What The New York Agent Said.

I am sorry to have more or less neglected the blog for a while. But as you all know, I have been working very hard on columns and most of all my new manuscript, Moonshine Over Georgia. I have completed a first draft (including two rewrites). I am pretty happy with the result. Still, I have another story thread I am researching that I may weave in. The book should come in around 325 pages, which is a good standard length. I didn’t shoot for this as a target, I was just fortunate that it ended up that way. That will give the book a good “binder presence”. That is book marketing talk. Speaks to how the book will look on a bookstore shelf. That is not as big a deal as it used to be since Amazon is blowing away the bookstores now.
Anyway, I hope to post more now that I have that manuscript ready. Speaking of that…I posted here earlier that I had interest from a very serious literary agent. I submitted my work to her per her exact instructions one day prior to her deadline. I dotted every “I” and crossed every “T”. My wife Tracy was a great help in this as she used her English major skills to copy edit. So what reaction did I get from the agency? I was rejected within 45 minutes of her arriving at her Park Avenue office that day. This is the business. It is what it is.
I can consider myself lucky that she even bothered to send me a rejection email. Most agents are not doing that now. Their “policy” is to ignore you for 6 months. They state, “If you don’t hear from us in 6 weeks (or 6 months sometimes) you will know we are not interested.” That is kind of crappy if you ask me. They cant have an intern type a ten second email that says, “We are going to pass on your manuscript.” Or “Not interested. Thanks for submitting.”?!!
Anyway, this agent did respond and was very professional. But here is where the lesson comes in for all you aspiring writers. When she asked to see my entire manuscript, I thought she was excited about my query letter. I thought, “Wow, she skipped a step. Rather than ask for three sample chapters she want to read the entire manuscript!!” I read the situation wrong. I know this because I sent a couple of follow up emails knowing that she probably wouldn’t respond. She did respond and we had quite an interesting conversation. She actually thanked me for some of my thoughts. I will keep that private conversation private. But the lesson is this: She wanted the entire manuscript, not because she wanted to read it, but because she wanted to know that I would actually finish what I started. It was a time management issue with her.
She didn’t want to bother looking over my Curriculum Vitae (Thanks Stacey Reames for helping) and my other information, until she KNEW that I had a finished book. So she asked to see it as an attachment.
So next time I will know. Fear not however, we have not yet begun to fight. I have a second Agency in Seattle that has been interested in this story as a novel since it was a lowly blog post. They have read some sample chapters and they requested the full manuscript back in September because they do want to read it. I hope someone on their staff is reading it right now. I submitted it on the night after I got rejected by the other agent. I was going to submit it regardless anyway. I also submitted query letters to six other agencies. I will give those some time and see what develops. One has to be careful how you handle simultaneous submissions. If you submit to too many at one time, agents resent that.
I am speaking again as well. I have a couple of things coming up. One you may be interested in is at PCC. I will be participating in an author panel and book fair at PCC. Thanks to Bob Seely for giving me a contact there.

I signed you up

About 20 of you that were getting emails from the old blog, still had not signed up for the new blog. Just now I took the liberty of moving you over one by one. You will now get an automated email from the new web site. It will ask you if you are sure you want to follow my blog. There will be a button there that says “Confirm”. Once you click on that button within the body of the email, you will start getting my blog posts.

Hurry on over to the new site at www.chriskates.com because today I posted movie clips from the Andy Griffith movie where John Wallace was depicted. I also posted some video footage of the real John Wallace, and finally, there are three new chapters posted.

We are on Chapter 12 now with the story. Remember, to see all the stuff pertaining to the novel, click on the “Novel” tab at the top of the new website. Scroll down to the content you are interested in and work your way up.

If you don’t want to follow me anymore, then just delete the email that you should be getting in the next few minutes. Otherwise, click on “Confirm”. See you over there.

Supreme Court Healthcare Ruling

I posted about this ruling over at www.chrisskates.com . While you are there, please sign up in the upper right corner by typing in your email address. If you signed up last week, we had technical difficulties. I fixed them, but if you didnt get a confirmation email, you will need to sign up again. Sorry.

Supreme Court Healthcare Ruling

I posted about this ruling over at www.chrisskates.com . While you are there, please sign up in the upper right corner by typing in your email address. If you signed up last week, we had technical difficulties. I fixed them, but if you didnt get a confirmation email, you will need to sign up again. Sorry.

Blogs On Supreme Court Ruling

I just posted a couple of blog posts about today’s Supreme Court Ruling on the Arizona Immigration Law at www.chrisskates.com

A Gliche in the New Site

I apologize if you have already signed up to follow the new site because something went wrong. Those of you who signed up prior to today, you did not actually get signed up. It was not anything you did wrong, something just went wrong with the site.

Socially Present has come in and helped remedy the problem. The feature that allows you to get email notifications of all new blogs is now up at the upper right of the screen. Now it reads as follows: “Subscribe To Blog Via Email”.

Here are some easy instructions:

1. In the box that says Subscribe to Blog Via Email enter your email address.
2. After entering, Click on the “Subscribe” button.
3. You will receive an email at your email address within a few minutes.
4. The email will be titled “Follow Chris Skates”
5. Open the email.There will be a “Confirm” box in the email.
6. Click Confirm
7. Sometime later you will get a second email
8. Title of that email will be “Confirmed Subscriptions to Posts of Chris Skates”
9. When You open that email is just says congratulations for signing up and then you get a million dollar check mailed to your house. (not really, just seeing if anyone was still reading all this. )

Chapter 8: The Meeting

I have just posted the text of Chapter 8: The Meeting and posted it to the new blog. There may be a problem with the blog. If you have followed the new blog and are not getting emails when I post something, please let me know.

When you click “Follow” in the lower right hand corner the blog should prompt you to enter your email address. Then I am not sure but you may get an email from the blog asking you to confirm your email. You will have to confirm to complete the registration apparently. For whatever reason, right now, the blog site is showing me as not having any followers at the new site. I am not sure that is correct though.

My Most Recent Patriot Column (short)

I had some frustrations with my last Patriot Update Column. I wrote it last Saturday morning as a timely response to Obama’s unconstitutional overreach in granting amnesty. However, due to a gliche on their end, the column did not run till 5 days later, too late to get much traffic. I stand by what I wrote however. You can read this short column here.

Chapter 8: The Meeting Coming Tommorow

I should finish Chapter 8 of Moonshine Over Georgia tommorow and post it for you on both this site and the old blog. I will gradually taper off the old blog but for now will post both places.

I might have finished today but I played softball all day for a charity event. This was to raise money for the family who had their teens tragically injured in a recent Calvert City car accident.

I was very pleasantly surprised at our little team. My son Nathan and his friend Ryan threw together a team at the last minute. Rosebower people that played were Ryan Samsil (thank goodness we had him), Nathan, Denton, Ryan, Chris, and Mike Wooley. We made it through the day uninjured and with our pride quite in tact.

New Facebook Page Too!

I will be sending many of you (if I have your Facebook address) an invitation on Facebook to “Like” my new Chris Skates, Author page. Please like that page. The new blog posts should post to there automatically. Plus I will be interacting there with some other authors and columnists. That page can be accessed by clicking the picture below.