I had a post already published this morning, but just deleted it after hearing the very sad news that Kensington editor Kate Duffy has passed away. Kate played a major role in my first sale to Red Sage as Penny, because I’d initially targeted my first Secrets novella to her. As can so often happen in publishing, my manuscript went awry, shall we say. It had been over a year and I had not heard on the status. I was at an RWA conference—I can’t remember which one anymore—and just happened to mention my missing manuscript to another writer who knew what Kate looked like (I didn’t). Turned out Kate was walking our way!

The writer pretty much sidelined Kate, introduced us, and I asked about my manuscript. Kate replied quite frankly that if I hadn’t heard by now then the manuscript had likely been rejected. Later, she told me that the look on my face made her feel so guilty (this from the woman many considered intimidating). Because I asked, “But wouldn’t I have received a rejection letter?”

“Tell you what,” she said. (And, yes, I’m paraphrasing, I didn’t tape record our conversation). “I have somewhere to go after conference, but give me about three weeks and then contact me. I’ll let you know what I find out about your manuscript.”

Three weeks later, I was at home wondering when would be a good time to phone or email her when she phoned me. She couldn’t find the manu anywhere, it must have gotten lost, and could I email her another copy? I did, and she read and rejected it within 24 hours. By another phone call. But she didn’t just reject it, she told me why she was rejecting it. And she asked to see more ideas. In fact, she asked me to write up three ideas for her, and she’d choose which she wanted me to develop into a novella for submission to Brava. I did that. Meanwhile, I took her comments on the rejected novella, revised it, and sold it to Red Sage Secrets. Without Kate’s comments during that phone call, would I have sold that novella? I’ll never know.

Back to the three ideas. Kate called me back another month later saying she loved two of the three ideas, and she wanted me to write the full novella of one and then begin the second while she was considering the first. I wrote the full novella and submitted it. Time went by. A lot of time went by. A lot and a lot and a lot of time went by.

Eventually, we reconnected, but she rejected the full novella. Again, full of remorse about doing so. Very apologetic (I’d never experienced an editor apologizing to me for a rejection, and phoning me to make that rejection). So much time had passed, as can happen in publishing, between her approving the idea and looking at the full, that the idea no longer excited her enough to make a sale. But she asked to see another novella, a partial this time.

I did write that third partial novella for Kate. Time went by. A lot of time went by. A lot and a lot and a lot and a lot of time went by. Eventually, we reconnected, and she still loved the idea but wanted me to turn facets of the story upside down. So I did. Resubmitted. Time went by. A lot of time went by. Then I learned that she was ill, and I decided not to bug her.

Meanwhile, I revised the second full novella to suit Secrets, submitted it and sold it. It’s releasing in Secrets Volume 28 this December.

Kate made me laugh. She was very self-deprecating, and she had a dry wit that I identify with. That she took the time to phone me when she could have just sent me form snail-mail rejections said a lot about her character. And still does.

Goodbye, Kate. I’ll miss you. Even though I didn’t get a chance to truly work with you, I appreciate all the help you gave me. Now and always.

Found where? On my website, 0f course! Recently, Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary Agency, answered several questions for me. Quite thoroughly, too, I might add. It’s a fantastic interview. Check it out.

Older agent interviews (Kevan Lyon, Elaine Spencer) can now be found in Archives.

Caught the news yesterday that Angela James, previously of Samhain Publishing, is now with Quartet Press as editorial director. This is great news for Quartet (way to go, Kassia). Angela seems to rock wherever she rolls. It should be an interesting year for Quartet.

I have no idea who’s head honcho at Samhain now. Anyone know?

Last week or so, Firebrand Literary closed its doors. Several days before that, Michael Stearns, Danielle Chiotti and others formerly with Firebrand, left to form the new Upstart Crow Literary Agency. No clue what Firebrand founder Nadia Cornier’s plans are.

I’m getting dizzy.

Yesterday I enjoyed a “turn-around day” where I basically caught up on stuff so that today I can begin to dig into my revisions on SEX, PIs & PACKING TAPE. Thought I’d get to them way before now, but summer intruded. Also, the news I didn’t announce yesterday intruded, and I wasn’t gonna complain.

I don’t know if anyone remembers, and I’m too lazy to check back through my posts and provide a link, but awhile back we were talking about how agents could help alleviate author stress, specifically the stress created when an electronic query or submission floats off into the stratosphere and we never hear from the agent again. I mentioned email auto-responders. To me, it seems like such a simple solution. Set up the query/submission email to automatically let the writer know her/his submission or query has been received, give an estimated time frame for your response and ask that the writer not bug you during that time frame. Well, the other night, I submitted a story electronically for Penny, and, wow, how nice to receive an auto-responder in a matter of minutes. Makes me feel bad that I put a return-receipt indicator on the email. Now, this was a publisher that deals in ebooks, so manbe that’s why they’re so on the ball. But the auto-responder works so well it still makes me wonder why more agents who take email queries and submissions don’t make use of one.

Another tidbit…I went to see Julie & Julia the other night. Anyone seen it? What did you think? I loved it. Heartily recommended.

Agents Kim Lionetti and Jessica Faust of BookEnds are holding a pitch contest on Twitter (thus the Twitch). (Yeah, at first I thought they were talking about the runner-up from So You Think You Can Dance last year, too). You have to follow them on Twitter to participate (here’s Kim’s page, and here’s Jessica’s). The cool thing is you can pitch your manuscript to both Kim and Jessica at different times this week. But you have to watch their tweets to monitor when each is taking Twitches. They’re tag-teaming, you see.

If you can compress your book into 140 characters, this is a great opportunity. The winner at the end of the week gets a critique of a partial.

Details are on the BookEnds blog.

Dorchester Publishing is now accepting electronic submissions. For details, visit Romantic Reads by Dorchester editor Leah Hultenschmidt.

The Knight Agency is running a cool contest:

Get noticed, get feedback, get an agent. Here’s a chance to have your project reviewed by one of the agents at The Knight Agency. Submit three compelling sentences (150 words max) about your completed, unpublished manuscript to submissions@knightagency.net. Write BOOK IN A NUTSHELL in the subject line or it will not be deemed elligible. One submission per project, please. Twenty of the best submissions will be chosen and requested by various agents who will then give feedback on your work…and it may even lead to possible representation. Hurry, the deadline is April 20, 2009. Winners will be notified by May 1, 2009.

Did you get that deadline? April 20th.

This is an excellent opportunity in an extremely tight market, so if you’re looking for an agent, get crackin’! (The books and the nutshell, har, har).

I was surfing agent websites last week and came upon one that said the agent hoped to reply to every query, but could only promise to reply to the queries that sparked her interest. This got me thinking about my agent searches in the past and the ”No Response Means We’re Not Interested” practice. While I understand how busy agents are and the quantity of queries they receive, I do wish there was a way a writer could at least receive acknowledgement that her query has been logged. It’s terribly frustrating to wait four – six months for a reply only to follow up and discover that the agent didn’t receive the query in the first place. Can not the query email address send out an automated “Your query has been received” message? You know, like the messages you receive when the person you’ve emailed has gone out of town?

As it so happens, BookEnds agent Jessica Faust opened up her blog yesterday to complaints about agents. I only had time to scan the Comment trail, and lo and behold one of the most major complaints was this “No Response Means We’re Not Interested” practice, when, for a writer, “No Response” might and can mean, “You’re Lost in My Spam Filter,” or “I Know It’s Been Ten Months, But I’m Still Undecided about the Partial.” The same idea I suggest here was suggested several times. Why NOT set up a special email address for queries and then have that email address automatically respond to every query with a form “We’ve Received Your Query and Will Get Back to You if We’re Interested” note?

See, we can understand not receiving a reply after our original query has been acknowledged. It’s not knowing if the query even arrived that causes the frustration.

If anyone can think of cons to automated replies to email queries, feel free to list them here.

By the way, I don’t believe BookEnds practices ”No Response = Lack of Interest.” When I scanned the Comments trail of Jessica’s post, it reminded me that I had this post in my Drafts folder, so I dug it out. Timing is everything, doncha know?