(no subject)

[ljgeoff]

I got my first agent rejection letter today -- a very nice one from Nelson and Megibow that tells me to keep trying. I need to write a synopsis to submit to The Gislason Agency. I also queried Russell Galen and Maass Agency.

I have no idea how long this process will take; I'm getting the feeling that I'll have to query hundreds of agents. (are there hundreds of reputable agents?) Anyone with any suggestions, feel free!

And, question: If I'm querying one agent at an agency, does that cover the rest of the agents, or should I query them all separately?

Comments

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

I'd always imagined that you would try to pitch the book first, before shopping for an agent... but then, I don't know about such things. I'll have to ask terebi_me about it.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

The pitch is the query. Getting an agent isn't essencial, but once an authour has an agent, half the work toward getting published is done.

But I've been thinking of just bypassing the whole process and going straight to pod cast. Embrace abundance, eh?

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Actually, one submits the manuscript, and if one gets an offer from a publisher, then one gets an agent. Getting an agent when one has an offer in hand is the best way to do it, I am told, by many people who have done so.

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

On the SFWA (http://www.sfwa.org) site, Victoria Strauss (http://www.sff.net/people/victoriastrauss/biography.html) has an opinion piece: Many large publishers' imprints are now entirely closed to unagented work. The dwindling number of imprints that do accept unagented submissions give them minimal priority--it can take a year or even more to get any sort of response, and the person who looks at your submission will probably not be an acquisitions editor, but an intern or an assistant.

But, Teresa Nielsen Hayden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_Nielsen_Hayden) writes, via Neil Gaiman's blog (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2005/01/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.asp): If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get.

So, hmmm...

I'm not someone who knows people in the industry (though, as dear anansi133 has drawn to my attention, connections are the thing.) Also, I have a very difficult time being objective with the piece -- there are parts that, when I read them, I think "this is kinda crappy" and there's other parts that make me wonder who I was channeling. Overall, I've been rather surprised when people say that they like it.

Finally, I'm very willful and not very patient. Being my own boss through indie press has great appeal.

I still don't know what the end of this story is.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

I'd go with Teresa and Neil on that. Teresa's an editor.

Though, as you say, being your own boss might be a good fit for you. The question is, in part, whether besides being a writer, you also want to be a marketing department, promotor, distributor, and so forth.

(Me, I haven't got the patience for all of that, not to mention the time. That's why my manuscript is going to a regular, standard, big ol' publisher. Well, to an editor at such a publisher; I scoped out an editor a while back, and they allowed as how they'd like to see what I had when I got done with it.)

The "getting done with it" part is what I need to do now. (You are made of awesome, on that score, for you have finished yours and it is a good story.)

[terebi-me.livejournal.com]

me with the late reply -

which is - I know nothing. I don't have an agent. I had one, but he ran away. (it was really rude of him, and has made me super gunshy about the whole scene - I don't know if I did something wrong, because I've never heard from him again)

I am trying to dredge up interest in another book, which I haven't written yet. There is interest; now I just have to write it. Once it's written I may or may not try to get an agent for it, but I don't know if it'd be necessary in that case - on the other hand, I have this sinking feeling that I'm being screwed, and I will continue to be screwed if I don't get somebody on my side, and pay them, to make sure that I don't get screwed.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

If you're writing fiction, and you have yet to sell something, then I'd strongly recommend Teresa's advice above: "If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get."

How do you get an offer? By submitting the manuscript to a publisher. It helps to do some research first: find a publisher that tends to publish what you like and the sort of thing you have written; if there's a book you like a lot and it's got similar coolness to what you've been working on, and the publisher lists the editor on the book, you might want to try inquiring there, though I bet Teresa and Neil have more coherent and useful advice on that. (Seriously, follow the link to Neil's blog. Then also google for Teresa Nielsen Hayden and advice to writers and suchlike. If Teresa says it, it's true; she's been in the biz a long time, and has done good work making sure people don't get screwed over by scam artist agents and publishers. (Jim Macdonald has also done a lot of work on that. He's the one who came up with Yog's Law, which is a test for determining whether a publisher is real or a vanity press: "Money should flow toward the writer." Google that and you'll find out a lot of other useful things.)

Best way to get an offer:

1. Write a good book.
2. Submit it to a reputable publisher. If they turn it down, submit it to another reputable publisher. Keep going until somebody buys it.

Seriously. A friend of mine, Patricia C. Wrede, says she sold her first novel because when it was rejected, she didn't realize she was supposed to be all bummed out and angsty, so she just typed up the next cover letter, stuck the manuscript in a new envelope, addressed it to the next publisher on her list, and kept doing that until it sold. This worked pretty well for her. (That would be rabid understatement, there. ;-) ) All the faffing about people do, worrying about "oh, I must get an agent first! oh, I must strategize! oh, I must do this or that or the other thing, in order to find the secret way through the door,".. well, from what editors tell me, and I know a bunch of them with several hundred years of cumulative joint experience, the true secret way to get published is to write a good book and then submit it until you find an editor who has two important things: a need for that type of book, and the budget to buy it. (Remember, rejection isn't necessarily about how good a book it is, either. It might be a wonderful book, but the editor's company might be all bought up on dark vampire unicorn robot mystery-romances until 2020, and instead be desperate for a quirky humorous werewolf cookbook instead.)

The other thing every successful writer has told me? Once you submit something, DO NOT WAIT TO HEAR BACK. Start your next book IMMEDIATELY. It will give you something to do during the months that the submission process takes. (And no, if you're in the fiction field, at least in the science fiction and fantasy field - and probably some others, DO NOT try doing simultaneous submissions to save time. Editors know each other, and they do talk, and if you do submit simultaneously and get accepted at both places, you might destroy your career before it begins, because that is a Very Big No-No. Seriously. Don't.)

There, enough lecture. It's just that I've heard it myself enough times that now I pass it along in a rather Pavlovian reaction whenever I hear somebody being all scared and thinking they need an agent in order to submit something. It's not true. Go bravely forward. Really.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

And to come full circle with this, I think Lisa has written a really good book, and I hope she submits it. (Though she has some good reasons for preferring her other route, too. Personal taste and all. Whatever she chooses, I want to see that book out there so I can buy one, and I see no reason not to submit it to major publishers. Heck, if you lived closer, Lisa, I'd go find out if the writing group I used to be in is interested in having another member... and it had Pat Wrede and Peg Kerr and Lois McMaster Bujold in it, and I think your manuscript would hold up just fine in critique sessions there. Not saying they/we wouldn't give you things to look at and consider tweaking, but if I had written that, I'd be very comfortable taking it in to that group. There. Fulsome praise, and I mean every word of it.)

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

Um, I think I'd drive to be a member of that group.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Have you read the links in Teresa's excerpt in Neil's blog? They really cover the whole thing, plus much of the publishing industry, plus all sorts of Seekrit Knowledge, in excellent and useful detail. Really. Best info there is.