How I Got My Agent, Part Two

A few months ago–okay, a year ago–, I shared with you the first part of my journey to signing with an agent. I told you how I came around to writing the book with the support and encouragement of many people. You can read it HERE.

But writing the first draft is just a first step in a long process. What most people don’t realize that it typically takes a long, super-long (if you want a technically term) to reach traditional publication.

This is my journey. YMMV.

Writing on a Budget

You should understand that I am a writer on a budget. I couldn’t afford to go to writing conferences, hire editors, or buy into programs and online courses. I wish I could but…well, kids. And I might go against the grain a bit with this statement–I don’t think you have to do any of those things. There are many free resources if you take the time to look. Here’s what helped me the most.

First, I had a strong local critique group who I met with monthly. Although we don’t all write the same genre, their feedback was vital in those early days when I had no idea what I was doing. (Which is different from nowadays when I still have no idea what I’m doing.)

Second, the great thing about living in the 21st century is that we have access to a lot of smart people via the internet. I joined the Twitter writing community (THIS IS ME) and that provided a wealth of information through new friends I met to the content offered to contests. Twitter is free; it might cost your sanity some days, but it is free.

Third, there are books and articles and websites and contests. Free resources abound in the form of books on writing (Have you read Save the Cat Writes a Novel? An excellent tool), articles on editing (THIS is one of my favorites), websites devoted to helping make your writing stronger to finding agents to marketing yourself (can’t recommend THIS resource more), and contests (many free to enter and give you opportunities to get the eyes of editors and agents on your work).

See? You can be cheap and be a writer. It’s good practice for being poor and being a writer. (I’m kidding-ish.)

My First (Bad) Step

From January to April, I revised. When a pitch party on Twitter came around in April of 2017, I decided to enter. Pitches parties are held regularly on Twitter. Agents and small presses come out to read very small pitches from us writers. If they’re interested, they request more. I expected this to be practice for me; I didn’t expect to get any interest.

But I did. In fact, I got several interested agents. And in a few weeks, I was excited when a few of those turned into requests for the full manuscript.

Then the feedback began to come in. And I realized something very quickly. I’d committed the biggest mistake most writers make the first time around: I queried too early.

Over the next few months, I revised, entered a writing mentor program on Twitter, didn’t get picked but took the feedback and began a bigger revision. In the middle of all this, my sister passed away so I lost momentum and had to regroup.

See all that revision? Writing a novel is more of a project that’s constantly work in progress rather than a solid beginning and end. Comparing novel-writing and having a kid is pretty solid. The first forty years of parenting and writing a book are the hardest, they say.

Let the Querying Begin (Again)

In October of 2017, I started cold querying in earnest. This involves research agents, pulling together the information they want (usually a query letter and the first chapter), sending it off, and then waiting…and waiting…and playing a little QUERY BINGO…and waiting until they reply (if they reply at all) with a rejection or a request.

The following month, I got a request for an exclusive R&R. What’s that? you ask. An R&R stands for Revise and Resubmit.  The agent gives feedback, asks the writer to fix some stuff and resend it. R&Rs work out about 50% of the time but more than that, it’s a pretty good indication the book is solid. But this was a request for an exclusive. That meant agreeing to stop querying other agents while I worked on it.

It was a risk and I took it.

I joined the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) and received valuable genre-specific feedback and guess what? After four long months of revising and a month of the agent considering it, she passed.

You were expecting a happy ending, right? Not this time.

This rejection was bittersweet. While the novel was stronger for the revisions–the best yet–, it was still a rejection. And rejections, even the nice ones, hurt. Back to that child/book analogy, it’s basically the equivalent of a stranger saying your newborn has a big head and a boring plot.

And MORE Querying

So I gathered up my poor, rejected manuscript and I decided to query like a madwoman. In April of 2018, I began to cold query. Again. A lot. I queried and got rejected and queried and got requests and queried and got rejected. Repeat for the next four months.

By the time August 2018 rolled around, I’d queried 107 agents and I was beginning to think it was time to put this manuscript in a drawer and pretend it never happened. There was one more pitch event through the WFWA coming and I secretly decided that was my Last Ditch Effort.

My Last Ditch Effort

I posted my pitch on the WFWA board (for members only) and waited. I didn’t have high hopes. Still, I ended up with five interested agents. Four requested the full. One emailed me a week later to say she wanted to schedule a phone call. (I was on my way to the beach at the time. My mother, visiting from the east coast, was beside me when I got that email. THE email, the one I’d been dreaming about for over a year.)

Three days later, I spoke to the agent on the phone. It was two days before my 40th birthday when she offered me representation. A week later, we made it official.

In total, I queried Learning Curve for 16 months to 107 agents. I received 22 requests for fulls, 1 R&R, and a lot of rejections.

A Year Later and….

It’s been a year since I signed with my agent and I’m still…waiting. In September of 2018, we put the book on submission. That’s like querying except to editors at publishing houses and my agent sees the rejections first. No bites yet and no one can promise it will ever sell. Or maybe it will sell later after I’ve sold another book. The publishing business is everchanging, what’s popular this week might not be popular next week.

So I’m just over here working on my second manuscript and wishin’ and hopin’ and keepin’ on.

Three Things I Learned

Speaking of keepin’ on, here a few things I’ve learned through this whole process:

• Keep going. You’ll be rejected a lot. You’ll get frustrated. You’ll want to pull your hair out. But just keep going. It takes a lot of no’s to get a yes.
• Keep writing. Don’t stop writing while you’re querying. Keep working on new projects. Nothing is promised. Even if your first book helps you get an agent, it might not be the first book you sell. Remember when you’re feeling down that the reason you’re putting yourself through this is that you love to write. Besides all that, practice makes progress.
• Keep ice cream close by. Or chocolate. Or vodka. Whatever your comfort food is, keep it close by. You’ll need it.

Since I ended on ice cream, what’s your comfort food…or drink…or alcoholic beverage? Tell me in the comments!

Wanna read more stories about my crazy life? Check out more of my blog posts. You can also find me on FACEBOOK and TWITTER and sign up for my NEWSLETTER (which is sporadic but highly entertaining).