Pitch (and Sell!) Your Graphic Novel: A Beginner's Guide to Getting Published

1. Introduction: Have you always imagined walking down the aisle of a bookstore and finding your own artwork staring back at you? If you're a creative who thinks books are just the best, and dreams of one day seeing your stories in print, this class is for you. My name is Ira Marcks, I'm a top teacher here on Skillshare. I'm also an illustrator and author and a graphic novelist. It was six years ago when I decided to set my sights on signing a book deal with one of the big five publishers. There were lots of trials and tribulations along the way, but when all was said and done, I'd published my first book with a major publishing house. Not only that, but I had told a story that was connecting with young readers, through recommendations by the New York Times, American Library Association and the Junior Library Guild. The graphic novel market is booming, parents, teachers, librarians, book sellers all over the world are looking to this unique form of comic storytelling to inspire the next generation of readers, so this struck me as the perfect time to share the lessons I've learned through a comprehensive all in one course on how to sell your first graphic novel. This class is a mix of art and business based on my own publishing experience and a lifelong passion for graphic novels. But I really couldn't call it an all in one course without being able to shine a light on the secrets behind the big old corporate world of publishing, so I reached out to agents and editors with decades of experience in the book business. With their honesty and insight, I can confidently say this is exactly the type of course I needed when I was starting out all those years ago. The truth is, the big five publishing houses are able to offer the best advances and the best creative resources and insight that you could ask for, and the opportunities are open to creatives in all stages of their careers. All you need are the pitching strategies I share in this class and an unquenchable, burning desire to fulfill a lifelong ambition to see your story bound in the pages of mankind's greatest technology, the book. Or maybe it's just your day off from work and you think, graphic novels are cool. Whatever brought you to the class , I'm glad you're here, because talking books is my favorite thing to do, and I think it's time we get down to business. [MUSIC] 2. Class Overview: Hey. Welcome to class. Thanks again for joining me. Now, if you've taken courses of mine before, you know I like to dabble in the conceptual and creative side of things. Actually, this is going to be my most business-focused class. That's because that's what the graphic novel industry is. It's a business, a business where a company licenses the right to publish your art and story. Now, to get a publisher interested in doing business with you, you need to craft a pitch, refine that pitch with an agent and an editor, and then convince the publisher that your story is going to make them money. That's just the cold hard truth of it, which we'll break down in more detail throughout the other lessons of this course. That's the business in short really, but of course, to pursue the goal of a creative career making graphic novels, you have to truly love and appreciate the art form. The first few chapters of this course are really designed to get you familiar with the marketplaces of graphic novels for young readers. That's the market my work is in, so that's the point of view I'm going to be speaking from. We're going to talk about the medium itself, what makes a great graphic novel, some of the market details, and who are the best sellers that are convincing kids that graphic novels are cool to read. My overall goal here is to help you get familiar with the realities of the graphic novel market and to help you find your place in it. Now, beyond this introduction to the world of graphic novels, and getting to know a bunch of great artists and authors who are already established and out there, we'll be learning the elements of a pitch and how to put together a successful one to hopefully, someday get you a book deal. You can be as casual or ambitious as you want with this class project. I want to be able to appeal to all kinds of students. That said, we're going to start by becoming familiar with the essential elements of an effective pitch, including designing a story, developing characters, creating a plot outline, creating some sample pages. Your class project could be as simple as sharing a little bit of a story and a little bit of sample art, or it could be as in-depth as a full outline of your story, character designs, and sample art. I will take your work as seriously as you'd like me to and offer whatever feedback you want to help you move closer to your goal, whether that be just creating a fun project for an afternoon and getting a thumbs up, or really developing a pitch that's going to catch the eye of an agent and hopefully, someday an editor at one of the big five publishers. Now, before we get any further, I want to make sure you understand that this is a course about pitching a book, getting to know a story, creating a little bit of sample art, and wrapping our head around what we want to do if we get the opportunity to create a graphic novel. Making graphic novels, that's a different course that I am getting to soon enough. Got a lot of notes on that right now, but for today, this is all about getting a book deal and understanding what the market is and what we need to create to find a place in that market. That said, let's start to take a deeper and closer look at what a pitch actually is. 3. The Pitch: The big question of the day is, what exactly is a graphic novel pitch? Now here's my definition from my own experience, the research I've done, and the people I've talked to. A graphic novel pitch is a collection of materials generated by you, the creator, that are passed to an editor at a traditional publishing house. They use these materials to present your book during an acquisition meeting and hopefully secure you a book deal. A pitch opens a lot of doors and I don't need to convince you of that if you've watched this far, it's a very important part of the creative process and there's a lot of business involved in it. The good news is that in the realm of traditional publishing, there's actually a pretty clear to list of things you need to include with your pitch that are going to be universal across the Big Five publishing houses that we'll dig into a little more in the next chapter. Each thing on this list needs to answer a very specific question. The editor and the publisher need to know if they're going to consider acquiring your book. Now my current editor at Little Brown Publishing, Andrea Colvin, is going to come up a lot throughout this course. I wanted to really pull back the curtain on the business of pitching a graphic novel. Of course, I only know my side of it, Andrea knows the business side of it and she was nice enough to give me over three hours of her time to shed some light on these topics. I'm going to be quoting her here and there. I just would like to say thank you to her and a lot of the content I have in this course has come from the time we spent talking and working together. Here's the big takeaway I got from her and all our conversation. Andrea says when she acquires a pitch, what she's really doing is "Buying the feeling of the creator's vision for their book." Buying a feeling is not buying a finished product. An editor wants to see the potential for a great book they can help you craft into hopefully a best-seller. Now let's look at all the things an editor expects to see in a professional pitch. First, they're going to look at the pitch itself. This answers the question, what is the story about? It's just a short paragraph that sums up your story in four or five sentences. Next on the list is the product. This is the research part of the pitch, it answers the question, where does your story fit on the shelf in a library or a bookstore? The research you're going to do here will be to speculate on the audience and genre that suits your book. Are you making a middle-grade graphic novel about magic and friendship? Are you making a young adult graphic novel about a supernatural summer romance? The editor needs to sell their publisher on where your book could fit along a pre-existing marketplace. That's the business side of things that you need to become familiar with. Back to story, the next part on this list is the outline. This answers the question, what is the plot of this book you want to make? The outline in a very clear, concise way will identify major characters, their story arcs, and will assure the editor that you, the creator, have a clear sense of a beginning, a middle, and end of your story. Remember this is just an outline, it's like the silhouette of your story. It will change and grow as you develop the project along with your editor. Next on the list, we show the editor a look at our characters. This answers the question, what do the characters of the story look like and what do they represent? These is basically concept art designs that show the main characters in your story and maybe insight into some of the highlighted moments from your outline. Last but certainly not least is the sample art for your pitch. Andrea says this can be defined as a two-page spread of a sample scene from the story you want to tell. The sample artwork really shows off your aesthetic. It's going to highlight your sequential art storytelling by revealing the layout, the line art, the language, color, and lettering of your potential book. No matter how successful you've been in your career, every time you want to create a new book, you have to generate a pitch that's just part of the system. There is no shortcut here. I think that's a great thing because the pitch that you create really helps you get to the core of your story. When you go to finally make your book, which can be a long endeavor, you're already super focused on what you're trying to say and how you're trying to say it. Now, this class is going to be jam-packed with a lot of information. What I recommend doing is to take notes and do sketches as I'm talking to help you build momentum on what your pitch is going to be. 4. The Big Five: The graphic novel is a medium of art that has been rapidly establishing a place in the traditional publishing market since the late '80s, early '90s. Now, I think the best thing about this business is that it's always looking for new voices. That said, your story is the most important aspect of your pitch. But also knowing what the big five publishing houses are putting out into the market can really help you craft that story in a way that answers one of the big questions, where does your product sit on the shelf? Remember, this is a business and to sell a book, you need to be creating something that fits amidst other titles. Now, the big five publishing houses are Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin Random House. Why am I putting so much focus on these giant corporations? Well, to be honest, it's because they're the most influential and working with them could be extremely beneficial to you, the creator. These publishers can offer the highest advances, be exceptional creative resources in terms of providing you with great editors and art directors, they offer the best marketing and the widest distribution. That's not to put down indie publishers. I love plenty of independent publishers and you can have a great career in those spaces and, of course, you're not necessarily going to get rich and famous just because you work with one of the big five. I'm just saying they offer a lot of support for you to build a career on. Now you may not be seeing these logos on all the graphic novels in the library or bookstore. That's because each of these big five have their own graphic novel imprints that they publish comics through for middle grade and young adult readers. Some of the big imprints include Scholastic's Graphix, First Second, HarperAlley, and Little, Brown Young Readers. Now the big five publish all kinds of genres including fantasy, historical fiction, memoir, and romance. But from my research and my talks with Andrea, the young reader graphic novel market with the biggest growth is described as contemporary stories for young readers or tails of modern young friendships, also known in the biz as school stories. Stories that appeal to a wide range of young readers. These are books that kids and young adults can see their selves in. Contemporary stories can include elements of genre such as memoir, magical realism, fantasy adventure, horror, science fiction, and again, romance. It can all be part of this style of storytelling. For example, the books I'm currently creating with Little Brown are contemporary middle grade, but they also have flavors of historical fiction, horror, and mystery. Now your book is likely to be a very different story than the books I make. But I'm going to talk from a point of a common ground here so we can focus on stories designed to inspire and be representative of the modern young reader. Now let's look at some of the actual books these young readers are pulling off the shelves. 5. The Market / Early Readers: Now to help you in your own research of the market, I'm in a touch on some of the big players in the current space of contemporary graphic novels for young readers. Books that I really admire that have inspired me and also have a big impact on what the future of this marketplace is going to be. We're going to go chronologically from the youngest readers to young adult because I think it's going to give you a great sense of how storytelling style evolves with readers literacy. In the Western world, that is the United States where I draw most of my life experience from, graphic novels are a new space for teachers, parents, and young readers to engage in. In the '80s when I was a kid, this market didn't really exist. Yes, there were collections of superhero comics, and there was Will Eisner and there was Alan Moore and some of these big figures of comic art entering into the graphic novel space, but the market didn't really have an entry point for kids and young readers. In fact I really think it is the work of Dav Pilkey's series Captain Underpants that has excited young readers about the form of comic art. I think his books in classroom activities and all the media surrounding the novels he writes his really raised a generation of kids to become comics literate and see it as an art form that is uniquely suited for them to read and interact with. Now let's look at how the market defines a graphic novel. It's combining the term graphic with the well-established marketplace of the novel. Graphic novel is defined as a long form narrative that deals often imaginatively with the human experience by way of a continuous chain of events concerning various characters in a particular setting. In this case, it's using sequential art to tell that story and it's showing it in the aesthetic of hand-drawn panels, illustrated elements in text. A graphic novel can feel very personal. It's almost it's been extracted from a journal. The artists are usually working at about 60 percent of their ability because of the amount of work that needs to go into drawing a graphic novel, you can't render every panel with high levels of detail. I think that really goes a long way to helping the reader feel they connect with the art and they could almost accomplish it themselves. As graphic novels grow in popularity new corners of the market open up. At this time in the spring of 2022, when I'm recording this, a young readers first introduction to graphic novels can happen as soon as they're ready to set aside a picture book. In this space in the market really took off around 2020, and it's referred to as the early graphic novel market. My Editor Andrea, says these are books for kids age 6-8 who've just graduated from reading stuff like Mo Willems, Elephant in Piggy. Now currently the big seller in this marketplace is Ben Clanton's, Narwhal and Jelly book series. These are animals centric stories with appealing geometric forms and their character design and textures that recall children's books. Now Ben Clanton's books use the aesthetic of children's picture books, but formatted in sequential art. That is panels and speech bubbles, usually the frame and it's quite straightforward. The character's face outward at the audience, we see one to three to four panels per page. The text is quite large and clear to read and facial expressions are very simple and straightforward. Characters they're usually happy, sad, confused without a whole lot of variation and subtle expressions. Everything is pretty much on the surface. Books top out at around 60-80 pages. That's really why this market is exploding, because while they require a lot of craft in terms of simplifying a story to appeal to these young audiences, they can be created a lot faster than a middle grade or a young adult graphic novel. Owly fits right in the marketplace with Captain Underpants and Dog Man as what's called early middle grade books. By eight-years-old readers looking to be challenged by longer stories from a broader range of genre with more subtlety and complexity to their narratives. The Owly series by Andy Warhol appeals to a slightly more literate reader. Owly is a character with a deeper sense of self and more complicated illustrative style. Owly is a protagonist, is able to run a wider range of emotions, thanks to the line art style of cartooning. Environments are a lot richer in how they're rendered. We have light and shadow, which can go a long way to adding emotional complexity to a story. Secondary characters are a lot more interesting as well. The Pea, Bee, and Jay series by Brian Smitty Smith are short graphic novels for kids ages 6-10. Unlike Owly, they have a broad cartoonish style to them. Their stories of identity fitting in the ugly duckling storytelling trope. With these early middle grade books, the artists are able to introduce framing and point of view in a way that the Narwhal and Jelly books are not. We can have moments of silence where a reader is asked to interpret part of the narrative through the facial expressions of the characters. There's a lot more engagement required of the reader with these books. 6. The Market / Middle Grade: Now on the other side of early middle grade, we have upper middle grade. These books target readers ages 8-12, and page count jumps up to about 250-314 pages on average. It's a significant jump in the potential for storytelling, the amount of investment from the creator and the amount investment from the reader. You'll notice that aesthetic really shifts once you get into upper middle grade overall. Now characters have more humanistic proportions and they're much more representative of real world people than the cartoon is style of early middle grade. This is where we get into books where we want kids to see themselves in the story. Now with that bigger page count, we can tell stories that are similar to something you would see in an animated film as in three act plotting structure and really satisfying dynamic character arcs. Now of course, there's still space for heightened reality and extremely silly and cartoonish action in upper middle grade. But at its core, we're looking at these books as realistic portrayals of contemporary young life, even if they're set in a far distant galaxy or in an ancient civilization. For now just to ground ourselves, let's look at two popular contemporary books that feature modern relatable school kids and what's known as a school story. New Kid by Jerry Craft was published in 2021. It's the first graphic novel to win the awesome Newbury Award which is a really big deal and it's going to really change what the market for middle grade graphic novels going forward. Actually my editor Andrea worked on an early draft of this book with Jerry Craft, and even though she didn't get to publish, she has some really kind words to say about this project. Editors are supportive of the industry as a whole, even if they don't get to have their name on the book, that's encouraging to hear. Now New Kid is a coming of age story about a boy named Jordan who lives with his family in the neighborhood of Washington Heights. This is a real New York City neighborhood in Northern Manhattan. The book follows Jordan as he starts at a new school and he learns to deal with the changing dynamics of his old friendships and these new kids that he's meeting at this private privileged school. The book has a diverse cast of characters and really complicated young relationships that are dealt within a subtle way that you might not necessarily pick up on first reading. Each relationship he encounters shows another side of Jordan's life and how he tries to fit in while also struggling to be himself and other story of identity. This is not an uncommon premise of course, you've probably read many books like this. But what makes it unique is Jerry Craft style of storytelling. He's got a bold aesthetic that to me recalls newspaper comic strips like Curtis and even the family circuits to some degree. New Kid is certainly a personal story, but you can't exactly call it a memoir. Let's look at an example of that in this marketplace. Just Pretend by Tori Sharp has a 12 year old protagonist just like New Kid, but you'll notice that the author's name in the main character's name match up. We can call this a memoir, and it's a story taken directly from her young life. How do I know that? Well, I'm actually friends with this author and I hosted her release party. I got a lot of insight into how she told this story, which was super cool because I actually think Just Pretend speaks to a real leveling up of young reader literacy in the realm of graphic novels. Tori splits her narrative through two aspects of cartoon Tori's point of view. Sometimes we're seeing Tori work through the effects of her parents messy divorce in real life. But to escape that drama, we also jump to her imagination where we see the story she's telling and we have a character who's seeking to stabilize her life by using her imagination. It's this approach to cartoon narrative that rewards the young reader for going back and reading the book a second time, which is something that's pretty easy to do with graphic novels because they're not as text-heavy as a traditional novel. Now it's not always the case that the artist and writer of a graphic novel or the same person. Let's look at a pretty popular collaboration. This book is called When Stars Are Scattered, pretty great title, it's by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. The book is a National Book Award finalist and it's a memoir about Omar's life with his younger brother Hassan as they grow up in a refugee camp. The story is told through the point of view of Omar and his life as a former Somali refugee. During that time, Omar's father was killed and he was separated from his mother. This is a very personal, inspiring, and important story. I've listened to Victoria Jamieson talk about working on this book and the challenges of trying to tell somebody else's story through your own artwork. I think she did a great job and readers seem to agree. Now this is in her first book, she's built a great reputation for herself and telling her own more personal stories who's the best-selling author of Roller Girl and All's Faire In Middle School. I think this book is a great example of how kids can have a chance to engage with very important stories, either pulled from the news or recent history and empathize with these people who tell them. Graphic novels is a creative space that's perfect for communicating with young readers. Now let's look at some of the overall characteristics of middle grade graphic novels. There's this rule of thumb in publishing that a young reader wants to read about kids who were older than them. That's why one of the more rigid guidelines of the middle grade market is that the main characters in the stories be aged around 10-13 year-olds. That way, readers aged 8-11 or 12 can look up to these characters and be a little more focused on their story arcs, and these story arcs are usually framed through conflicts based around the characters immediate world and their relationship to it. These stories are usually centered in the character's point of view with lots of external action and minimal self reflection. characters are always moving forward and thinking and acting in quick succession. Personally I find middle grade aesthetic to have an overall sweetness to its visual and storytelling style, a bit of innocence that lightens the mood just a bit. But of course we shouldn't judge books by their covers or a quick look at their artwork. Middle grade books are at their best and are rewarded for being honest and inspirational stories in equal measure. 7. The Market / Young Adult: Where does upper middle grade end, and young adult begin? The answer is, it's a gray area. Maybe a good way to understand the difference between these two markets, is to look at a middle grade book and a YA book by the same author. The Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag, has a protagonist who is 13 years old. Already we're pushing the middle grade market, and it's a story that is set in a high-end fantasy world. To me, the world-building aspect, the way she uses it to talk about character, gives the book a deeper reading experience than the usual middle grade fantasy book. While the three books in Molly's, Witch Boy series, are middle grade, her book that comes after, the Girl in the Sea, is definitely categorized as YA. This is a story about romance, and young love, and romance is definitely a no-no in middle grade. Yes, you can have a crush and you can have an innocent kiss in a middle grade book, but you can't explore romance, and themes of love, and sexuality, and passion in the way you can in young adult. From a marketing perspective, that's where the line is drawn. Have I met kids who are eight years old reading young adult? Yes. Have I met young adults who read kids books? Yes. People can read whatever they want. But what we're talking about here is the way the people in the meetings that need to decide on marketing techniques, and how much money to give an author, decide where the categories break down. It's important to know that because they are the gatekeepers at the end of the day. But always keep in mind that once you get through those gates, you can do your thing to put your book in the hands of the readers who will appreciate the stories you want to tell. Now let's take a closer look at what it means to be a YA graphic novel. YA has a really broad ranges of tone available to it. We talked about how middle grade has a sweetness, and innocence to it. YA gets to dig deeper into darker themes like; full-on addressing depression, full-on addressing love, and full-on addressing sexuality. YA can also have a more complicated approach to narrative. Characters can be more internal, and ambiguous. Heightened emotions can really rattle the cages of the readers if you want them to. YA books can be politically challenging in ways that middle grade, really as a market in today's system, just can't. I remember when I discovered Gene Luen Yang's American born Chinese around 2007 when the book was first released. It's a pretty unforgettable story about searching for identity, but it tricked me at first because it really looks like it's an art style fits for kids. But Yang's story is quite complicated, and he has a really unique approach to narrative, which settles it in the modern young adult category. The story is told through three different characters, the Monkey King, Gene Yang, and Danny, Gene's alter ego and the book cycles through these three narrative points of view. American born Chinese, I often see paired with books like Persepolis and Fun Home, memoirs that have a really confident and unique approach to their storytelling. I consider this stuff all YA. A more recent book, The Magic Fish is a semi- autographical story written and illustrated by Trung Le Nguyen, published in 2020. The novel begins with the story of 12-year-old [FOREIGN], a second-generation American Vietnamese teenager who helps his mother learn English through fairy tales. I'm highlighting this book because, as we learn more about the main character, we see this blending of the fantasy in real-world and how these fairy tales empower our protagonist to be themselves. It's a great example of how shifting aesthetic can create an even more engaging narrative, something that can only really be done with the graphic novel. This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki was published by 1st, 2nd in 2014. Another book I remember discovering and just being blown away by. This is maybe one of my favorite books of all time. It's set during the hot summer days in a small beach town named Awacko, and the story follows two teens and lifelong friends, Rose and Wendy, as they find themselves in the midst of other people's stories, really. They're dealing with challenging family dynamics; mental disability, sexuality, teen drama, all kinds of drama. Rose is 18 months older than Wendy. When they were younger, it didn't seem to matter as much. But this story does a great job of putting in perspective, that coming of age moment, where the age gap really starts to matter as you reconnect with people who you haven't seen over the course of a whole school year coming back together and seeing each other developing distinct personalities that might almost be clashing. This is a story really about Rose feeling like she's outgrowing Wendy, but also unsure of where her life is going next. You can tell this is a story for older readers. It's got more adult themes to it, or at least teenage themes. The artwork also gives that impression. The cartoonish character design is reminiscent of younger graphic novels, but the aesthetic Jillian uses is really influenced by impressionism and has just a more mature relationship with visual art, especially in the framing and the quiet moments. Here's one of my favorite pages really. You can see the world is a lot more grounded, more somber. This book is special to me, and it's really special to the culture of graphic novels as well. It's known for making the American Library Association's Top 10 most challenged books list twice. That's pretty impressive to be banned twice. Now this book also won, The Caldecott medal and was recognized as the most distinguished American picture book for children the year it came out. There will always be people who want to censor and ban books that challenge their worldview or don't align perfectly with their values, but luckily, there are many more people in the world who want to champion these books. Last time I checked, This One Summer, is still a bestseller. Being brave with your stories will pay off. Keep that in mind. 8. The Market / New Voices: The graphic novel market has always been about discovering new voices and sharing untold stories. Last but not least in this part of our conversation, I want to share a single book with you, the book where it all began. Flashback to 1986 when Pantheon Books, an imprint belonging to Penguin Random House, published the 296 page collection of Art Spiegelman serialized comic strip, Maus. This book is the illustrated true story of Vladek Spiegelman's experience during World War II as told by his son, Artie. It's a historical document told through the framing of a memoir about a father and his son. The way Spiegelman uses comic art to tell a novelistic story turned a lot of heads. People in the mainstream had never really read a comic. This was published in an underground zine, and Pantheon was bringing it into the light of mainstream bookstores. People started buying it and teachers started sharing it with their students, and conversations were had about it and thesis papers were written about it. In 1992, Maus won the Pulitzer Prize, and that's where we get the beginning of our story because with the success of Maus, other big publishing houses got into the graphic novel business. It had been proven that it could be done. Maus continued to grow in popularity and continued to be banned. [LAUGHTER] in some communities. This is an endless cycle apparently for stories that aren't for everybody. But Spiegelman's stylistic approach to narrative has had a major impact on the storytellers that have come after him. Also what publishers expect to see and the bar at which we can aspire to as storytellers. From Spiegelman's anthropomorphic characters, his cartoonish visual metaphors, his layered narratives of stories within stories, his meta reflection through comic art on historical events, the blood of Maus is flowing through every graphic novel we see today. In conclusion, an understanding of the market is going to help you aspire to be a great storyteller and also find a place where your pitch can fit. Do your best to answer one of the pitch's biggest questions. Where does this story fit on the shelf? What is your product? Believe me when I say, the market is still exploding with diversity and the big five publishers are working extremely hard to pick up all the great stories of our time. While your first pitch may not be the one that gets you that book deal, to go on this journey, you really have to believe that there's a place for you in the world of publishing and let the success of books like This One Summer and New Kid and Maus inspire you to follow your own story wherever it leads you. I'm sure there's going to be readers waiting to meet you there. 9. Blue Sky Process: Now we've talked about a whole bunch of other creators stories and you're probably wondering, what story do I want to pitch? Well, hold your answer on that for a second. Let's just appreciate this moment here. Right now, we're at what? Creatives call the blue sky stage of the process. It's a time when literally anything is possible. It should feel exactly like this. Imagine yourself lying on the grass on a warm summer day staring up into the sky. The sky is many things but it is not a blank page. There's sounds all around you. Insects chirping, branches rubbing against each other, winds moving through the grass, and clouds are constantly accumulating over your head. Ideas floating across that blue sky is every good idea you've had that's taken just a bit of shape and left some impression on you. Some of these clouds have a form that are more clear than others, but all of them by simply being there have something that have sparked your imagination in one way or another. Now starting off a book pitch is not about staring down at a blank page and stressing yourself out about what to draw, it's not about generating something out of nothing, it's about you learning to see and understand everything that has made you who you are. If you're open to these ideas that pass through your mind, stories will inevitably begin to form in your mind's eye. You'll see the shape of a character, a setting, a special moment, a special object. To be a good storyteller, you need to learn to be quiet, to listen to the memories, and to hear your imagination because it is all constantly whispering ideas to you. Ideas that could form the beginning of your first graphic novel. Now that your head is full of clouds hopefully, let's start to take some notes. We're looking for something that might make a good pitch for a book, a story that can expand and grow as you explore it, and let it begin with something simple. An all time favorite photo in which you appear with your friends and your family, a historic piece of artwork that won't leave your mind. Maybe a news article you read that you keep in a scrapbook, a moment from a fairy tale that pops into your head whenever you're about to fall asleep, a song that takes you back to a time and place, a friendship that needs to be celebrated, a loss that needs to be processed, or a message that needs to be shared with the world. As a storyteller, how do I keep open to the blue sky process? Well, I use my phone, of course. I email myself notes constantly. We might be driving to a restaurant, I might be walking my dog, I might be sitting and watching a movie and say to myself, hey, I'd love to know more about that. For me, that's when I know an idea is worth putting down, when I'm curious about knowing more. My inbox is full of these little rambling thoughts, links to weird news articles from obscure local newspapers around the world. Copy and pasted quotes from academic essays on topics I thought were interesting for a moment but are now confusing to me. Not all these ideas are going to become a book obviously, but it's part of the process. It's not just about words, it's about collecting images as well. These can be photographs from your life as I mentioned before, but they could also be Pinterest boards of concept art from your favorite science fiction movies. A collection of old postcards, your favorite book covers, vintage graphic design or fashion photography. There is no common trait to where ideas can come from in the blue sky stage. Other than that they are ideas that have briefly passed you by and had a form that made you a little bit curious. No matter how much research I do into creating the perfect graphic novel pitch, I can really only speak from my experience at the end of the day. Throughout the rest of this course, I'm going to be using my upper middle grade book, Shark Summer as an example. I'm picking this book because I think the pitch for Shark Summer is the most successful pitch I'll ever make because it was the one that got me my first book deal with a big five publisher. Which looking back now is really surprising because this wasn't a story I planned to tell. I always wanted to tell up high concept fantasy or Sci-fi story. I wanted to do something really rooted in genre. But when Andrea was looking at my work, she was rejecting all these ideas. She said, I want you to try to pitch me on something contemporary, the stories of young friendship that are doing so well in the middle grade market. I was like, that sounds boring. My blue sky just really doesn't have things like that. I want to draw dragons in spaceships, not friendship stories. Then I laid back down and I thought for a moment, the thing I enjoy so much about the blue sky process is that it's rooted in imagination. I thought back to my friendships and how they were all rooted in our connections through art we created together, making comics as kids, reading books of each other's shoulder, going to the movies together, making scenes and short films, and writing plays. I thought creative process is really how I connect with people. In fact, if I'm doing it right now, that's why I love teaching. Suddenly I had this idea to tell a story set behind the scenes of a movie. I pictured it being about a group of unlikely friends who were drawn together by the need to win prize money at a local film festival. As this blue sky idea started to take its form, I thought about these kids on this adventure and how through them I could share my passion for creative process and storytelling. I'd never pitched a story like this before because I just couldn't see that it had been there all along. But now, since making Shark Summer, I can't even imagine a different path for my work. I can't tell you where your story idea is going to come from. I'm just saying don't expect it to be obvious. Let it surprise you. Now that you've got a sky full of ideas and you've pulled a couple down and taken a good hard look at some of them and you've asked yourself a whole bunch of questions, find the idea that's got the most yeses attached to it. Let's start zooming in on it and finding a story for our pitch. 10. Story Summary: All book pitches begin with a very short paragraph that summarizes the story you want to tell. A few sentences at most, averaging around 50-100 words. This paragraph includes some combination of the following elements: A description of your main character, your story's setting, the hook of your story, the central conflict of your story, and a bit of extra flavor to make your imaginary audience want to keep reading. Now, you may wonder, hey, but we're pitching graphic novels here. If you have sample art in your pitch, why would anyone want to read the summary of your book? Well, sample art is definitely going to reveal the aesthetics of your craft, and of course, it's important what your book is going to look like. But this little paragraph tells an agent or an editor something very important. Is this story worth stretching into a long form narrative that they can sell at an acquisition meeting? You can have a great story with lackluster art, but you can't have great art with a lackluster story. Story is key. Even if you're not anxious to get this pitch project in front of an editor or an agent, I think it's super useful to learn to tell your story in a few sentences because it requires you to be brutally honest about what you're trying to say with your work. This paragraph is the first step in teaching yourself to share a story with an audience. How do you know if your paragraph is worthy? Well, the elements of your story need to align themselves to a layered novelistic narrative. We need to feel these characters connect with the human experience. They have to feel believable and have to feel relatable. We have to imagine that they're going to go through a series of events that we, the reader, want to follow. The story can be simple, but the ideas and themes have to feel big and important. Do your best to work out these bigger elements of your storytelling now before you spend hours teaching yourself to draw for this book. Don't mistake this paragraph of text for a plot synopsis. The wording of this paragraph needs to create a balance of conventional elements of plotting. Is this story a quest? Is it a revenge story? Is it a love story? Is it an underdog story? But more importantly, it has to feature the characters, their unique setting, and the elements of you that make you an interesting storyteller. It's not enough to want to tell us a detective story. Tell us what's unique about your detective story. Let's look at some simple pitches that have turned into very successful middle grade graphic novels. Seventh-grader, Jordan Banks, loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enrolled him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. Let's examine the effectiveness of this simple paragraph. The first sentence, seventh-grader, Jordan Banks, loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. A story that must naturally come from a cartoonist. It's going to relate to kids that also love to draw and kids that are just, in general, are passionate about their hobbies. So we've got a familiar setup to a middle grade story. Nothing's super remarkable about that first sentence other than it's established a clear character that we can relate with, which is perfect because the next sentence adds a whole lot of layers to this story. Through that sentence, we have a great sense of the themes of the book and where the plot is going to take us. This paragraph offers us a potentially inspiring tale. It's a classic torn between two worlds story and it's from a point of view that historically, we have not seen enough in contemporary storytelling. Let's look at another pitch paragraph. Raina just wants to be a normal sixth grader. But one night after Girl Scouts, she trips and falls, severely injuring her two front teeth. What follows is a long and frustrating journey with on-again, off-again braces, surgery, embarrassing headgear, and even a retainer with fake teeth attached. On top of that, there's still more to deal with: A major earthquake, boy confusion, and friends who turn out to be not so friendly. In case you're wondering, this is the summary of the book, Smile, Raina Telgemeier's Number 1, New York Times bestselling book. It's an Eisenhower Award-winning graphic memoir based on her childhood. The strength of the story really lies in its specificity. The details of her dental problems are what makes it stand out. Stories based on personal experiences are very popular in middle grade and they're very important, but they're not the only kinds of stories being told. There are ways to express yourself in your own passions and interests and drama from your life that don't center you as the main protagonist. Let me break down my pitch for the book, Shark Summer. It's got a pretty straightforward hook for the story, but see how it comes to life once I start revealing the story itself. Three kids team up to win first prize in a local film festival on the island of Martha's Vineyard during the summer of 1974, as a Hollywood studio takes over the island with their own production starring a giant blood thirsty shark. The specificity of the setting and the potential for it to unleash this unique adventure is what makes it strong. When I was putting this pitch together, I really thought the strength of it was that it was set in the world of the making of Jaws, which here in America is a really famous movie. I thought it was a thing that parents would connect with and want to buy this book and share it with their kids. But my editor didn't love it for those reasons. In fact, she hadn't even seen Jaws all the way through. She doesn't like scary movies. She saw the potential in this setting that I was really passionate about, and the characters really caught her attention, and what they offer to the reader. Of course, I think the title, Shark Summer, caught her attention too. There's three examples to help you get started crafting this simple paragraph of your story. I'm going to encourage you to do a little further research. The good news is every graphic novel that's ever been released with a Big Five publisher has a dedicated page on the publisher's website that gives you this one paragraph summary of the book. I cannot emphasize enough how this paragraph really is the beating heart of the project overall, not because it's the most artistic thing in the world, because it's the most businessy [LAUGHTER] thing in the world. This paragraph is used by a literary agent to pitch your book to editors. This paragraph is how an editor discusses the project with their editorial team. This paragraph influences how a sales team pitches the book to it's retailers. This paragraph is how publicists pitch to reviewers. This paragraph is how you're going to talk about your book on social media when it finally releases. This paragraph is going to change in many ways as you start to work with your editor to craft the book itself. But the book's success will always remain connected to your choice of words in this early stage. It's your first impression of your story and it's just going to resonate in the way a first impression of a person resonates. In conclusion here, this little paragraph is the first element of your class project. But maybe you're still indulging that blue sky phase, that's okay. If you're trying to follow along with the class but don't have your own original tale yet, what you could do is write a quick little summary of a fairy tale you know well, or a fable, something, maybe traditional, that you can mold with a bit of more contemporary context and turn it into something unique and a little more personal. That's all you really need to participate in the next lesson, which is to turn the story into an outline. 11. The Outline pt. 1: Once you've hooked your agent or an editor with that opening paragraph and they've looked at your sample art and they love what you're doing, they're going to want to read a complete outline of your story. The outline should be no more than a few pages long. You could call this a summary of the story, but I'm choosing the word outline because I consider this the part where your story takes its overall form, but what's deep within it, all the details, have yet to really be defined. At this point, we need to expand on the distinction between story and plot if we're going to write a great outline. During the telling of your story, the plot will reveal itself. Maybe your story ends up being a hero's quest, maybe it ends up being a revenge story, maybe it's a tale of discovery, a tale of forbidden love, or an underdog story, all of these tropes of plot that cycle through contemporary narrative every generation. There are very few plots actually available to us as storytellers. Some say there's actually about 20 of them. While there are a few plots, there are infinite stories for us to tell. A plot supports a story and makes it more coherent. But as the storyteller following too closely to the right plot also restricts the potential of where your story can take you. We'll move into how to structure a story with this quote from a favorite author and teacher of mine, Ursula K. Le Guin. In her book, Steering the Craft, a 21st Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story, she describes a story as a narrative of events that move through time and involve change. She describes plot as the form of the story that uses action as its mode, usually some form of conflict, and closely and intricately connects one act of the story to the other through a chain which ends in a climax, very technical and formal. Now to quote her book, "Most serious modern fictions can't be reduced to a plot retold without fatal loss except in their own words. The story is not in the plot, but in the telling. It is the telling that moves." That's our goal with this outline, to create a story that moves the reader through your telling of it. Now content-wise, the outline defines all the major story beats as clearly as possible. But the outline itself is not a story meant to entertain. It's basically an internal document that reveals your master plan to an agent or an editor, which means don't bother trying to impress someone with your $0.50 words, save that fancy language for a poetry class. The outline should be more like cliff notes or a shopping list. Well, maybe not as boring as a shopping list, but you get the point. An outline is best used as a record of events in order for someone to know what is going to happen. As you compose your outline, take on the role of a writer preparing a story for an illustrator, describe a scene clearly, offer insight into a character if necessary. For me, the most concise way to structure an outline is through a third-person telling of the main protagonists character arc. Here's the opening paragraph for the outline to Shark Summer. It's pretty long, I'm not going to read it out loud so if you'd like to take it in, why don't you pause this class for a moment. Now here's the art that came from that outline. You can see the outline is really just serving up story beats that can later be embellished and directed through the visuals. But right now the artistry of your storytelling is not super important. The outline must simply prove that your story has the right beats to get your character from beginning, to middle, to end of your narrative. Of course, an agent and an editor are going to want to see surprises throughout this, and those become the scenes of your story. These scenes need to challenge and entertain a reader. Now I find the biggest challenge when developing the scenes for my outline is how do I paste these story beats? Well, this is where plot structure comes in super handy. An overview of plot structure shows us basically a checklist of events in all levels of the story structure. At the uppermost level, we can divide a story into, three distinct acts, a set-up, a confrontation, and a resolution. Then we can create scenes that fulfill the promise of each of these acts. For example, a setup needs an introduction to the main character and their wants and needs, then it needs a call to action for the character. Within this setup, it's good to show maybe a weakness of this character, so we can empathize with them. Then we need an inciting incident that leaves your character no choice but to go on the course of the next stage of this story. Once we move into the middle part of the story, we need some confrontation. We need a rise in the action from Act 1, we need mental and physical tests for the character, we need failures and insights, we need things to motivate their actions. Around the end of Act 2, we can see a rise in confidence. Then to build some tension, a surprising setback that makes it seem suddenly impossible that they're going to reach the end of this adventure. In the third act, the character is usually face some inescapable final confrontation, either internally or externally. We hope that they are able to overcome their weakness or they're defining flaw. Once they met that conflict, they're transformed by the confrontation. In conclusion, the character returns to something familiar that contrasts with their new sense of self. 12. The Outline pt. 2: There's a clarity and satisfaction that comes from using traditional three-act structure for a story. I really appreciate a process that offers clarity because my brain is usually a giant tangle of ideas, but I'm also really interested in breaking rules. I think many creators feel that way because I'm happy to report that trends in middle grade and why A graphic novels are actively pushing against this kind of trope of storytelling structure. Many publishers are looking for stories with more of a sense of realistic plotting. Shark Summer and my books that are part of that series are very grounded in reality. There are beats that do echo a three-act structure, but there are no clear heroes and villains that that structure often evokes. They're only characters driven by their own personal wants and needs. I Consider the plot of my books, mysteries, not mysteries that are solved externally like a Scooby Doo story, but to really be resolved internally. They're adventurous stories, but the characters aren't on some kind of epic hero's journey. But I did realize for myself there's a way to tell a story where the character's feelings and the spirit of their actions can feel heroic while also grounded. Here's my variation on the three-act structure we looked at earlier. It's a template I use for my books. You're welcome to use it if you'd like. If you have problems with it, please make your own. If you want to share that in the discussion for this class, I'd love to see it. This template I find is really well-suited to a middle grade mystery star in a small cast of young characters brought together by the want to solve a mystery. The story is resolved by the transformation of the characters in the pursuit of this solution. Now the trick with using this template is that I think of the action of the story as a little more interior. To keep me on that track, I call the story beats the mission of the protagonist. Let's see how Shark Summer follows this plotting structure. Act 1, after literally clashing with her team mate Lex, Gail chooses not to apologize and isolates herself. Gail maintains the illusion that she is still a superior athlete and a lifelong champion. It is her new team here on Martha's Vineyard that is holding her back. To distract from this problem, Gail finds a new way to be a champion by winning the prize money in a local Film Festival and using that money to help her struggling mother open her ice cream shop. Act 2, after teaming up with Elijah, a boy with a camera and a love for film-making, Gail pushes forward their production even without a clear idea as to what their movie is about. Lots of action in this act with no real regard for where Gail's project is leading her as long as it's not towards Lex. Act three, enter Maddy, the girl with the prize-winning story and her own secret motivations for telling it, Gail and her team of three are now on a path to winning that prize money. The story they are telling has taken the form of Gail's internal conflict. As a constant reminder to the reader that Gail's need to resolve her relationship with Lex is going completely unaddressed. Act four when Maddy reveals her intent to use their film to disgrace Gail's former teammate, Gail sees that their resentment for Lex has empowered the darkness that makes their movie worthy of the prize money. To escape this evil, Gail must step up and resolve the tension with Lex and begin the long path to rebuilding the broken trust in their relationship. Now, hopefully through my breakdown, you can see how this approach to constructing an outline puts me inside the head of Gail in a way that working in a three-act structure does not. Also, you can see that I personally need a lot of structure to build my stories. Some people simply start at point A and work through to the end on their own and that becomes their first draft. There's no real right or wrong way to do it. Hopefully you find your own place of comfort somewhere in the middle. Whatever style of building an outline works for you, make sure that it's putting you through interesting story beats that are going to entertain and surprise your editor and your agent. In short, creating an outline can get messy. Here are some pro tips on how to stay organized and on track. Always refer back to that short paragraph you wrote to establish what your story is about. All elements of your outline should point back to that paragraph. While an outline is all about writing, it is totally okay to get out some paper and draw maybe a mind map of all your scenes. Do more character designs, get out some books, do some research, create bullet points of your story beats. Eventually you can take all that content and craft it into this two to three-page outline. Personally, I use a Google Spreadsheet to track my scenes. No one sees it but me. Still, it's an essential part of my outlining process. Outlining is about writing, but it's much more about revision, edit out anything that isn't necessary, be clear and concise, vague language risks being misinterpreted by your agent or your editor, and therefore your pitch gets set aside in favor of a more confidently told story. Sketching and doodling is okay, but refrain from drawing any bigger scenes for your story. At this point, words are better reference points and they're much easier to adapt as your story evolves. As you write your script, keep a keen eye out for the ending. Sometimes the perfect ending appears right away. Sometimes it doesn't come to you until your characters actually get there. When you're looking for the ending, ask yourself, based on what I've said already, where should my character's be at the end? Do they deserve what they get? Hopefully the answer is yes. To resolve my stories and make them feel like cohesive in that last final scene, I like to imagine all the action has been resolved of the adventure and step back and take a look at the main characters in a quiet moment. Put them in a place that's familiar but looks different after the experience of this story. I've heard this kind of ending described as establishing a character's new normal, which is to say their experiences brought them back somewhere familiar, but they are significantly different. In conclusion, writing an outline can take a good amount of time. Every time you set out to write an outline for a book, it's like becoming a writer all over again, the story needs to resonate and take form. That's why I'm not requiring an outline for the submission of this class project, though it is essential to your final pitch. Now that we've got a form for our story, let's take a look at the characters within it. 13. Characters Sheets: Agents and editors want to see what the characters in your book will look like so part of your pitch needs to include what's called character sheets. As the creator, your characters are the vessel for your story. But for your publisher there more than that, they're also the mascots for your book. Your character designs need to draw the reader into your world. Designing them is this fine balance of your own personal inspiration and aesthetic and also knowing what styles appeal to the market. Character sheets need to show a full body look at your main cast. For Shark Summer, I created character sheets for the four main kids in the story. When it comes to designing my characters for the first time, I like to put them in motion right away. Keep in mind drawing well isn't as important as drawing emotionally. Your art style reveals character through pose and body language, and facial expression. It's not always essential to have proportions of figure correct. Design your characters in a way that highlights your drawing style, but also makes them clear and easy to read for the sake of your story. When you're designing your character sheets, find different and creative ways to put your characters into action. Give them an aspect of a setting from your story, or maybe hand them some prompts to work with. As you build out your cast, think about the chemistry they have and what they say about the story you want to tell. In my experience pitching graphic novels, it's okay to only include character design artwork, but for me as a storyteller, I want to show something that stands out and I like to add a bit of character backstory to the character sheet. I do this by writing a short synopsis of who these characters are offering, my agent, my editor, or even the publisher, a sense of who my characters are, where they're from, they want, what they need, what are their strengths, their weaknesses, any little bits of flavor I can think of. As I work on this synopsis, I add other little conceptual details that describe their personal interests, maybe some important life events, and what makes them unique among this group. My first version of the characters from Shark Summer is maybe a little surprising to see because it doesn't really resemble [LAUGHTER] the final versions that you see in the book. This early draft of the character designs was heavily inspired by the aesthetic of this one summer. I thought I was telling a young adult story and I wanted to capture the slightly more mature world of this one summer in my own book. Right away, editors specifically Andrea noted that the story I wanted to tell and the rest of the pitch were really middle grade and my art wasn't quite matching up with the story. She felt that a reader is young as eight wasn't going to connect with these character designs and the color choices I was making, so I went back to the drawing board. This is the magic of finding an editor who wants to work with you. They want to help you get on the right track to connecting with readers. Maybe if I'm being honest with myself, I was taken a little too much from this one summer is inspiration and I wasn't being true to my own style which is quite a bit more cartoonish, my editor helped me discover my own self-doubt so, let that be a lesson to you as you develop the aesthetic for your own story. It's easy to get self-conscious with your art especially when it comes to character designs because they can be so personal so stay true to yourself, but also listen to advice from the people that want to help you craft your story. As you design your character sheets for your pitch, get to know them and find the best way to introduce them to the world. 14. Sample Art: Once we know our story, we have our outline and have developed our characters, it's time to create some sample pages. This begins by choosing a scene from your outline. The scene you pick should be for the following reasons. One, it seems really fun to draw, that is crucial. Two, the scene features your main characters doing something interesting related to your story. Three, the scene gives us a taste of where your story is heading and what conflicts are emerging for your characters. Four, the scene shows off different aspects of your aesthetic. What do I mean by aesthetic? Basically, it's the way you make choices with your art in terms of the elements of art, such as color, line art, use of speech bubble, your panel style, the way you frame a shot, the way you use sound effects, and other cartoon flourishes. I can't really tell you what sample art was created for any best selling graphic novels, but I can show you some of the sample art I created for Shark Summer. I wanted to introduce Gayle and Elijah in the early stages of their film making endeavor. Plot wise, this is the moment when they're about to cross from the normal world, a place that is familiar into this magical world of film-making that's going to fill out the story going forward. It's the scene where the kids pass through the Wardrobe into Narnia, only not so magical. Of course the book is called Shark Summer. We should meet a shark in this scene. You want your sample art to reinforce some of the story choices you've made. Given that this story was set in a historical moment in pop culture, I wanted to show off my commitment to that concept and let the editor who is reading this know that there will be plenty of Jaws, Easter eggs, and Martha's Vineyard references throughout the book. If you're pitching your first book, I think it can be a very good idea to maybe be overambitious with your sample art. Maybe once you've worked with an editor for a time or you have a reputation, you can simplify a pitch in a lot of ways. But if you're a beginner looking for someone to connect with your work for the first time, you're competing for the attention of editors who already have established relationships with other authors. It's smart to go that extra mile. That said, I actually went that extra mile with this pitch and created two scenes from my sample art. The second scene was from the climactic end of the book, a dramatic moment taking place amidst a big storm. This scene also shows off the image that I add from a really early stage of the conception of this book. This idea of a phantom shark made out of waves. My hope was that this image is so cool, a publisher would have no choice [LAUGHTER] but to want to put out the book. Conceptually, I think this page is really important because it shows I'm able to use a bit of magical realism, have a bit of fantasy in horror in a story that is otherwise set in the real world. This is also a good reminder to not be mysterious with your sample pages. This isn't about hooking a reader at this point. Everyone's already read your outlines so they know the spoilers for your story. Jump to a moment that's invaluable to your storytelling. I pick these two scenes because I wanted to give them the big payoff. I also wanted to show off my dramatic range of storytelling, as well as my use of color and what this full cast of kids were going to be like. Now if you're not well-versed with graphic novels and you don't have an initial idea of how to design your pages, you can ask yourself, how did the big five publishers show off sample pages of their books? Well, if you go to Amazon or any online bookseller, you can browse the graphic novel section. More often than not, you can look at pages from within the book. Odds are they picked this scene from the book because they thought it was representative of the story. Again, research is key to helping you understand the context of these the pitch elements. Creating art for a graphic novel requires a different approach than other fields of illustration, like children's books or commercial art, or even short form comics or comic strips. A graphic novel is a marathon. It's not a sprint. Every panel in your book can't be this amazing work of art. I find that a good rule of thumb for drawing in a graphic novelist is to work is 60 percent of your ability. That means simplify. Do not show backgrounds in every panel. Use an establishing shot to set up a scene and then zoom in on characters and use color washes and backgrounds to evoke emotion without having to do a lot of scene setting over and over again. Design your characters in a way that are fun and easy to draw, keep details to a minimum. Page count is also a factor in developing the aesthetic of a book. If we compare Night Lights by Lorena Alvarez to some of the books we've looked at already, we can see the artwork is much more detailed. Well, you know why? Because that's 56 page book, while something like Just Pretend is 304 page book. The 304 page version of Night Lights would probably look very different than the 56 page version. That's going to end our conversation on creating sequential art. But if you'd like a deeper dive into the art of making comics, currently on my Skillshare channel, I have a class called Making Comics, a beginner's guide, which would give you some insight into the key elements of comic art, as well as a further study into other young reader graphic novels and genre. Now at this point I've shared everything you need to know to create the parts of the class project. You are theoretically ready to design and make a pitch. We've talked about the business of the artwork, now let's talk about the business of publishing. 15. The Agent: Let's say you've collected your story paragraph, your outline, your character sheets and your sample pages into one nice, neat little PDF file. If you want to be published by a traditional publisher, the first thing you need to do is find an agent, and to get an agent, you need a little bit of luck and a really good query letter. A query letter is a compelling formal pitch to an agent that represents your work and you in that order specifically. The most important thing to remember is that literary agents receive hundreds and hundreds of query letters every month, and a letter is at its best when it's easy to read and answers two questions, why is this story important? Why are you the creator, the one to tell it? Here's an example of a pretty good query letter. I'm not going to read it out loud to you, but you can pause this and review it all you want. This is the stuff a query letter needs. Now let me go over the stuff it doesn't need. It doesn't need ruminations on the theme of your book. Describe your story through character action and conflict, limit the proper nouns and the summary of your story, three characters at most in one central location. If an agent is trying to process hundreds and hundreds of stories every month, that's a lot of world building to keep track of, especially if you're pitching something set in a fantasy world, be descriptive. Description is going to be more memorable than the name you came up for a magical city. If you're representing real-world settings, make sure you point them out and be clear about time and place. If your book is a memoir or if you're framing devices, an essential part of your storytelling as it is with Maus. Be clear about this upfront. The fact that Maus is the story of a father told through a conversation with his cartoonist son, this style of framing makes the story about a father and son, not just a historical account, and that creates a much richer reading experience. How do you find the right agent for your project? Well, you do some research, look for graphic novelists who have successfully published work that might fit on the same shelf as your potential book, then try and figure out who their agent is. Sometimes they list their representation on their social media profile. You also might find it on their website or if you look in the back of the book and acknowledgments, creators usually thank their agents in that section, make a list of all your dream agents who you think might enjoy your project. Then once you have that list, check the agent's social media and website to see if they're open to submissions. Once you know they're open, find an email address that they want their query sent to. Some even have a form that you have to fill out beforehand. Be empathetic, be polite and be focused. Agents are people just like you and me, and when you make a connection, you want to come off in the best light. Now you're not going to find an agent instantly unless you're super lucky, you'll hear plenty of stories or maybe just get some radio silence. It's okay to follow up if you're really serious about working with this person, but don't get pushy. If they still say no, don't plead for feedback or how you can make your pitch more effective for them. If they don't ask to see more from you or offer any advice, it's not because your pitch is bad, it's more likely because it just doesn't fit their wish-list or their market experience. There's literary agents for every market, and they have to narrow the type of work they represent to be successful. Don't reformat everything just because you got a couple of nos from a few agents, the best thing to do is just repeat, repeat, repeat, keep making the rounds, digging deeper. There's lots of agents out there, and eventually, you're going to find the right one to introduce your book to an editor. If you're looking for a way to start your search for the right agent, you can check out manuscriptwishlist.com. This is an online space designed to help people like you pitch to the right agents and editors. Now, I bet you're asking, can I survive and do well in this business without an agent? Sure, it's possible to catch the attention of an editor without an agent, but odds are you're going to need to have a couple of things in place already. For example, a big one would be an exceptional presence on social media. Maybe you already have editors following your work. Usually if someone's signs a deal without having an agent first, it's because an editor might have reached out to them. But in terms of building a career an agent is super important. In general, editors working with the big five don't accept pitches unless they're coming through an agent. When it comes to being introduced to a new creative talent, editors would prefer to deal with agents. Agents can make their job easier, for one, because agents have sorted through a lot of pitches already on their own time so odds are the work that's coming through an agent is already strong. A good agent understands the business much better than you and has a million more contacts than you have. They're able to focus and target the right editors for your work. My agent, Adrian at the Folio Group, described the teamwork needed to get a book published as a triangle with you the creative is one vertex, your agent at another, and the editor at the third. I like that idea because being an author in traditional publishing is truly not a solo adventure to fulfill your potential and build a career, you'll need the right folks on your team to create a strong working relationship. We've talked about you, we've talked about your agent. Now let's talk about that third part of this creative triangle. 16. The Editor: Your new agent may have some notes on your pitch. Things that will refine your content to help it appeal to the market they envisioned it for. When they're ready, they'll start making connections with the well suited graphic novel editors in their network. A graphic novel editor is an expert in the business of sequential art. They understand some parts of the conceptual process, but really their focus is in production, and getting a book to market. They know all the ins and outs of the business, and can be an amazing resource for an aspiring creator. A graphic novel editor will have their personal interests and strengths in particular corners of genre in market. When searching for an editor you and your agent want to make sure your work appeals to the taste of the right people, and present your pitches, the type of book they want to acquire. Unlike with searching for an agent. You're allowed to do a little bit of your own research into what editors are right for you. To go about this research, what you are going do is find graphic novels in your target market. Talk to your agent about what this might be exactly. Open up their covers to the copyright page, and there you'll see the name of an editor who worked on the book. From what I know from talking to Andrea, having passion for a project is really only a part of the editor's job. The rest is all business. Don't take it personally when you get a rejection letter. We'll talk a little bit more about how to use rejection letters in a bit. Andrea shared this little quote from a long time literary agent that she's known for years. They say that a book is brought to life by three factors. From the right editor, the right house as in publisher, and the right time. When you finally luck into that formula, and find an editor who's ready to work with you, they're going to have some notes on your pitch to prepare it for the acquisition meeting. If you've been following along with this course, and have done your research, you should have all the right skills to get them what they need. But also keep in mind this editor has a whole different perspective on publishing than you do. I think understanding the job of this person is key to finding success in the industry. I've been working with Andrea at Little Brown for about four years now. We send emails about projects to each other all the time, and she was super kind and let me interview her for about four hours about her job, and what it entails. A lot of the following information here is based on what she's shared with me. Because of the nature of the job, an editor really has to wear two faces. There's the side, that's the warm hearted book lover who wants to nurture their creators, and help bring these projects to life. Then there's the other side of them that has to sit in business meetings all day discussing the market value of creators like you and me. You can see how these two sides could be at conflict with each other on a regular basis. At a Big Five publishing house, acquisition meetings happen a few times a month. This is where the publisher designs, and builds their release calendar. In the room with these acquisition meetings or the zoom calls, you'll find senior, and junior editors who have books that they want to acquire and bring to life. You'll also have members of the sales team looking to help them acquire books that they can sell. You'll have people from the marketing team looking for marketable books. You'll have a creative director who weighs in on creative stuff, members of the public relations team, and a publisher who has the final word on whether the book gets acquired or not. During these meetings, each editor gets a little window of time to pitch the books that they want to acquire. This window of time is quite short. These meetings are not all about just you and your project. You're but one of a whole string of pitches, everybody in this room is going to be hearing on that given day. This is why the pitch needs to be so refined. Now when it's your editors turn, they will make a case for why this is a good business idea for us. That's a direct quote from Andrea. That's really the goal of these conversations. Beforehand, everybody in the meeting has received a copy of your editors pitch summary. The pitch summary is the what and why of your project. As in what is your graphic novel about, and a case for why it will sell. The pitch summary includes materials from the pitch you created, that answers the what, plus a whole bunch of marketing research that proposes the why, and that stuff is generated by the editor after reviewing your pitch. This market research includes stuff like marketing selling points, sales handle, details on your author platform as in social media. How you might potentially promote the book and then the big picture stuff of P&L which is profit and loss. Profit and loss is a projection of the sales of your book over x amount of time, taking into account the advance you get paid plus royalties in the future, and also it bakes in costs like a colorist for your book or a letterer or other added expenses. P&L rules the conversation in an acquisition meeting. After the presentation of your pitch, your editor and the sales team will debate the numbers, other creatives will share their thoughts on shaping the story to help the books appeal. This conversation will go on for awhile, and cover all aspects of your potential book deal. For example, the sales team may not feel comfortable giving you such a large advance, and your editor will debate with them. Creative directors might have input on aspects of the art or story. Andrea was telling me about a book she was pitching recently that had a scene that took place in a live action role playing event that was made up like a Western town. The sales team didn't feel like [LAUGHTER] a Western setting would appeal to contemporary kids. They debated changing that scene. That could be a deciding factor in whether that creator gets to tell their story. But however the meeting resolves, it's all under the purview of the publisher. That single person in the room who's listening to all sides of the story. At the end of the meeting, if your editor has made a convincing case for why this is a good business idea for us, and why your book fits nicely into their publishing schedule. That publisher will agree to offer you a deal and acquire your book. If they say no, it doesn't mean your story isn't good. It just means some aspect of the right editor, right house, right time formula was missing in this case. Again, it is my understanding that everything really comes down to the profit, and loss formula in terms of you getting a book deal. Is this the best way to buy books? Who knows? That's a conversation for other people to have. It's simply the way it is. Now let's talk about what it means to get your book acquired. 17. The Contract: Even though it's called an acquisition meeting and they say that your book has been acquired, it really means that the publisher is acquiring the rights to publish your work. You retain the copyright on your art. Now they're going to come up with a contract for you. Your contract will specify a few specific things. First, the big one here is your advanced amount, the amount of money they're going to forward you to create the book itself. You'll also see the payment triggers for this advance, how the money is divvied up and the dates or mayo markers for the project when you get the money. You'll also see an outline of the income you'll get from royalties after your advance is paid off. You'll also see things like percentages on sales of sub rights like translations of your book and film rights and other factors. Luckily, you have an agent on your team and you're going to go over this whole contract with them. Reviewing the contract is going to put in perspective a lot of aspects of the upcoming year or so of your life as you create this graphic novel. Like I said, advances with the big five publishers are generally more significant than with indie publishers. How did they figure out what your advance is going to be? It's pretty much based on what the publisher believes your book has the potential to earn. Advances have a vast range of numbers associated with them depending on a few factors. Things that level up in advance are, does the creator have a strong readership already built-in whether there's been an auction for your book where multiple editors are competing to acquire the rights to it? The amount of the advance is pretty important because this is money that's going to afford you the time to make your book and honestly, it's not going to cover that whole amount of time. Luckily, I have my teaching that helps me supplement the money needed to make my books, and I would say most authors have income coming from different places. Rarely does an author get to exclusively create and publish books. Now even if you're advance seems small, it's good to have a bigger context of what's going on here. The advance is just an estimate of how much money this supposed book is going to make but if you do a really good job and you hit the market, just write, your book could be a massive bestseller and once you've paid back your advance through sales, you start to collect royalties. Think of it more like you're investing in the stock of yourself and if it pays off big, you're going to earn big. Managing your time and your budget for these projects takes some getting used to and some experience. It's good to know when money will be coming your way as soon as possible. With the big five publishing houses and depending on the complexity of the deal, a significant amount of time may pass between when you accept an offer from a publisher and when the contract is actually ready for signing. It could take months, sometimes up to a year to get that paperwork done. Along the way your agent is helping you refine the wording of that contract, so just in case your book hits big and picks up a film option or foreign rights or any of that thing, you're getting a fair percentage of all that money going forward. Another thing you can request with your agent is the way the payments trigger on your advance. Now, depending on your lifestyle and the advance and how it's paid out can make a big difference in your productivity. Signing that contract is the first payment trigger for all advances and you definitely get paid the remainder when the book goes into publication. But you could divide that money up at different stages of your production, so you could get paid when you sign the contract, then you get paid when you finish the sketches for your book, and then maybe get another check when you turn in the color work and then one more at the time of publication. An agent can help you negotiate when you get that money. Now some creators confuse an advance for a book deal with a page rate. If your name is on the cover of your book, you get paid through advances in royalties. If you're the colorist or a contributor to the book's production, you're getting a page rate. To shed light on advances and page rates, you can check out litebox.info, where creatives can anonymously submit rates on their projects. Another thing you need to consider when planning out your contract are what your deadlines are. Publishers are juggling a lot of books and get pretty insistent that deadlines be met so they can keep their release schedule. Of course it's impossible to really know how long it will take you to create your graphic novel once you get started, Shark Summer took me 12 months. The following book, Spirit Week took 18 months. Every creator works differently. Some can put out a book every seven months. Some take years to develop one project. As a rule of thumb, Andrea says, "A book usually takes about twice as long as you think it will." Now, don't forget to keep your agent in the loop through all of this conversation. Remember it's a little team triangle. We've got going here. If you're really invested in all of this, you're going to meet a lot of editors along the way and you're going to get a lot of rejection letters. That's just part of the process. Let's talk about how we can put those to use. 18. Rejection Letters: Rejection letters are a big part of the pitching process. Andrea says this and I quote, "Remember, this is a business just because I'm not publishing your book doesn't mean it's not great." Editors want to encourage creators even when they're turning down their pitches. If an editor has taken the time to review your work and offers an encouraging rejection letter, ask them for advice on where to go next. These people are part of a big network and it can often point you in the right direction. Here we're taking a look at some of my rejection letters. You see they're not as simple as just a sorry or we don't want it, usually they explain why and sometimes they even offer a bit of encouragement and imply that, "Hey, I'd love to see more if you've got it." You can take that as truth. They actually think what you're doing is awesome, they just aren't connecting with that specific story. Long before I got to make Shark Summer I was pitching science fiction and fantasy books for years and getting nowhere with it. On one of those rejection letters I noticed that Andrea had liked what I was doing but didn't like that book, and that was a door that was open just enough where helped me get connected to her and eventually worked my way to creating a pitch that she thought was awesome and I also thought was awesome. Rejection letters are not dead ends, they are building blocks to help you refine your creative process. They are doors that are left open to help you make connections with the right editors. Every stage of a creative career is going to have setbacks, it's really a matter of how you learn to use them that decides the fate of your career. Anyway [NOISE] that's a whole lot of advice. I think now it's time to make some work of your own. Let's talk about the class project. 19. Class Project: The goal of the class project is to prime you to create a full pitch through this simplified version of the process. Your task is to query me, is if I was an agent or an editor at one of the big five publishers. My submission requirements are a title for your proposed book, a one-paragraph pitch of your story, and a single page of finished comic book art. It can be in full color or in black and white. I'd like to see dialogue, action, and a sense of the themes of your book present in this single-page of comic art. As we've discussed, the market with the biggest growth is in young reader graphic novels in the category of contemporary stories. Stories of young friendships, school stories. If you do not have a story of your own to pitch, you're welcome to draw from tradition, fables, fairy tales. You could even pitch an adaptation of one of the kids classics like The Secret Garden, or Are You There God It's Me, Margaret, or Matilda. Once you've submitted the class project, I will read it and give you feedback onto the effectiveness of your pitch. The work that students share is what gives this class an ongoing life and builds it beyond the lessons I've simply shared with you here today. My hope is that we can create this awesome little classroom where students are coming and going, finding inspiration from me and from each other, and beginning an exciting journey into the world of publishing graphic novels. I'd like to wish you some luck out there and I really look forward to seeing your stories come together. 20. Wrap it Up!: [NOISE] That was quite a course. Thank you for joining me. I hope you learned a lot. If you want to continue the discussion through a class project or ask me questions in the discussion part of this course, you'll find a discussion tab somewhere underneath this video right now. You're welcome to, and please share your work in the class projects section. What you've seen right now is really just the beginning of the conversation. A class isn't really effective unless it has students engaging with it in challenging me to dig a little deeper into some of the themes and ideas I've already addressed in this course. If you've got some business questions, feel free to ask me. I'm here all the time talking to students on Skillshare. Now if you've enjoyed this course, I have all other content that might help you develop your creative side in cartooning, concept art, and comic storytelling. I've got courses on designing cartoon faces, some of the fundamentals of drawings, short form comics, classes on science fiction and fantasy, comic art and all other cool stuff. You'll find those things on my channel. If you enjoyed this course, please share a good review with me and the other students, help people discover it and thanks for being here. I love talking books, like I said at the beginning. Good luck with your pitch and I look forward to seeing you in the class projects section. Goodbye.