Hi friends,
It's getting to that time of year when the local writers' association is promoting their early bird registration for the big writers' conference in the summer. (Pacific Northwest Writers' Association in my case.) One of the big draws is the pitch sessions with the agents, in which you have five minutes of speed-dating with an agent or editor.
I went to this conference two and a half years ago and certainly enjoyed the speakers and meeting people, but I don't know if it was $450 of enjoyment, especially when I'm not doing so hot as regards income stream these days. The pitch sessions with the agents was ok, but I had a hard time seeing why people do it. It was easy to get an agent to say "yes I'd like to read your proposal" if you showed that your manuscript met the bare minimum of a genre that the agent sought. But in the end, the rejections I got from them were maybe one sentence longer than others I'd gotten solely through people I found on Writers Market. (I also realize that my manuscript was not ready at that time and have since been through two major re-writes.) It's a 73,000-word memoir if that makes a difference.
So, what do you think? Is it worth speed-dating the agents? Is there something there that's better than searching on them and e-mailing them? I'd appreciate your opinions.
Thanks,
Eric
It's getting to that time of year when the local writers' association is promoting their early bird registration for the big writers' conference in the summer. (Pacific Northwest Writers' Association in my case.) One of the big draws is the pitch sessions with the agents, in which you have five minutes of speed-dating with an agent or editor.
I went to this conference two and a half years ago and certainly enjoyed the speakers and meeting people, but I don't know if it was $450 of enjoyment, especially when I'm not doing so hot as regards income stream these days. The pitch sessions with the agents was ok, but I had a hard time seeing why people do it. It was easy to get an agent to say "yes I'd like to read your proposal" if you showed that your manuscript met the bare minimum of a genre that the agent sought. But in the end, the rejections I got from them were maybe one sentence longer than others I'd gotten solely through people I found on Writers Market. (I also realize that my manuscript was not ready at that time and have since been through two major re-writes.) It's a 73,000-word memoir if that makes a difference.
So, what do you think? Is it worth speed-dating the agents? Is there something there that's better than searching on them and e-mailing them? I'd appreciate your opinions.
Thanks,
Eric
