Apr
20
Does A Watched Potboiler Boil?
April 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Yesterday, as I tumbled through the rabbit hole of the interweb, I grabbed onto a root dangling from Galleycat. I skimmed some things and then the term “potboiler fiction” caught my eye and I lingered there a while. Potboiler fiction seems to be something no serious author would aspire to create, and yet such fiction is entirely desired, trendy, compelling, and completely successful by its very nature. The Da Vinci Code = potboiler. Apparently agents and editors are actively seeking potboilers in new paranormal sub-genres. Pulpy stuff. Penny dreadfuls. Stuff loaded with zombies and corsets and Jane Austen love quadrangles.
It all sounds so low brow and yet it excites me, and I think that is the point. These books are enticing like a burlesque show at high tea. Particularly the mash-ups of classics such as those wound ’round tales of zombie shenanigans. What’s not to love about monsters run amok at the height of decorum? (Android Karenina [a steampunk Tolstoy] sounds hilarious and I may use it as my entry point to this mash-up universe that I am so fascinated by and disgusted with at the same time.)
So, the Galleycat article I was reading focuses on a literary agent Nicholas Croce. He is looking for exactly this sort of fiction. If you’re an author and your book falls under the potboiler umbrella, I’d say now is your time:
To submit to The Croce Agency:
Email a quick one-sentence “hook,” a one-paragraph synopsis and one sample chapter, all in the body of the message. Brevity is key. Send to submissions@thecroceagency.com.
This week’s bookish links:
There’s a brand spanking new Writerscast interview with the author of True Confections, a novel on the romance of candy. Irresistible. Here.
…Also new on WritersCast: The Publishing Talks channel – thoughts, ideas and concepts currently being discussed in the publishing industry. Ron Hogan is the new Director of E-Marketing Strategy for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in New York City. Here‘s his podcast interview.
Also worth a look – Book excerpts are available for free at Chptr1.com. This week: An excerpt from City of Dragons, a fun book set in San Francisco in 1939.