This is how my stomach feels right now.I'm looking for an agent for Snakes. This is no mean feat; there are hundreds out there, and that's hundreds of potential rejections waiting to smack me back into reality. It's taken months to whittle down a list of agencies that I feel would fit what I want, and what I write. I'm lucky because I've got two other novels (and one at 60K words) to help assess how I want to continue my career - I know I feel most comfortable and confident writing women's fiction. Book club fiction. Books that take the reader someplace new, foreign, strange, and make them pause, and think.
Today, I queried one of my top agents, an agency I've been watching for a few years now. My stomach is still churning and I pressed 'send' over four hours ago. I've been like this all week, sending these letters to agencies I'd love to work with. The feeling is much like an early point in a courtship, when you send an unsolicited email and hope the recipient responds favorably. And there's nothing I can do about it but wait. And hope. And send good vibes into the universe that Snakes finds its perfect home, and that I find my perfect agency.
Twist, twist, twist. The photo above is from the Convento de Carmo in Portugal. I took it in 2002. I love the contrast between the smooth lines and rough stone. Between light and dark. Between nervous and content.
2 comments:
Have you looked into eBook self-publishing much? It sounds like your audience is more the paperback type, but, as a wise man once said, you can never have too many sources of revenue. Perhaps there are legal ramifications that would make you less attractive to literary agents if you went that route?
Just curious.
Self-publishing still has the 'vanity press' stigma attached to it. It will be interesting to see how the publishing model changes, as iPads and the like become ubiquitous. Andrew Wylie (agent to many superstar authors) recently started Odyssey Editions to publish the backlist of his authors as e-books; this sort of author/agent -to-reader (bypassing the publishing company) model could shake things up, if it works. That said, one must have a platform first, so we're back at square one: finding an agent.
Post a Comment