1998 - 01/1998 Meeting

Page Created: 09/18/10. Last Updated: 10/25/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 03/29/08.

LUCIENNE DIVER

Lucienne Diver is an agent of the Spectrum Literary Agency. Their website is: http://www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: January 10, 1998.

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 37.

Meeting Program: Talk by Literary Agent.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The January 10, 1998 meeting of the Association was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River. Literary agent Lucienne Diver of the Spectrum Literary Agency was the featured speaker.

Three pre meeting activities were held before her talk. Our first club book sale of the year was held, and we succeeded in uniting a number of lonely books with loving new owners. Thanks to Roy Greenberg, Wendy Meyeroff, Steve Pantuck and everyone else who helped out, and to Tom Zych for providing a home for so many issues of ANALOG.

We had a special treat for early arrivals to the Final Frontier gathering. We were able to show the season debut of BABYLON 5 through the courtesy of Ernest Lilley and SFREVU. Our thanks to Ernest and also to Gary Blog who had also brought along a copy of the tape.

The competition from the books and the first run B5 was too much for our fans of anime, as only Charles Garofalo and Chris Hasselkus elected to watch the scheduled program of Japanese Animation. We expect a better turnout next month.

Afte the usual announcements were over, Lucienne Diver began her talk. She stated that the Spectrum Literary Agency receives about a hundred letters a week from aspiring authors seeking literary representation and that it is very difficult for a completely unknown writer to break through and catch the eye of an agent. The most important thing a writer can do is to realize that this is a business and to be as professional as possible.

Ms Diver mentioned several good and bad things a writer can do to make himself more or less attractive to an agent. It is a good idea to become knowledgeable about the marketplace. It is a bad idea to obsess about it and try to write a book to catch the next hot trend. It is a good idea to develop some credentials in science, or at least get a basic understanding of it, if you are writing hard science fiction. It is a bad idea to send in an affidavit signed by twenty people stating that you are not insane.

She stated that the agent/author relationship should be a mutually beneficial one for the long term, not just for a one-time sale. If a writer is about to select and agent, they should discuss how they see the writer being promoted in the marketplace. Most publishers limit their publicity efforts to ads in a couple of trade journals, so an author who is willing to work to promote himself through bookstore signings and other appearances is an attractive property.

Ms Diver got very much into the nuts and bolts of the agenting business. Some examples were that a writer's first novel will typically get an advance of around $ 5,000, although there are exceptions. A writer who is versatile has more potential than a writer who is limited to one particular sub category. Aspiring STAR TREK authors are cautioned that John Ordover at Pocket Books is more interested in someone who has written non-TREK books than someone who has a background in TREK fan writing.

Lucienne Diver did something that no other literary agent had ever done at one of our meetings. She composed a generic book contract (combining bits and pieces from those of a number of different publishers), made copies, and passed them out to the audience. She then went through the contract section by section and discussed what is negotiable and what is not, and what some of the boiler plate language meant.

Other things she talked about included work for hire, serialization rights, book club editions, foreign sales, electronic rights, electronic text rights, merchandising, licensing, and sub licensing agreements.

All in all, she was an articulate and well prepared speaker.

Our thanks to the many club members who helped with the set up, clean up, book sale and refreshments. In addition to those thanked earlier, a special note of thanks goes to ace baking whiz Ellen Heine who baked cheese cake, two kinds of chocolate chip cookies, and two kinds of fudge.

A large contingent went to Nellie's in Waldwick after the meeting, many with a stopover at the Webber/De Parto hacienda to drop off the remaining books.