PITCHING TO AN AGENT – THE PITCH LETTER PART 2
I need to tell you up front that this discussion pertains to pitching fiction and not non-fiction. When it comes to queries, they are two different animals. I’ve never pitched non-fiction and don’t have a clue how to do it, so if that’s what you’re after, sorry! They are called proposals, by the way.
Now that you’ve heard the inevitable (you’re going to have to do one), how are you going to go about it? The easy answer is to tell you to go to the bookstore or the wyberry (library, sorry, I like to play with words) and stock up with literally (if that isn’t a metaphor) hundreds of books on writing query letters. Or, I could condense it all down for you and let you know what has worked for me and what hasn’t. Keep in mind that you can come up with a generic letter, but trust me, you’ll have to modify it for each agent. Not only it is good to personalize each one, but many agents have their own ideas of what a query letter should contain. A generic query letter smacks of impersonalization. That, my friends, is a big red flag with a trash can bulls-eye right in the middle of it!
The most successful query/pitch letters contain three things: The slug line (or pitch), what the story is about, and a bit about yourself (what makes you qualified to write the story). Of course, you don’t write just those things exactly. Remember, this is a letter to a person, not a machine. The key is that the letter should be brief, to the point and only contain relevant information. On top of that, it must be grammatically correct, contain no typos and something you might not always hear from others, it cannot contain any negatives or sarcasm.
Whatever you do, do not put yourself or others down! Do not use sarcasm! I must step back and say that if the sarcasm is part of the plot or storyline, that’s something else. If it’s about you or other authors, do not use it!
Another thing never to do, well, something that is extremely risky and 99% of the time doesn’t work, is to write the query letter in character. Yes, I’m talking about your main character being a hard-bitten detective with a few screws loose upstairs. He or she writes the letter. It’s written on an old typewriter with a cigarette burn in one corner and coffee stains in another. The letter is folded wrong and you sign it with your character’s sloppy signature, typing your real name and address on the envelope. Cutesy-poo to-the-max, but most agents and publishers have been there and done that and can’t hit the trash can with it fast enough. Some may even respond with a nasty letter. A romance writer may send it on frilly stationary soaked in perfume.
Play it straight. No gags, no gimmicks to get yourself noticed. I’ve had more agents tell me they get extremely annoyed by these tactics and put these authors on their ***t lists. Keep that in mind.
It’s extremely important the letter have no typos or grammatical errors. When an agent gets hold of it, if they see you can’t even write out a single page without an error, what will a novel or short story look like?
Next time, we break things down even further.
PITCHING TO AN AGENT – THE PITCH LETTER PART 1
Probably one of the hardest things an author has to write is the pitch letter. Yeah, I’ve probably said the hardest thing to write is the synopsis, or maybe the book blurb, but when you get right down to it, none of that matters if you can’t sell the book in the first place.
I’m reminded of the teen who doesn’t want to finish high school and comes up with the excuse, “Well Axl Rose of Guns N Roses never graduated, and look at him. He’s a big rock star millionaire.” Well, there’s ambition and dumb luck. He could just as easily have failed and never would have had anything to back himself up with. Mr. William Rose Jr. (his real name) might be the guy cleaning your pool while you’re making the big bucks because you went on to get a degree. Why I bring this up is that some authors think their story is so hot they won’t need to sell it, that agents will be knocking their door down to buy it from them. A pitch letter, or trying to pitch their story just isn’t on their radar. They can skip the hard work because their story is so hot, luck (agents and publishers) will seek them out.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen often in the real world. The funny thing is that I actually did see it happen once at the very first writer’s conference I attended in 2005. There was this teenage kid pitching a story he hadn’t even completed. He didn’t have a proper query letter or even any writing samples, as I recall. Yet when he pitched his idea to one of the young adult agents, she signed him on the spot! To this day, I don’t have any idea if anything ever came of that kid or his books (if he ever completed one), but it was one of those magic Axl Rose type moments where lightning strikes and I was there to witness it.
Do you think it will happen to you? Fat chance! You, my friend, are going to have to work for it like the rest of us, if the numbers bear out. So, suck it up and start listening (or reading, if you want to get technical).
The pitch letter or as it is more widely known, the query letter, is your way of getting the attention of an agent or publisher. It’s a way of tapping them on the shoulder and saying “Hey, I’ve got something to show you.”
Agents and publishers get literally hundreds if not thousands of these letters per day/week/month. They’re always looking for the next best thing, something they can sell and make a ton of money off of. At the same time, they have to slog through all this crap. To get their attention, you need to be brief, to the point, no bull. Or as Jack Webb used to say in Dragnet, “Just the facts, Ma’am.”
In past posts, I’ve alluded to staying on track, keeping your story to the point and being concise. It’s critical you do that in a query letter. You’ve got just a few quick lines to blow their socks off, to pique their interest, to leave them wanting for more. By the time that agent or publisher reaches the end of that letter, they should know the story is a good fit for their agency, they should see that you have the chops to pull it off, and they should be intrigued by the premise, or pitch line. If you can pull all three of those things off, I can almost guarantee they’ll be asking for more.
Next time I’ll discuss the structure of the pitch/query letter and some of the various forms.
SELF PUBLISHING – A CAUTIONARY TALE
I recently heard about a guy who wanted to publish his books, but didn’t want to let a publisher get a piece of the pie. He brought up some good points about how when authors go through most publishers, their (the author’s) cut of the take shrinks substantially, especially if they don’t sign a decent contract, or have a good agent. Even if they do, unless said author is a big name, they are only going to make pennies on the dollar on their book, where the publisher is going to make a killing, when and if the book ever sells. There are many financial reasons one might want to take the self-publishing route. A biggie is if one possesses the entrepreneurial spirit, or one wants to be in complete control of their own destiny.
Now, how many times have I mentioned the old garage full of books? In this case, we have a relatively successful self-published author who has managed to sell quite a few of his books through his own marketing skills. He’s pretty much emptied his garage. He and his writing partner have an intimate subject knowledge about something with a wide appeal. They are in an excellent position to exploit that knowledge and turn it into a popular franchise.
My cautionary tale comes in with his ready admission that he isn’t the best writer in the world. He never mentioned whether his partner is. Apparently his editor or editors aren’t either. I’ve never read any of their books. However, out of curiosity, I looked up the series on Amazon.
When I run across something like this, I usually dismiss the five and four star reviews right at first for the simple reason that they could be family, friends, or just plain fans that are easy to please. I go for the one and two star reviews. On that end, I automatically dismiss any reviews that are Kindle related such as the price is too high, or the book didn’t download properly or such. I go to the reviews about the actual story. I want to see why people hated the book to look for consistent patterns.
What jumped out at me from completely different people, over four of the five books I looked at were the same things each time. They mention lousy editing including bad grammar, misspellings, pacing, timeline shifting, mixing points of view. Almost to a reviewer, the exact same words!
Second, and this was almost the exact wording, was way too much detail about stuff that didn’t matter. The authors went into details that sidetracked the story. It seemed they were trying too hard to impress the reader with their knowledge of the subject.
Third. Two of the novels in particular had major side stories that had nothing to with the main plot. These side stories did nothing to move the plot along.
Finally, and I’m paraphrasing here, they all said each book could have been about 200 pages shorter without missing anything. A few of the readers actually took their books back.
Mind you, there were mostly four and five star reviews, but if it were me and I had that coming consistently from book to book, I wouldn’t be blowing it off as just some disgruntled readers. No conventional publisher would ever let an author get away with that!
My point is that you can go out and sell your book to anyone once. However, if you want them to sell themselves, they need to be the best they can be. If you attend a writer’s group and consistently get the same feedback that you don’t like, maybe they are trying to tell you something! Maybe you’d better step back and listen!
If you’re going to self publish, I’m not saying you need to go out and spend hundreds or thousands on a good editor. That is an option, but there are other ways too. What I’m saying is you need to go over that MS with a fine-toothed comb, over and over again, get beta readers, wheel and deal if you must to get it edited, whatever it takes. Most importantly, learn your craft!
Finally, if you are ever going to self-publish, make sure you don’t ignore the details, no matter how good you are at selling your books. One day it will come back to bite you!
QUICK BRAG
My short story Galf was picked up by the Writer’s Bloc IV anthology put out every two years by the Henderson Writer’s group. I feel honored to be among a group of outstanding writers including Lisa McGlaun, Grace Andrews, Gary Buzick, A.L Campbell (Audrey Balzart), Vital Germaine, Sid Goodman, Kathie Harrington, Leslie Hoffman, Ray Katz, Patricia Kranish, Judy Logan, Michael Malony, Maudie Robinson, Amanda Skenadore, Darrah Whitaker, Jo Wilkins, Jay Yarbrough and Brian Yates.
Galf is the story of my dad and his #1 passion in life, golf. How the story got the title “Galf” is explained within, so I guess you’ll all just have to buy the book to find out! It should be out by April, just in time for the Las Vegas Writer’s Conference. Hey, didn’t I just write a couple of articles about….
THE WRITER’S CONFERENCE – PART 2
Throughout the country, there are many writer’s conferences. They vary in length from hours to several days. Some cost as little as free up to thousands of dollars. The little ones will have no featured guests while others have a vast array of high-powered big Kahunas to whet the appetite of any budding writer. Which ones are the best?
I can only speak from my personal experience and anecdotal evidence. With that in mind, my biases are up front. Outside of that personal experience, what I’ve learned for comparison from talking to other people has opened my eyes. I am of the firm belief that what we have here in Las Vegas is one of the best writer’s conferences in the nation.
I won’t list all the examples I’ve heard over the years, but I’ll name a few pointed ones that really stood out to me. One of our members, at great expense, flew out to New York to attend a writer’s conference. It was one of the biggies with lots of high-powered agents, publishers and writers. The cost of the conference let him know it too. To add insult to injury, on top of that, if he wanted to get his five minutes with an agent, he had to pay more money on top of that! Going with the flow, our budding writer paid the big bucks for the main event which was a few classes he could just as easily get here in Las Vegas at our conference. He then wanted to rub elbows with the big boys, which he did at the dinners and breaks between sessions. Finally, he wanted to pitch to an agent. He paid his extra money, I forget how much, to pitch to this one agent (by this time he couldn’t afford to pitch to any more), went into this hallway with several hundred other people waiting to pitch to their agents, and waited for hours to get into see him or her. When he finally did, the agent was tired, pissed off, bored and ready to go home. He gave his pitch, was told no thanks, and that was it. He’d blown his wad and didn’t have the inclination to try that mess again, besides the fact that all the other agents were fully booked. I think he spent over $1500 total for the trip and came away with little more than an empty wallet and bragging rights.
On the other hand, I’ve heard directly from some pretty high-powered agents that we’ve had at our conferences that ours is one of the better organized and better prepared in the nation. Since I work on the staff each year as a volunteer, I get to listen to this stuff on a regular basis. To hear these comments from literary people every year says something. If it were just once in a while, I could say it was just the agent blowing smoke where the sun don’t shine. When I hear it year after year from many different agents, well… maybe, just maybe there’s something to it.
Enough of that.
I’ve always found the conferences well worth it because even though I’ve ultimately been turned down 90% of the time, I got more action from talking to an agent face-to-face than I ever did through the mail. That is just a plain fact. Remember in the last article where I mentioned 659 rejections? At these conferences I’ve only pitched to maybe 25 agents total. I got positive responses out of 15 of them. Of the 644 agents I sent letters to, I only got positive responses out of 25 agents in 17 years. Some of them with the exact same pitch letters!
All I’m saying is it’s worth a shot at least once, if not to get an agent or a publisher, just for the experience alone. If you have to make payments or what have you, it’s a chance to really get to know this calling we call writing.
I’m done.
THE WRITERS CONFERENCE – PART 1
I can only speak for my experiences with one named writer’s conference. With that in mind, I’ve attended every Las Vegas Writer’s Conference without fail since 2005.
When I first joined the Henderson Writer’s Group, I heard about the conference they sponsored, which was still in its fledgling stages. I think their first one was the year I joined, 2004, but it was held just before I joined the group. I’d heard about writer’s conferences before, but what I heard was that they were super expensive and everyone that attended got a book deal. Little did I know. The group straightened me out on that real quick!
What I’ve learned since has convinced me that not only am I extremely lucky to be part of the Henderson Writer’s Group, but I also feel privileged to be associated with such a fine writer’s conference. The truth of a writer’s conference is that it can be a lot of fun, a great learning experience, and can be a huge payoff. It’s entirely up to you.
A writer’s conference is a forum for budding writers to meet up with other writers in a format where one is able to rub elbows with their peers, talk shop, and pitch their work face-to-face with potential agents and publishers. During these conferences, there are classes, or sessions where presentations are conducted on different aspects on writing, publishing, marketing, editing, pitching your book, whatever. Some of these sessions are conducted by well-known authors, some by the very agents or publishers you want to pitch to, some by local members of the writers group.
The classes can be invaluable. Here you get a chance for direct experience and training from people who know what they’re talking about. They’ve been there, done that. They have years backing them up and can save you lots of grief and teach you tricks of the trade. This is stuff you will never learn from a book, and of course, some stuff they encourage you to learn from the book they may very well be pitching at the back of the room! Whatever the case, these sessions alone are worth the price of admission.
When it comes to pitching your work, it’s a lot better to present it face-to-face with an agent rather than through the mail. Trust me on this! Though it is much like a job interview, it is also a much better way to gauge whether you two could ultimately work together. It becomes obvious real fast if the agent is a cool person or a total jerk. Also, what they say on their web site (or in those books or magazines) can be totally different from what they say in person (as I’ve found out several times). Their word picture can sometimes convey an entirely different meaning than what they tell you face to face. Trust me on this!
Consider that I sent out 659 letters or e-mails that all came back as rejections, most of them with generic rejection letters. When I talked to these agents face-to-face, I at least got more personal rejections with feedback letters explaining what was wrong or what I needed to do to make my work better. That is what the personal touch does.
Every day is filled with classes, pitch sessions, and meals. During and between them all you get to rub elbows with fellow writers, agents, publishers, publicists, marketers, screenwriters, editors and just about anyone else that has to do with our craft. There is no better way to network, learn and spread your wings.
Attending a conference is a commitment. It’s not cheap. This year it is $450. That’s not exactly pocket change. However, there is no better way to get into the game. This is my seventh time attending. It used to be cheaper and I’ve managed to attend once for free when I won a raffle. I’ve pitched to countless agents and have always succeeded in gaining interest. They mostly ended in rejections, but I finally succeeded in gaining a publisher. It took a while but it was worth it.
If you ever get a chance, even if it’s only one time, you should attend a writer’s conference. Next time, I’ll go into why the Las Vegas Writer’s Conference is one of the better ones in the country. Happy writing.
WHO IS MELEENA?
It’s still only February, but later this summer, my publisher should start working on my first-to-be-published fantasy novel, Meleena’s Adventures – Treasure Of The Umbrunna. In this piece, I’d like to introduce the main character, Meleena.
This first installment in my sword and sorcery fantasy series is told entirely in her point of view (with the exception of one small spot at the very end). It takes place on the continent of Gallin and starts in the town of Bug Flat.
To put it bluntly, Meleena is a brat. At twenty-three years old, she lives by her quick wits, and quicker fingers, and starts the story with no moral compass. She’s bedded more men than she can count and has an aversion to becoming attached to any of them. They’re simply tools to satisfy a need. She’s the type of person that will drop a hornet’s nest in a crowd, run for cover and watch the mayhem from afar. It’s not unusual for her to start a fight between two or more people (or creatures) then step back and watch the fun.
Her earliest memories consist of wandering the streets where she eventually ended up at the home of her aunt Leena. Leena took her in and gave her the name Meleena, “my Leena”. She has no idea if Leena is actually a blood relation. Early on, Leena realized the young girl had unusual abilities. With her brown eyes centered with silver pupils, she seemed to be able to read people’s minds. What Meleena could really do was speak any language, even if she wasn’t old enough to understand the context of the words. That “mind reading” stare Leena noticed was Meleena translating different languages in her head. Her only limitation was her vocal cords. Once Leena figured it out, she realized her young niece was very special, and in an extremely dangerous position. One of the few things Meleena listened to was Leena’s warnings about keeping her abilities with languages to herself, especially after she discovered she could also read and write any language, with no schooling.
When Meleena was ten, Leena tried to get her interested in school. By then, Meleena had read hundreds of books on her own, some from curiosity, but often as not, for some kind of angle for a con she was playing. She couldn’t help but learn things along the way. As a result, she found what the teachers were teaching simple and boring. Meleena had a lot more fun causing trouble. The one school session she sort-of attended, she almost instigated a war between Bug Flat and a local tribe of Snorgs, a race of half-pig half-gorillas. Leena became fed up and called in a woman to try and turn Meleena into a regular lady. When Meleena overheard the conversation, she was horrified. She packed her meager belongings and hit the streets (see my short story Don’t Mess With A Snorg on the Fantasy page).
Two years later, she was captured, raped and imprisoned. That unpleasant experience never jaded her toward men, but taught her how to kill when she finally escaped and found her rapist.
Eventually, she found the Pig Splat, a former Esveen chapel (the local religion), converted into a bar. The owner, Chit Chit, a half human, half insect with four eyes, mandibles, green skin, thin wings, a human face, hands and feet. He became like a brother and best friend. The Pig Splat became her base of operations. Chit Chit was always there for her, no matter what.
The story starts with Meleena coasting right along, partying and causing mayhem until she hears about this extremely valuable pearl that could bring her fame and fortune. When she decides to go after it, being a loner isn’t going to work. Reluctantly she has to accept the help of others. Along the way, she’s going to have to make a moral decision that will change the course of her life. Will she do the right thing? Will she change her ways? Meleena’s Adventures – Treasure Of The Umbrunna takes you on a wild adventure to find out.
Well, gang. There you have it. Later on I’ll give out more about Meleena’s world and some of the other characters and creatures in it.
LITTLE STUFF
As an editor, it could drive me nuts when I see so many common errors in other people’s work. Typos, misspellings and such. Yet, I make the same mistakes even though I know better. English is such a complex language, it’s almost impossible to write perfectly first time, every time, without being completely obsessive compulsive, or so focused, you can’t do anything else.
I’ve also made the point before that I am much better at editing other people’s work because it simply isn’t mine. I’m looking at it as an outsider, not too close to it. Sure, I’m much better at editing my own work than I used to be. I’m also much better at getting it right the first time it hits the “paper,” so to speak. That doesn’t mean it still isn’t full of mistakes. This essay will probably, most likely, be full of grammatical mistakes that would send an English professor into a stroke. Then again, the chances of a real English professor ever reading this blog (or a highly paid professional editor from some major publishing house) are practically nil, especially with the number of hits I get!
The point is that as bad as I am, I’ve still picked up plenty I can pass on to you, the new (or struggling) writer. I’ve learned enough chops that even though I can’t always see it in my own writing, I can sure as hell see it in someone else’s!
I bring this up because of a wonderful book I’m reading right now. He edited his own self-published memoir. Yes, he has some typos and it could use a bit of editing for structure, but there is no doubt the man has some legitimate chops and if I were editing his book, it would not be buried in red ink (except towards is British). In fact, he has so few actual grammatical errors that many of the typos are typesetting errors. There is some little stuff, but considering the conditions under which he wrote it and the effort he put into it, he did an amazing job. The little stuff I’ve found is not bad considering he never had it professionally edited.
Now jump back a lot of years to a book self-published by another guy that just wouldn’t listen. This guy read some of his stuff to another writers’ group. Throwing aside the structural problems with the story, which were monumental, this guy’s manuscript was full of typos and wrong usages of words. Little stuff. Again, towards was the British spelling of toward, for example. The American way of saying it is without the “s”, like upward instead of upwards, etc. Passive phrases, misplaced modifiers, shifting POVs, you name it. This guy wouldn’t listen. He not only wouldn’t fix the little stuff, he wouldn’t fix the big stuff. I know this because he published the book anyway almost unedited. I guess, he didn’t think we knew what we were talking about. I don’t know why he bothered coming to the meetings. Because we weren’t published writers then, we didn’t know what we were talking about. Sure, I was a lot less experienced back then, as well as the others trying to give him advice, but we still knew a few things! I can imagine the garage full of books he had.
I’ve heard people say they don’t care about the little stuff right now. They want to know about the big picture. I understand that. However, someday, they are going to have to buckle down and bother with the little stuff because if they don’t, someone is going to notice, especially if they self publish!
Don’t keep putting it off for the final edit you might not get. Don’t let the little stuff pile up on you. It could eventually bite you!
THE FIRST PAGE
I see over and over again in writer’s guides that the first page of your book is critical, as in the most important page. The first page is emphasized so much that there are actually first page contests and first page readings such as the one we sponsor at our annual writer’s conference here in Las Vegas. Just about every writer I’ve ever heard about that doles out advice has a page on how important the first page will be to your story. After that? Of course, then there is the second page then the third page and so on. Truth be told, there should be no bad pages within your book.
I have to slap you all with a bit of a reality check now. What does this all really mean? When I hear that sort of talk, it gives me the idea that writing a book with such ideals is physically impossible. There is nobody on this planet that can maintain that kind of momentum for 250 to 1,000 pages without having a few pages that, taken by themselves, aren’t wowee-zowee knock-your-eyes-out pages. Come on now! Let’s get real!
Maybe I’m completely wrong, but if I force myself to write something that I think others will be blown away with, but to me it sucks, I’m just whoring myself out and not following my muse. Maybe that’s the only real way to make money, but I feel my writing could come off sounding phony.
I have to revert back to what keeps my interest, how I judge a book. I almost never judge a book by the first page. Well, I’ll take that back. I do judge the first page only by which POV the author uses. If it’s first person fiction, I toss it. If it’s present tense, I toss it. If the first page is one long paragraph, I toss it. Those are my criteria. As for whether the story grabs me right away? Not at all.
A lot of the books I read start slow on the first page. The first scene might be a bang, but things usually don’t kick in until the second or maybe third page. I’m fine with that. I think a story should start by grabbing the reader with something that draws them into the story right away but it doesn’t necessarily have to be on the first page. Once I’ve determined the tenses and the basic writing style, the genre and the synopsis have usually sold me on the book anyway, if not the author. I am more than willing to give the book a few pages before I begin to wonder if I made a mistake.
Despite the supposed need for stories to start with a bang, as 99% of them do, some of the best and most enjoyable books I’ve read started rather quiet. They built up over time. The opening scene was interesting, characters were introduced, some aspects of the plot were brought to bear, but there was nothing slam-bang. I had to wonder how those books ever got published like that, yet they did and in the end, the stories were pretty good.
This is not a big argument for ignoring the advice to make your first page dull! I’m just saying don’t let all this talk intimidate you. The best advice, of course, is to start your story with a bang and make your first page count. Write your best, edit and make it better, and let it flow. If what comes out is subtle, don’t freak out. Go with it and see what happens. Don’t obsess over the first page being the whole book. It’s just the first page! Listen to your peers and keep working at it. You may surprise yourself.
IS YOUR PLACE SETTING REAL? SITES/LOCATIONS
It’s one thing to write about a city or a country. You can be vague or specific, depending on how much detail you want to dazzle your readers with. Nobody can sue you for that. However, when you start delving into specific sites or locations, step carefully. The big reason I bring this up is two words: Private property!
The one glaring example that has affected me personally is in my upcoming novel (someday), Palmdale Gold. The story revolves around a sag pond that sits in the rift zone of the San Andreas fault. Because this pond has never dried up and is deeper than it should be for its size, it has been called bottomless. Over the decades, many legends and fantastic stories have emerged about this bottomless lake. Along with it is a wealth of science and reality. I couldn’t help but be intrigued with it. Since I grew up in Palmdale, these stories and my personal fear of the lake when I was a little kid were fertile ground for what was to become the third novel in my Gold series.
Things hummed right along as I wrote my novel until it came time to add in the reality. All of my big dreams along with my super-fantastic story came to a screeching halt when I discovered the lake was privately owned. The hours-upon-hours of reconnaissance and interviews (not to mention all that writing) could have been for nothing, but I wasn’t going to give up such a great story idea that easy.
During my research, I became friends with the caretaker of the lake and he put me in contact with the owner. I called him and we talked about my novel. I asked if I could use it in the story. Unfortunately, he was not comfortable with it as he did not want the lake publicized. I can understand that. It’s a good thing I asked. If I had used the real lake without checking the facts, I could have opened myself up for lawsuits and a lot of grief. Did that stop me from finishing Palmdale Gold? NOT! I changed the name and location of the lake to a piece of public land where I couldn’t be sued. Simple. Unless the reader actually lives in Palmdale, they would never know the difference. Palmdale residents will have to suffice with a disclaimer at the beginning of the book. My real hope is that the lake will be bought by a conservancy organization and made public land. If that happens, I can relocate and rename the lake the way it should be.
On a more minor note, in my first adventure/thriller novel, Lusitania Gold, Detach (the hero of the Gold series) and his crew dive on the wreck of the luxury liner Lusitania, sunk off the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland on May 7, 1915. The problem with this one is not that the liner itself is privately owned, but the salvage rights to it are. An American named Greg Beemis from Colorado owns the salvage rights. Because of how the plot goes, though Detach and the crew are going to attempt to steal something from the ship, they never remove anything from the wreck located at that spot. As far as permissions in the story line, I keep that all vague.
If you are going to use a real place setting, check first! If it’s a hotel, it is, of course, privately owned. You must go through their legal department. The simple fix is to make up a hotel name and make the address vague. If you are going to use a real park within a town, make sure the park is public. If you are going to use a specific house or museum in a town or city, make sure it is a public house or museum. That’s where research is critical. Don’t leave yourself open to legal problems.
Not that I wanted to add another worry to your plate but…
Happy writing!
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 