I
was able to tell Gail that my manuscript also finaled in the Maggies, she
offered to read it if Angela rejected it.
Linda Style came up with a very creative way to learn what editors liked. She
wanted to become known to editors of her target lines, so she wrote an Editor
Spotlight column for her chapter newsletter. This allowed her to call editors
and interview them, to ask all the questions she wanted regarding their line.
She managed to find out from one editor that they were expanding their line and
were going to be actively seeking new authors. So Linda went back to the current
books in that line and studied what made them fit and what made them unique. She
revised her ms. that most fit that line and finaled in the Golden Heart with it.
That editor Paula Eyklehoff bought the manuscript after meeting with her at RWA
in 1999.
Ann Lawrence, who writes for the Love Spell “Perfect Heroes” line, answered my
targeting question on the RWAlink. She told me she didn’t target Love Spell
originally but lucked into the first sale. Ever since, however, she has tailored
the heroes of her books Lord of the Keep and Virtual Desire to what her editor
was looking for, which seem to be what she termed “over the top” heroes, very
alpha, warrior heroes.
CONTESTS
Contests with certificates or medals as prizes are fine, but they don’t get the
attention of an editor. Look for contests that have editors as final judges. The
best possible is to have a judge from your target line. That isn’t what worked
for me, but it did for Ann Voss Peterson. She entered several contests judged by
Intrigue editors, won three, two of which were judged by Natashya Wilson, who
requested Inadmissible Passion. While the editor had the manuscripts, every time
Ann finaled in a contest, she shot off a letter to the editor announcing that.
Then after the Golden Heart finaling, she sold.
Many contests will give excellent feedback about what’s working in your
manuscript, usually only your first chapter and sometimes the synopsis. If
you’ve stated your target line, some judges will comment on their opinion about
its appropriateness. Of course, you don’t always get qualified judges; you have
no way of knowing that. The Golden Heart won’t give you feedback about your ms.,
but if you make the finals, you certainly will get an editor’s attention. That
is what happened for Linda Style. Her earlier targeting had been for IM, but in
1999, her manuscript was longer, aimed at Supers.
My book did eventually make its way to IM after all. As I said, Angela Catalano
at Intrigue had it. I never thought it fit Intrigue because the heroine was
controversial and because the romantic conflict surpassed the suspense aspects.
When the Intrigue senior editor said as much, describing it as too “mainstream,”
Angela asked my permission to walk the manuscript down the hall to Silhouette.
You can imagine my response. Leslie Wainger had her give it to none other than
Gail Chasan, who had said she wanted to read it if Intrigue rejected it. I was
worried because Gail hadn’t liked my earlier manuscript, the one with weak
conflict. But Gail and Leslie loved Dangerous Attraction and bought it for
Intimate Moments. So by a roundabout way, as if my arrow veered off course like
a faulty missile and then returned to its target, my strategy worked.
STYLE
So what does all this mean for your writing style and the structure and theme of
your book? To fit a particular line, you don’t need to sacrifice your own voice
and style. You still must love what you write. You must love your characters and
your story, or no one else will. Sharpening your style and tailoring it to a
market is work, but so is writing, if you want to do it well. “The only place
where success comes before work is the dictionary,” said Vidal Sassoon.
What I’ve learned from my long shot toward publication is that while one has to
write from the heart, if you want to sell, it’s also necessary to keep an eye on
the target, the market. Publishing is a business, and if you want to sell to a
particular publisher, you need to write what their editors want to buy.
Personally, I think you can do both. My own style changes made my writing
better. I haven’t changed my style totally to fit the market I target, though I
make sure I have a strong hero and heroine, suspense and tension, both
viewpoints, and a strong sensual element. Along with shaping the book to fit the
line, the improvements to my writing involved increasing the internal conflict,
improving pacing and scene structure, tying the suspense plot and the romance
plots tightly together, and deepening the emotion.
However, Silhouette themes have influenced plans for my current project, working
title: “The Cowboy-Cop, the Baby & the Runaway Bride in a Marriage of
Convenience.”
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