Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
SBD: Notice me! *updated*
For Smart Bitches Day, if Kate gets to rant about sloppy publishers and Lyvvie gets to crit I, Lucifer, I say it’s fair game for me to kvetch about my damned romance.
Why won’t anyone notice me? I sent out seven query packages and got seven rejections. Not one request for more material, not one personalized note — form letters, all of them. Then I sent off four queries electronically, to agents who prefer to deal with writers that way, and I haven’t heard back from anyone yet.
Admittedly, eleven queries is bupkes in this biz. Y’all send out dozens, I imagine, but between working a day job, cooking great meals for my family, and sitting on my ass reading people’s blogs, who has time to prepare dozens of queries? Because they all ask for something different. It’s almost a point of honor with these agents.
Rampant in the self-help-for-wannabe-authors literature is the notion that quality sells. If you write well enough, you WILL be noticed, you WILL be published. Hah! If it were that easy, I would have received at least one personalized comment — “Not right for us, but I like your style. Keep trying.” Is that so much to ask? As much as I might bitch about the short story market (and I could bitch a lot), I received several notes of encouragement. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
This is not an ego issue. Surgical internship toughens the ego into this leathery thing you wouldn’t let your dog chew — you try working 80 hours a week on a steady diet of “Doogie” this and “Doogie” that, “Touch that one more time and I’ll rip off your head and shit down your neck,” or “What were you thinking? We don’t pay you to think.” I survived internship at the biggest county hospital in the nation. I don’t need an agent’s (editor’s, publisher’s) recognition to make me whole.
It’s more a problem-solving issue with me. I’ve set myself a task and I’m unhappy with the murky, chance-riddled path to success. Nothing left to do but send out more queries, right? Because, short of becoming a stalker, there’s no other way to be noticed, is there?
*checking computer clock* Well, that successfully spent another thirty minutes of free time. The laundry’s done, the kitchen’s clean, my wife and son are well fed. Nothing left to do but (don’tclickonDailyKos don’tclickonDailyKos don’tclickonDailyKos) get to work on those queries.
Oh. Don’t forget Kate’s contest and my contest.
D.
Update
Now I’m looking at the publishing houses. First up, Avalon Books.
Our books are wholesome adult fiction, suitable for family reading. There is no graphic or premarital sex or sexual tension in any of our novels; kisses and embraces are as far as our characters go.
Hmm. I take it rimming is a deal-breaker?
Snort. Avalon and Doug = a match not made on this planet or any other.
Hugs to you. It sucks and I’m sorry they’re idjits. Chocolate and whining helps a bit.
So you only want a big name NYC? That’s the only thing that’ll make you happy?
Couldn’t you inch your way there via Ellora’s Cave or Samhain? Yes, the money in the big NYC places is better for a beginner but it’s more fun dealing with the smaller publishers when you’re a lil fish. You get more input. You get a say on your cover.
Done and done. After all, having a say in the cover art is very important to me.
Whaa???
Having enjoyed the query process, I just need to tell you that you are being a bit unreasonable. I’m sorry, truly I am, but in this business, when a good agent gets HUNDREDS of queries a week, when they also have their working authors with contracts, manuscripts, royalty and publicity problems (let alone a multitude of assorted other issues) when the agents, too, have a life… if you’re not exactly what:
They have a slot for
They know an editor has a slot for
or OMG I have to represent THIS
You’re gonna get a rejection letter.
You’re also going to get a rejection letter if they’re:
Having a bad day
Backlogged
About to leave on vacation
Just got back from vacation
Are getting flack from their boss to clear off their desk
Sick of looking at queries this week
Have no slots
Have too many of this type of story now that they can’t sell
Then there’s the:
Typos
Wrong person to represent that genre/length/content/style
Blah opening
Blah query
Wrong materials
And so on.
Let’s say an agent has 29 authors and they can effectively manage 30. That means they have one slot open. One. Maybe. If they want to press the limit of their workload. And they’re getting, say, 150 queries in a given 5-day work week, that’s 30 queries a DAY (and that’s a low number) Of their 29 working authors, let’s say HALF are in the midst of some sort of agent-required crisis. Fourteen authors, all who bring in money, all who need time. Let’s give each of those authors thirty minutes. That’s seven hours of paying work a day. That leaves one hour to go through thirty queries, TWO MINUTES each. Two. If the agent never goes to get coffee, never takes a leak, never has spousal/family issues, never has personal appointments like a dentist or whatever.
TWO minutes. And, frankly, that’s being generous. I’ve heard it said that you get ten seconds. Not a WOW! then it’s a no, because there are 29 (or more) other writers begging to be represented. And to typing out thirty personalized rejection letters, well… How long will THAT take, keying in name and address info? Heck even writing ‘great work, just not for me’ takes TIME and time is money.
It’s not about you, it’s about the numbers. And it’s a battle of attrition. Sooner or later, if you’re good, you WILL land on the right person’s desk with the right product at the right time. If your book isn’t all of those three things, it’s going to get a rejection.
I’m sorry, I know it sucks, but if you just relax and be patient the process becomes a lot easier, and really, it’s kind of fun.
Yes, I’ve heard this before. From you 😉 But you forget, this is my writing we’re talking about, and I’m special. Even my patient progress notes reek of je ne sais quoi.
By the way, when does this ‘fun’ start?
I do things the new-fangled way:
1) Post stuff on my blog.
2) Note the appalling lack of readers.
3) Count the number of viewers who read but did not comment as rejections.
4) Save a bundle in postage and the end results are the same. 😉
Of course, I may be the unreasonable type. I want full control of the material. Full say in cover art and even the font used for the type in the book. Not to mention full control over licensing, casting (future movie deal, you know), soundtrack, etc. Plus good pay plus royalties.
It’s too bad Google AdSense doesn’t work so well for fiction.
This ‘je ne sais quoi’ – I do not know what it is…
(Yes, sorry; old joke…)
Well, Tam said it. I haven’t done any novel querying, but I know from, oh, people like Tam that 11 rejections is such a small number that it might as well be nonexistent.
It’s too early to kvetch on this score. Gather another list of agents and send the puppy out again.
But it’s FUN to kvetch. Yeah, I sent out some more stuff yesterday afternoon. Must say I’m not terribly productive . . . several hours of fussing, and I only managed to send off three subs.
I’ll take the opposite stance – clearly, they have no taste!
That being said, at the conference I attended recently, Caridad Ferrar and Alesia Holliday spoke, and they recommended starting with finding an agent. Two places they recommended looking are agentquery.com and Jeff Hermann’s Guide to Agents etc.
Mind you, I have to finish a book before I consider this advise…
Yup, I’ve been using AgentQuery (at Jackie Kessler’s recommendation, no less 😉 ) but I have to see if I can fix my cookies problem.
But I’m with you. How can they resist my scintillating prose!