blacbird said:
Of course you can't send an agent something “she believes is publishable.” All you can do is send an agent something you believe an agent will believe is publishable. After that, it's out of your control, and unless you are a telepath, you have no way of knowing what, on any particular day, an agent actually will believe.
Then when you're proved wrong in your belief by forty or fifty consecutive rejections or non-responses, to continue believing in your belief gets more difficult.
caw.
Well, you have a lot more control over this than many think.
I've been reading bestselling novels for a bit more than forty years now. I've also been reading novels that are good, that sold well, even if they didn't make the bestseller list, for something over forty years now. I've read thousands upon thousands.
Each one is an object lesson in what a good agent thinks will sell. Each one is also an object lesson, and complete course, in how to write a novel that sells.
Maybe more important, I know what most agents think is publishable because I read books they represent. I also read the bestseller lists, which is where agents get their own notions of what is and isn't publishable.
The problem is not knowing what an agent thinks is publishable. That's the easy part. Easy as doing a bit of reading, and the only time an agent changes her mind about what is and isn't publishable is if the market becomes glutted, or if a new and very different kind of book conquers the market. And a writer should know both is the case just as fast as the agent does.
Nope. Knowing what agents think is publishable is easy. On any day and every day. If you know what books in your genre have sold well, and if you've read them, you know what the majority of agents think is publishable. And if you read books a particular agent represents, you know what that specific agent thinks is publishable.
As always, the hard part is writing something that good enough. This is where writers fall on their face. Knowing what an agent wants doesn't improve the quality of your writing, your storytelling, your characterization, your dialogue, etc., at all.
Compare it to basketball. I know exactly what the Indiana Pacers want right now. They want a point guard who can shoot 75% from inside the line, and 55% from outside they line. They want a point guard who can run the game, pass well, and play good defense.
Every college point guard out there also knows what the Pacers want. They know exactly what the pacers want, and they work hard to give it to them. When they fail, it's not because they don't know what the Pacers want, it's because the lack the talent and skills to give it to them.
Fortunately, writers have more time to practice. College point guards usually get four years. We can practice for ten years, or for twenty, if that's what it takes. Forty or fifty consecutive rejections sure sounds depressing, but it's about four thousand rejections short of being any sort of record.
The only thing really out of a writer's control is how much, or how little, talent he has. Everything else is a matter of reading, of study, and of hard work and determination.
And, of course, Stephen King says writing
is telepathy. It's sending a story from one mind to another, across time and space, with paper and ink as the medium. I think he's right. If you can send an agent or editor a story from your mind to his, just as you envision it, using paper and ink as the medium, you have a reader. But again, it's putting it on paper just the way you envision it, so the meassage comes through perfectly, that's the problem.
