Well, my agent followed up with a couple of editors who hadn't responded to earlier emails, and one of them (on the high end of the B list, if you're curious) is bringing it to her pub board this Friday. So the roller coaster hasn't quite ground to a halt yet.
To answer some questions:
ETA: I'm assuming your ms is nonfic because of the proposal reference. If that is correct, did editors turn down your book due to lack of platform?
In a word, yes, although this last publishing board mentioned that even Ricki Lake's latest childbirth book hasn't performed well. Because my book describes a broad spectrum of childbirth methods (most focus on one method or on one school of thought like the natural methods only), each based on interviews with the experts who founded or now lead the method's groupies, followed by several first-person birth stories by non-birth-professionals, I think I was able to get around that, to a very, VERY small extent. It's MEANT to be a non-professional, lay-mom's book that shows how methods play out in real life for lay-moms. But I've always known that I'm the one-legged guy at the marathon and trained accordingly.
Do you have the money and time needed to devote to this? Do you have the contacts? Do you know how to publicize, market, and distribute a book.
I do not have the money (I'm a stay-at-home-mom married to a car salesman who will probably go back to not-so-rich when Cash for Clunkers runs out here soon) and I do not have the time (I'm due with baby number four in six weeks and those newborn things don't travel well).
I don't have a lot of contacts, but do understand my market and its ringleaders extremely well. In other words, I probably couldn't market a fiction book effectively, but I know how to approach childbirth experts, obstetricians' offices, midwives' practices, and birth fanatics. I'm very practical in that way, which is how I've already gotten five nationally recognized birth experts to participate in the proposal and sample chapters.
I'm also willing and able to learn about the publicizing-marketing-distribution aspects, as evidenced by my writing a non-fic proposal with zero prior experience or expert assistance that has slowly made its way to a reputable agent and handful of publishing boards.
My primary reasons for wanting to avoid self-publishing at this point are a lack of time and pride (the whole constantly having to prove I'm not self-pubbing because I stink--not that self-pubbers all stink, just that many do).
Did any of the rejections give you hope of resubmitting? Anyone mention that while they don't have a slot for it now, they might in the future?
No. It was mostly that my platform is too weak and/or the market for childbirth books in today's recession and availability of Internet childbirth info is too soft.
I don't see why you wouldn't terminate this agent and get another.
Mainly because it took me 18 months and 45 queries to get this one.
Self-publishing is a last resort option, because going the route of self-pub takes you out of the author role and makes you a business owner....It's a hard path to take.
Self-publishing is a hard row to hoe and it demands a LOT of your time and energy.
'Zactly.
Agents are seeming more insensitive to the relationship they have with authors every day.
To all who just think my agent sucks, I don't have a way to prove she isn't insensitive or incompetent other than showing you guys all of our correspondence over the last year. It might not convince you anyway, and I'll understand if you just want to chalk what I believe to be my evidence-based belief in her abilities to my publishing naivete.
So why did she take you and your work on in the first place? If she cannot now market the work then it shows she seriously misjudged her own abilities to sell your manuscript.
Well, in a poor market for my genre and with a platform-handicapped author to boot, she got about 10 different editors to ask for proposals based on her query, and five of those have now brought them to their boards for discussion. Isn't that pretty good? I may be showing my ignorance here.
Now she is trying to turn the tables and make you feel like there is something wrong with your work in the first place.
On the contrary, she has always said my work is wonderful and is now trying to encourage me with the fact that so many editors have tried to get their boards to publish it. I think she's concerned that I'll see these rejections as a judgment on my writing or my idea, and has so much faith in my work and marketing ability that she feels it even has the potential to succeed as a self-pub.
1. Is the topic a "timely" one that makes it important it be published NOW, versus five years from now?
No.
2. Is it your only book, or just the one you're trying to market at this time?
I'm about a third of the way through a novel, too, but this is my only NF effort.
3. Is the take on the topic already well-represented on the shelves right now, or is it a totally unique take?
Yes and yes, lol. While there are many childbirth books, mine would be the only one focusing entirely on birth (as opposed to the entire pregnancy) to cover the full spectrum of childbirth methods and the only one to use multiple first-person stories by non-birth-professionals to flesh out those methods.
Because an agent is part of a completely different publishing model and has no expertise, role or any business whatsoever commenting on self-publishing.
That's true, but I don't think she meant to present herself as an expert on self-publishing. I think she meant that, as an expert on writing and publishable ideas, she thought the book would be good enough to do well even in less-than-ideal publishing conditions.
Overall the market seems rather full. A self-published book would probably have a huge uphill battle to get noticed--unless you're a super fabulous midwife with ties to people like Ina May Gaskin, for instance.
It is, which was something the publishing boards brought up when saying "we'd like to publish this, but don't think it will sell." And I'm super, but neither fabulous nor a midwife. Does having read Gaskin's books count? I'm going to go with no on that one...
Does your childbirth book advocate a new kind of birthing? Or a different take on the standbys? (Lamaze, Bradley, hypno, water, etc.) Do you teach childbirth courses? Do you have a built-in platform for moving books?
No to all of those. The strengths of my idea are 1) the comprehensive approach (because most books either focus on medical pain management and give a few short paragraphs to the wonky natural stuff that you shouldn't really expect to help you OR focus on natural birth and how an epidural will fry your baby's brain while the doctor pummels you with a set of forceps) and 2) that actual moms who have tried the methods, for better or worse, will tell you about their own experiences (kind of like asking your girlfriends how they liked this or that method, except that few of us have friends who have tried everything).
If so, it is one more sign that slowly but surely self-publishing is loosing its stigma and becoming, though at times limited, a viable option for authors who have only considered the traditional channels to publication.
I truly believe that with the right amounts of money, time, and energy, this idea could work as a POD. I just don't know that I am willing, assuming I'm even ABLE, to invest them.
I know that several of medical groups have their own and it seems like yours would be a fit into that niche market.
That's a fantastic idea that I should look into. I have to say, though, that it would be tricky to find a group interested in such a broad spectrum of methods. Most medical groups have liability concerns about espousing such ideas as home births and most natural birth groups believe that medical and hospital methods are fundamentally incompatible with safe, evidence-based care.
Whew! Thanks for all the incredibly helpful and thought-out advice! I deeply appreciate your interest in my decision and your shared wisdom.