Jamesaritchie said:
I think the only way you know you're getting warmer is when a legitimate, selling agent agrees to take you on as a client. That's warmer. Hot is when that agents sells your novel.
I sold right off the bat. My first short story sold, then the first agent I queried took me on, and sold the first novel she saw to the first editor she submitted it to in only a month or so.
In a similar confessional spirit, I got my first book deal when a fellow author introduced me to his editor. My first YA novel came from a non fiction proposal submitted by my agent, when the editor said, "I'd like to see him try this as fiction." That lasted for three books and two agents.
Most of the agents I've gotten through the time honored way of coming to them with a book deal already in hand.
The last agent sold my non-fiction proposal about three months after my previous agent told me it would never sell.
But since this agent wasn't interested in adult fiction, I've been shopping my manuscript without an agent for the first time since 1976. Having had a rocky relationship with fiction throughout my career, it's been interesting to see the responses of agents and editors to this manuscript.
Obviously, until it gets published, it's not good enough to be published.
I'm just wondering how to determine if it's good enough to be shopped.
If you ask me, on any given day, my answer varies.