Book Agents: A perspective
My post on rejection letters got a lot of good discussion going. I'm interested where this will go.
I've emailed about 40 query letters now, and had a few responses. For the most part, though, it's all too similar to the process I went through with the literary mags. There's a lot of "This isn't quite right for us" that I take on the chin. I don't mind. I really don't. John Kennedy Toole got shot down by everyone before some tiny press picked up A Confederacy of Dunces and he won a pulitzer... posthumously. Toole took his life before the book even made it to print. The moral of the story here is not to take the rejection letters from Simon and Schuster personally.
Anyway, I finally got a positive response from an agent last week. We emailed back and forth a bit, I sent more samples, and then eventually the whole manuscript. The final verdict is that they love the writing (and used that word specifically - love), but they want me to do some more revision before they go marching into major publishing houses with it. They're being really supportive of the revision process and they're open to representing me for more books later down the line (not that they've committed to this one). I have to be honest, though: this project is beginning to wear thin on me. Rest assured, I am still the old JM. Taking my lumps like a champ.
Things I have to remind myself of that keep me patient:
1. The longest short story I wrote before this was 7 pages, but this is well over 160 and only getting longer.
2. This is the first time since 2004 that I've even tried writing creative prose in any capacity.
3. Revision has always been four fifths of my writing process. There is no reason this should be any different.
Breathing.
-J
I've emailed about 40 query letters now, and had a few responses. For the most part, though, it's all too similar to the process I went through with the literary mags. There's a lot of "This isn't quite right for us" that I take on the chin. I don't mind. I really don't. John Kennedy Toole got shot down by everyone before some tiny press picked up A Confederacy of Dunces and he won a pulitzer... posthumously. Toole took his life before the book even made it to print. The moral of the story here is not to take the rejection letters from Simon and Schuster personally.
Anyway, I finally got a positive response from an agent last week. We emailed back and forth a bit, I sent more samples, and then eventually the whole manuscript. The final verdict is that they love the writing (and used that word specifically - love), but they want me to do some more revision before they go marching into major publishing houses with it. They're being really supportive of the revision process and they're open to representing me for more books later down the line (not that they've committed to this one). I have to be honest, though: this project is beginning to wear thin on me. Rest assured, I am still the old JM. Taking my lumps like a champ.
Things I have to remind myself of that keep me patient:
1. The longest short story I wrote before this was 7 pages, but this is well over 160 and only getting longer.
2. This is the first time since 2004 that I've even tried writing creative prose in any capacity.
3. Revision has always been four fifths of my writing process. There is no reason this should be any different.
Breathing.
-J