Dear Literary Loves,
Honest to goodness we authors have our share of literary agent nightmares. People email me or message me about them all the time. I've decided, some it is so hilarious, heartbreaking, and completely foolish I really have to write a book about the whole experience. For instance, this one writer was telling me about a writing conference she went to this spring. She signed up, paid her fees, and had scheduled to pitch to two agents. I had already had an experience with one of those agents so I knew she was up against a wall. Seriously. She went for the pitch session with the first one who is male. She was nervous which is to be expected. He told her to come back in one to two years when she had a polished manuscript because she had only been writing on it for ten months. She only lacked working out the ending on the manuscript; otherwise, it was completed and edited to the best of her ability. I hear from her: "What the hell?! I Don't Have One To Two Years!" I was shaking my head. Damn, he can be abrasive. Then, the agent asked her for her word count. Well, if he had paid attention to her in the pitch, she said she hadn't finished the ending to the manuscript. She reminded him of this. No matter, he wanted a ball park figure on how many words her memoir manuscript would have. She politely guessed 110,000. He went loco. "What?! Cut it to 80,000 or just self-publish because it won't sell at that word count if you are a debut author." She was devastated. Here's the thing: I told her, Mr. Smarty Pants doesn't have a clue. You know why? Because many a debut author memoir has sold with a word count over 120,000. I know, I have them on my bookshelf. She was somewhat consoled and agreed to keep on querying as I encouraged her to do.
Next, we have the writer on one of the literary agent query sites who just cracks me up each time she receives a rejection from an agent. She will post the agent's rejection for all to see on the site and then in all caps put "ONWARD!!" Each time I read a rejection post for her I think of a Civil War general who keeps rallying onward even though he's lost half his men, there is no food for the troops, and some are fighting without equipment. Damn. You have to admire her tenacity. I have to take several days to myself when I receive a rejection. I have to step away from it because I tend to take it too personally. And everyone knows what happens when someone slams me personally.
Don't even get me started about the literary agent who willingly gives himself the name of asinine agent or something to that extreme. I advise writers in relation to him: Don't waste your time. He's has some sort of twisted agenda of that I am sure. Beautiful people, just say no to these types. I'm serious, cause life's too short.
And finally, there's the author who published a memoir just for venting and vindictive purposes. She even admitted that she had done this. I was like, "And your agent agreed to shop it and sell it?" She told me, "Oh yeah, well, we're friends. That's how I got published in the first place. She and I know each other." And the book had a terrible showing. So the agent wasn't really basing her decision on the writing, but on the relationship she had with the author. There's professionalism on display for you. Damn. When I queried this gal's agent or any agent in this literary agency, here's the response I got each time: "We are not the agency for you. Look elsewhere." Again, unprofessionalism reeks to high heaven people. And reputations are made and broken on how you present yourself. Writers ask me all the time about who they should query with a certain manuscript. Guess what? That agency has a major, red HURRICANE flag in my book. Just saying.
And FINALLY, talk about nightmares, I have editors from Random House and Skyhorse Publishing requesting the manuscript and I DON'T HAVE AN AGENT YET! How did I manage this you ask? I am a very likeable person, make friends easily, and am highly convincing. It doesn't hurt that I have one hell of a tale and am good at pitching it to anyone whether that is the President or a homeless man sitting by the subway entrance.
No comments:
Post a Comment