So You Have a Literary Agent: Now What?
A Literal Literary Loser Gets Back on the Horse
My history with literary agents is, like the Facebook status says… complicated.
I sold my first two books to Avon without one. (This was in the mid-1990s, when you could still do that.) An agent sold my next two romance novels, and my next two non-fiction skating titles. And then she quit the business.
An agent sold my figure skating mystery series and my soap-opera tie-in books. And then she quit the business.
An agent sold my first historical fiction, “The Nesting Dolls,” and then she quit the agency. (More gory details on my literary abandonment issues, here.)
I sold my most recent historical fiction, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” to a micro-publisher on my own.
But I also kept sending out queries to agents for my next project, “Stepmother Russia.”
This past February, I signed with a new literary agent. Now what?
I signed with this agent on the basis of the first one hundred pages of my manuscript, and a detailed chapter by chapter outline. (I’m a plotter, not a pantser, so I always have a detailed, chapter by chapter outline.)
The first thing I needed to do after signing was finish writing the manuscript I’d pitched. This, of course, caused me great angst. Most things cause me great angst. It’s my default state. What if the book I finally submitted didn’t match their expectations? (When I worked at ABC Daytime, I had several producers who liked to play a little game called, “Guess What I’m Thinking.” They’d give me an assignment with absolutely no clear instructions, and then we’d go back and forth as I’d try to read their minds and write them the script they wanted, while they kept sending them back with a cheery, “No, that’s not it. Try again!” It’s fun, and not at all frustrating!)
I finally submitted the completed manuscript in February. In March, the agent came back to me with notes. They were relatively minor, and I went about implementing them. Though my most popular post on here is entitled: “Never Take Advice From Someone Who Isn’t Paying You,” I am always willing to go along with an agent or editor’s suggestions. It’s good to have a fresh pair of eyes on a manuscript you are obviously too close to. Plus, there’s potential of being paid down the line.
I sent it back, revamped. The agent liked it. It’s going out on submission!
Yay!
So now what?
Now, we wait for feedback from editors. This, of course, is causing me great angst.
Back when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young writer, I thought that signing with an agent was the end of the road. Once you have an agent, you will never be rejected again. After all, agents are in the business of making money. They would not agree to represent me, unless they thought my book could make them money. (Scrupulous agents, anyway. The ones who ask you for money upfront are unscrupulous and should be avoided at all costs.)
The only way a scrupulous agent could make money from my book would be to sell it to an editor. Since agents know what editors want to buy, they will be able to sell my book to one.
The end.
Thirty years after I sold my first novel, I know better.
Agents can’t predict the whims of editors any better than editors can predict the whims of readers. I cannot stress this enough: Nobody in publishing knows anything!
We are all operating on hunches, rabbits’ feet, wings, prayers, and a Pollyanna Complex that would make Pollyanna herself snort and tell us we’re living in dreamland.
So why do we do it?
I can’t speak for other people, but I do it because I love writing. It’s a physical addiction for me. Also, I have no other marketable skills.
So while my new agent shops around my new book proposal and I wallow in hello-angst-my-old-friend, I am also working on my next title. Because I am addicted to writing.
For those of you who read Part #1 my serialized soap-opera about the early days of serialized soap-operas at SoapHub, I am deep into writing Part #2. And researching Part #3. Check out what’s available now, and let me know what you think.
In the meantime, if you want to vicariously experience what it’s like to have an agent be sending out your manuscript, we can all wait together! I’ll keep you posted! You can have all the fun. While I continue to have all the angst.