About agents (for Peggy) and all debut writers

Unless you're satisfied with being published by a small press, you must romance literary agents until one falls in love with your ms.

Here are some links on the subject.

http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/3-issue.html

http://wow-womenonwriting.com/15-issue.html

http://campaign.constantcontact.com/render?v=001Q54IKSLlf4HTeYGTq8FwXXfHqNDCYUidad0i-t3O-dCg4w28Wt3-C8lTs4CdUAqzq9sdLNdUKK3nxy2axzEEJY7nGQSKyzpN3ZHZIBxqhiHjbz5bo1WsadvwcW6xcO3xPlt_O4s-R7g%3D

Nope, no idea why the last link looks like a tome. There is LOTS of info at these links. It should keep you busy for days.

And some very good news for debut authors: (must read this) http://www.alanrinzler.com/blog/2009/12/17/publishers-desperately-seeking-insanely-great-debut-novelists/

Literary Agents

I thought the post on the link at the bottom of this page was interesting. Good lit agents work with a writer if the ms is promising, but a bit rough around the edges. It takes a lot of time to review and make suggestions, and even more time if the writer is a stubborn goat. (No offense to goats intended.)

It's maddening to spend the time and tell a writer exactly what they need to fix to make their ms competitive, at least as competitive as possible, only to have them argue the point and not budge.

It is time lost that could be spent with an equally good product and a much more willing writer.

So the question has been raised, in the link below, should lit agents charge for this service; for content editing? They charge for messenger service and such, but not ever for reading. I don't think they should charge for reading, that is part of their job. However, it takes hours and hours to work with someone to flesh out a ms, usually belonging to a debut writer. Content editing is a different process than reading to offer a contract, or not.

I am still thinking this one over, but I'm leaning toward the idea of charging a fee for content editing. These people do know the industry and what is being bought at the moment, as well as the particular interests of specific acquisition editors at various publishing houses.

The reason I'm leaning in favor of the lit agents charging for this particular services is that they could be, as I said, working with an ms that needs less work. If they could know that the time spent fleshing out promising mss was not lost, then we might see a lower rejection rate. They might accept more mss, if they knew it wouldn't be a total loss to take a chance.

Isn't that what every writer wants -- someone to take a chance on them and their ms? Who knows, some of the passed up mss might be exactly what the acquisition editors want or more importantly, what readers would like (given the opportunity) to read - if lit agents could afford to invest the time in them.

Decide for yourself. Here's the link: http://www.idealog.com/blog/literary-agents-and-the-changing-world-of-trade-publishing

The road to publication

Back to writing a continuation of what Ivy's question started. I got side tracked with mushy stuff, kid stuff, and goodness-knows-what stuff.

I'm not sure why anyone seems interested in what I've done. Lots of detours along the way, that's for sure. But I'm always asked about this and am going to lunch with a writer and his wife to discuss publishing, specifically Indie publishing.

Soooo anyway, High Tide followed Kathryn's Beach. I really had no clue why Terrie cared one flip whether Joseph came back from Ireland. He is/was a minor character who never really developed and as far as I was (and still am) concerned, he was little more than a stage prop.

From there, Storm Surge came about as a peace offering for what I had done in High Tide. I had most of the draft done when the agent query took over.

I was researching agents while I wrote SS. But the querying process was a full time job. It really is true that you must send exactly what the submissions require. So every letter and sometimes sample had to be tailored to the target.

I should add though, their replies were anything but real. Some had made up generic rejection post cards. Some printed four rejection slips per page and cut them apart. A couple of people wrote on my query letter, "Not for me" and sent it back. The agent I really wanted wrote back a nice letter that she wished she had seen this a couple of years ago. Her health was forcing her to retire. She gave me useful feedback and I will love her forever.

One day three rejection letters came the same day. I had sent the usual SASE with each query as is proper manners. I let the envelops lay on my desk for a week, totally tired of rejection letters. When I finally opened them, there was one from an agent requesting the full manuscript and a six week exclusive. Of course, I didn't pull my other queries that were floating around. I figured I'd deal with that when I had a contract in my hands.

Long story shortened, I liked my agent. He was totally unorganized and eventually I decided it was best to end things between us.

Almost as spite, I POD'd Kathryn's Beach. I was going broke printing mss for everyone. I liked the company I went with, but in the end, there just isn't much money in that if you can figure out a better way to go.

I'm going to leave out the next part of the story because of an agreement not to mention it. We'll just call this part the "black hole."

Tomorrow I'll get into the Indie stuff.