The Next Circle of Hell, Vol. 2

Becca, a R & R is very promising!! Good luck, and crossables crossed for your other subs!!

Hathor, weren't you the poster who coined the phrases "release the kraken" and "oovil snetch?" (I lurked a lot on Rejection and Dejection--no secret is safe ).

hester said:

Hathor, weren't you the poster who coined "release the kraken?" (I lurked quite a bit on the Rejection and Dejection thread--no secret is safe .

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Aha! Yeah, you tell her!

Yes, I was. Kraken-releasing is in my book. It was a joke that begged to be made. I have a retelling of Greek myth and my main characters get it on.

Now, all the explicit sexing up of the MS; that was krash's directive. I'm amazed that my agent thought it was fine. Either that or she felt the scenes were in keeping with the comedic tone of the book.

Hi, all!

I am a regular in the R&D subforum, but I generally hang out in the Daily Rejection thread. Back in April, I signed with an agent. We've been doing a few more minor edits, so the manuscript isn't out on submission yet (I'm really hoping that this revision--the fourth!--is the last one). So I don't really have much to report. Just saying hello. I was going to wait until I finally was out on submission, but I see that Hathor is jumping in, so I figured I'd follow suit!

So, hello, all. And you can call me Liz.

Yay for the R&R, Becca! That's very promising, assuming you like their ideas for the revision.

Hathor, Liz, I'm sooooo happy to see you both over here! As you can all see, I've never (quite) left.

kkbe, I've been out of the loop and didn't know you had rep. Many belated congratulations!

Treehouseman, definitely hunt down the agent. Even (no, especially) if you end up parting ways, you'll be needing that sub list. I know there are some agents who don't send writers the editors' names (for fear the writers might go rogue and email them), but you need to know imprint names at the very least. That's vital info about your book. Good luck, and wishing you much better news soon.

Heading into second revision round. Wish me luck!

I had a partial manuscript request from an agent. I replied to the effect that while I liked her email and could see the energy and imagination that had gone it into it, I didn't love it. I told her that it was neither my policy nor habit to submit partial manuscripts but that I would be happy to supply a full manuscript. She rather tartly replied that a full manuscript would be fine. So we'll see where that goes.

Liz, welcome! I did 4 rounds of edits with my agent so I so get it. Been there. *fist bumps you*

Tree, I agree with everyone else. Hunt down your agent(s?). Call. E-mail. Six months is a really really long time without any word. (and here I thought my 1 month of no communication with my agent was hard!) Wishing you hear soon.

Hester, I see you added the infamous "oovil snetch" to your post. I did not coin it, but I have tried to popularize it. Miss Shark had a column with passages from actual subs. I've probably read the list twenty times and it never fails to crack me up. If ever any of you doubt your writing ability or simply what a good laugh (or twenty), enjoy. http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2006/01/crapometer-got-you-feeling-bruised-and.html

Hi, Liz. Hi, Fuchsia.

*wanders in, shuffles around, trips over doormat*

Hi all! I'm not sure if I feel qualified to be in here yet, but I recently signed with an agent and am currently doing revisions before we go out on sub. It's all a bit surreal, but nice to be here all the same

Woohoo! Thanks for the kind words, all! And it's so awesome to see so many familiar faces join this thread.

Congrats Hathor, Liz, kkbe and Niiicola!

Welcome, Nicola!!

Congrats to the newcomers to the thread! The experience of being on sub can be very frustrating but it's always worth remembering your agent believes in you!

Hello Everyone,
I am new to this post. I am a PB writer and have had an agent for more than a year now. I was signed on a PB that did the rounds and was sadly laid to rest. I am now on subs for other PB’s I have written. Frustrated doesn’t even cover how I feel. I stay glued to PW book-deals just incase my agent announces my book deal there...one day! Sigh.
http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/index.html

Thank you so much for the warm welcome, belated or otherwise. I can see right now it shall be great having this support and those spenza thingies.



I recently sent ze agent Round One of rvns.; waiting to hear what he thinks.

*heart palpitations*

This waiting stuff continues after querying, I see.

Does anyone have advice re asking for a sub list? My agent said she'd get it to me as soon as it was done. It's been a month only, but I'm pretty sure she's done subbing as she said that would only take 2 weeks. Should I ask or is it too soon?

Lena Hillbrand said:

Does anyone have advice re asking for a sub list? My agent said she'd get it to me as soon as it was done. It's been a month only, but I'm pretty sure she's done subbing as she said that would only take 2 weeks. Should I ask or is it too soon?

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Okay, I'm a complete newbie to all this. But my agent says she's going to get me a sub list to review before she sends anything out. And each Friday she'll send an email with updated information for the week (subs to these folks, these responses, these nudges, etc.). Plus she'll give me her cell number in case I need to talk to her about something. This seems a remarkably easy way to assure writers don't go crazy. Is this unusual? Am I not understanding something here?

Lena, did you reach an understanding with your agent as to how and when communication should take place? If not, my advice is to initiate such a conversation now and reach an agreement on a way you two can both feel comfortable.

Hathor, that link is truly...the greatest I have ever read .

hester said:

Hathor, that link is truly...the greatest I have ever read .

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I showed the post to my husband for the first time on the subway last night. He got the giggles so bad the other riders were eyeing us nervously.

I can never decide which bit is my favorite.

@Hathor, that does sound unusual in that most agents just don't have so much time to devote to each author, etc. My agent seems very busy, and I'm okay with that as she has a very good rep. I'd probably prefer to talk more, but I'm okay with the "every 8 weeks" she wants.

That said, she assured me she'd send the sub list as soon as she was finished subbing/2 weeks ago at the latest. So now I'm wondering if it's okay to ask for it or if I'm being the pushy insecure new author! (Which I am, but she gave me a pretty definite timeline--sub first week in June, I call her in 8 wks). So maybe I should hold off til we talk and ask for it then?

Lena Hillbrand said:

@Hathor, that does sound unusual in that most agents just don't have so much time to devote to each author, etc. My agent seems very busy, and I'm okay with that as she has a very good rep. I'd probably prefer to talk more, but I'm okay with the "every 8 weeks" she wants.

That said, she assured me she'd send the sub list as soon as she was finished subbing/2 weeks ago at the latest. So now I'm wondering if it's okay to ask for it or if I'm being the pushy insecure new author! (Which I am, but she gave me a pretty definite timeline--sub first week in June, I call her in 8 wks). So maybe I should hold off til we talk and ask for it then?

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I don't know. She promised you something and it hasn't come. Maybe she forgot. Maybe her assistant was supposed to send it and didn't. Maybe she's been sick or faced some other problem and hasn't subbed yet. I don't see how an email under the circumstances could be seen as unreasonable. What do the others here think?

I'd also be interested in hearing what communication setups others have with their agents. (In case I wasn't clear, I don't think my agent writes to every client every week. She says she does so if there is some sub development during the week. Most weeks on sub, there probably isn't and some clients won't be on sub at all.)

I wonder if it's like answering queries. Some agents say it's impossible. Yet others manage to do so.

Then again, you did agree to talking in 8 weeks. Maybe you need to stop thinking about it and work on some other writing. You don't have that much longer to wait, really.

My relationship with my agent is pretty much a whenever we need to talk, we'll talk. Meaning I have something for her to read and we talk, or when she had my sub list we talked, or whenever she's passed along a pass, we talked. I have to say, after reading about some relationships here and from other sources, I'm really happy and thankful for my relationship with my agent. It's only been since Feb, but I can e-mail her whenever with whatever and she gets back to me the same day. Besides the MS she signed me with, she's read another in less than a month and reported back with revision notes, then got back to me on said revision three weeks after I handed it in with an interesting plan for it that has me biting my nails in anticipation.

I think if you said 8 weeks and you guys went into the relationship with the understanding that's what it would be, then perhaps you should wait. At the same time, I don't think she'd cut you lose for a sanity check-in.

Great to see you here, Niiicola! The principal qualification for the Next Circle is a tolerance for agonizing waiting periods. That's the main qualification for the Tenth Circle, too, come to think. *laughs evilly* *brings speznas for the newcomers*

Lena, you're certainly within your rights to ask for a sub list now. Both times I've been on sub, the agent actually showed me the list before contacting the editors, just to keep me in the loop. If your phone call is coming up soon, you could wait and ask her then. But if she still doesn't send it, I'd follow up with a friendly email reminder.

If anyone's interested in how agents use their time, mine did this interview about trying to manage hers better. Like most professionals, they seem to have more and more trouble with people contacting them by multiple means at all hours. I try not to overcommunicate or be obtrusive (I would never text her, for instance, unless there was some sort of unlikely emergency), but neither do I keep quiet if something seems important, and she always responds quickly. We pretty much have the arrangement krash described: talking when there's something to talk about, not at set times.

Goodness, welcome to the influx of newly agented folks around here! Hathor, I would say your situation does sound unusual. Most people I know don't communicate with their agent anywhere near that often. I know my agent has a very full client list and she'd spend all her time corresponding with clients if she did that. But she does send me a sub list before she sends it out.

magwitch said:

I had a partial manuscript request from an agent. I replied to the effect that while I liked her email and could see the energy and imagination that had gone it into it, I didn't love it. I told her that it was neither my policy nor habit to submit partial manuscripts but that I would be happy to supply a full manuscript. She rather tartly replied that a full manuscript would be fine. So we'll see where that goes.

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I'm not sure if you meant to post this in this thread, but I wanted to say that seems like an unnecessarily snarky and possibly antagonistic way to respond to an agent requesting more pages from you. If I were her, I would have written you off on the spot. There's no reason to have your feathers ruffled by a partial request. What does it hurt to send what the agent asked for? If it's the right match, the agent will then request the full. But if you prove yourself inflexible at this stage, the agent has little incentive to want to work with you.

Tree, I don't think I've weighed in - CALL NOW. I hate the phone, so I get it if that's holding you back, but why wait? It's been too long. Be your own advocate.