For those who thought landing an agent was the hard part

Congratulations! Hope it's a winner!

Congratulations! That's so exciting! Hope it sells well!

I'm in the spot you were back when you started this thread. My agent has my book out with eight editors all at major publishers. I'm crossing my fingers and trying not to check email every other minute or jump when the phone rings!

Glad to hear it's worked out so well for you!

Congratulations!

I'm also at the point where this thread started. I'm on book two, a thriller, with my agent and it's around with full reads to major houses. My first book, a SF off-planet adventure, made the rounds for over a year and quite franky we ran out of contacts that would take such a story. I sold it to a small press, brought my agent back into the (small) deal, and he managed to pull an advance, very high royalties on cover, extra copies and some sub-rights.

Warner and Penguin passed on the thriller full read. But they were very close decisions and complimentary on the style, voice, pace, dialogue, yada-yada-yada--you know that one.

Even when you do have an agent, that stress and anticipation is there. In fact, it never leaves. Hope to report good news.

Sportscribe--so damn proud of you for seeing this through and starting this thread. I've been following since its conception. And that book is just awesome--the subject matter alone is so relevant today in sports.

Tri

Just take small steps at a time - as penciled-in on a calendar you maintain. Jot down goals for each week and try to meet them. Some weeks will be easier than others but, before you know it, you'll be back on track!

Yay for getting up! (another NOT-morning-person here)

Accountability to someone else can help a lot. There are several check-in/goals threads around AW, or someone in real life who knows what you should be doing and can nag without driving you nuts.

Yo-hoooo, Sportwriter, this book couldn't be coming at a better time!!!! Did ya hear the recent headlines about Conseco (sp?) talk about a lead in. Great for you.

Oh my gosh. I know this thread ended like a year or two ago, but can we revive it? I feel a million times better going through the pub house submission process after reading this thread.

Anyone else out there waiting to hear from publishers? I'm nearly three weeks into the wait of my first round of submissions and I'm just DYING!!!!!!!

Yap. I out to publishers. My agent hasn't taken one of my two new books yet for sub. But I had three books that I wanted to sell, so pretty much bombed the world with them. I made 128 submissions to medium, small, and independant publishers. I sold all three. But the kicker is I've got 48 publishers who are non-responders, which was a total shock to me. Most have been over the seven-month line, a few over five months. I followed up on many of them, alas, still nothing. Never seen this before. Ever.

ETA: My latest email has just told me that agent is not crazy about one of the new books. Major suckatude. I have one more left, and a WIP. Don't know what I'll do about this. He's dropped two on a row on me, and these were books we put our heads together on. Gak.

Tri

Oh wow. You can be my friend.

What do you write? Non-fiction?

Me? I'm SF, Fantasy, and Paranormal. I do have a few straight/semi-straight thrillers. Hellooooooooooo friend. Right now I could use one.

Tri

Okay, cool....even better! I write YA urban fantasy. I'm curious...when do editors contact your agent. Do they tell you when they like your book, when it's going to a board, stuff like that? Or do they just wait to see whether they'll be making an offer.

Three weeks and I haven't even got a rejection. Even a rejection would be welcome at this point (just so I would know people were actually reading it).

Editors will contact your agent for a variety of reasons. The most common one will be a "Sorry I have to pass" letter, and in it they usually explain via a paragraph or so why they they're rejecting it. This is after a full read, of course. Normally, I say normally, the agent will send the exact email exchange to the writer with the editor's name and pub house.

Editors might contact your agent and request revisions, along with a promise to re-read. Discussion ensues. Writer agrees or not. At this time the agent might shut down the sub process out of respect for the interested publisher. And, eh, sometimes not.

Editor offers a preempt (sp?)--which is a first strike advance offer. The high advance is designed to keep other competive publishers out of the negotiation. Agent either agrees or not. Some agents take this as a very good sign and go to auction. Sometimes disaster ensues. But ordinarily, a good agent will always take a nice preempt offer.

Editor offers a normal/midline advance--Agent and writer huddle. The huddle is usually about upping the advance (and bettering the clauses), which most agents do by going back in there with a knife in one hand and a money bag in the other. This is the most common sale.

Agent sees an extraordinary amount of positive offers/responses/deals, and decides to hold an auction with a time limit. Highest bid with the best contract deal wins out. This is rare but it happens. It can easily top six figures and more.

Yep, going to the board. Editors will notify an agent when a so-so (marginal) great book must be passed upstairs for further reading. Decisions are made at acquisitions meetings, sometiems held every week. Everybody gets into the act. Strangely enough, the last word usually comes down from the marketing people, if it has passed all of the edtiors, or even the publisher.

Here's a good one with Dante-esque overtones. When I completed my first novel some years ago, not knowing any better, I sent off my first query directly to a Random House editor. He asked to see the ms. Weeks later, a combination of the anticipation and rigorous Navy advanced training (my full-time job then) had me in a state of exhaustion. The editor passed, but had some nice comments. I did some reading up on how the business works and started querying agents. A month later, I landed one. A young guy just starting out, he got Hollywood interested in optioning the book; some publishing editors said positive things, but none bit. Then my energetic young agent got a job offer he couldn't refuse in another publishing-related area and left me orphaned.

Meanwhile, I'd written novel #2 and then was posted overseas. From ten thousand miles away, I managed to land agent #2, a seasoned, older gent. Same thing happens -- some editors interested, a Hollywood producer mulling it over. Then my agent dies of a heart attack. Orphaned again.

Leaving Uncle Sam's service and starting a new life, with kids, new house, etc., I had no time to get back on the query-go-round. So, I self-publish the first two books with Lulu. Meanwhile, I complete novel #3. The publishing industry crashes with the rest of the economy. Six agents have had my full ms, three a partial. Three of the former have passed. Two are very interested. They are both big-name agencies. Sometimes I wish I were a drug addict. Other times, I worry I'll go postal. But I wait, wait and wait. I know I need to start working on book #4, but can't get my head into it. And so it goes . . .

Took me 11 years to get the agent. Now my book is out at seven editors. One has had it for second reads since late April.

Very frustrating

Wow, {{Toni}}, hang in there!! Your perseverance is inspiring me to quit whining and get back to work, LOL...

Angkor - wow.

Marlys--those stories are absolutely hysterical! I've got to check that book out.

AND--I've learned a lot from this thread. I just signed with an agent (first agent/first novel--very exciting!), and I think because the querying/agenting process moved so quickly I assumed the publishing would as well. I obviously have a lot to learn!

Post-Mortem to my earlier reply

After eight weeks of second reads and going to the Acquisition Board, they passed on my novel, saying the "writing just isn't strong enough for our list".

Still out at six others. hope is still alive.

Toni1953 said:

After eight weeks of second reads and going to the Acquisition Board, they passed on my novel, saying the "writing just isn't strong enough for our list".

Still out at six others. hope is still alive.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that Toni - I'm sure that must have been hard to hear. But try to remember that is just one publisher's opinion. Good luck with the other six!

Oh, wow. I have all this to look forward to, as I'm going out on submissions in September.

It's been funny, now I've calmed down about getting the agent, how little everything seems to have changed. I still sit in front of my laptop into the wee hours for no money while everyone in my life thinks I'm insane.

I always wondered why an Esquire editor, in the preface of Strunk & Whites "The Elements of Style", said that giving Elements was the second greatest thing you could do for a would-be writer, but the first greatest thing was shooting them while they were happy.

I'm beginning to understand...

Interesting thread!

My agent started submitting a couple of weeks ago. Taking into account the book has to be read and evaluated by people overloaded with work (who isn't these days?) I don't expect a quick answer

Doesn't make the wait much easier though.

Reading the thread does. Writers seem to be a great bunch of people

Ton.

Okay. I'm not sure whether I should feel better or worse reading this thread. I just wrote a blog post today about the pain of "the wait." My agent started submitting my novel July 6 (not like I'm keeping track or anything) and, when asked how we should handle updates, I decided I'd rather not know what's going on unless-- everybody hates the novel, someone offers constructive criticism or it just isn't selling. He's going to update me every quarter. I thought this arrangement would relieve me of the stress. Ha! I still jump when the phone rings and check my email every ten minutes. And now, I read this and see that I could be going through this for a very long time. And my agent hasn't even started submitting my nonfiction proposal yet. He said he'll start sub that in a few weeks.
ugh.