For those with published novels

For those with published novels

  • How long was your manuscript on submission before you had an offer.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Anyone have experience with auctions?

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
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ChicagoWriter

NOT VANITY PUBLISHED. LEGITIMATE, ROYALTY PAYING PUBLISHERS ONLY. (PublishAmerica is not legitimate).

This poll assumes agent representation to NYC publishers.
 

Jamesaritchie

No auctions, but the agent I submitted my first novel to phoned me a couple of weeks later, and the publisher bought it about three weeks after I mailed it to the agent.

It doesn't usually happen this fast for first time novelists.
 

vstrauss

My experience isn't at all typical--in part because it was very flukey, in part because it happened in the late 1970's, when publishing was quite different from the way it is today.

I found my agent totally by accident. I submitted to a publisher that unbeknownst to me was going out of business. The editor on whose desk my ms. landed was planning to start an agency, and made me an offer. She has since become very successful.

My novel took eight years to sell--two with me submitting on my own, six with the agent. This also is REALLY unusual--not that many agents these days would stick with a nonselling client for that long, let alone keep sending out their ms.

I haven't had personal experience with auctions, but I know people who have.

- Victoria

P.S. Even vanity publishers pay royalties these days, so "royalty-paying" doesn't mean much. "Advance-paying" is a better way of making a distinction.
 

ChicagoWriter

Thanks

Thanks all.

For Victoria:

BTW, I just read "Ten Percent of Nothing: The Case of the Literary Agent from Hell" and noticed you and Ann Crispin helped the FBI catch Dorothy Deering. Nice!!
 

Gala

You go first

Chicago,
You made a big case about being a real writer in another thread.

What's your answer to the poll, or are you not yet a writer?

Just curious. Thanks.

<img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/image/posticons/pi_hippie.gif" />
 

evanaharris

Re: You go first

(url used to be here)

She's not that stupid, Gala.

edited to remove url
 

evanaharris

Re: I'd take that URL down if I were you.

Your name is in your (publicly viewable) profile.

I did you a favor, actually. You didn't even have to respond to Gala's question.

Edited to remain civil.

For anybody who wishes to find out if ChicagoWriter is actually a "real" writer, you can go to her public profile, type her name into Google, and come up with a website that shows a few remarkably striking similarities to what ChicagoWriter has claimed over the last couple of days or so. She's got a website, at least.
 

reph

ezboard polls allow only pushbutton answers and are therefore poorly suited to questions that begin "How long . . ."
 

SRHowen

Sheesh

You know, the time it takes is also somewhat dependent on your agent. New agent, or an agent publishers have never heard of--you may as well submit to the the slush yourself. Those submissions from agents who don't have a sales record go to the slush pile as well -- just the same as unknown author's submissions.

And a new agent with no real connections to the literary world--well I am always leery of those agents who have things on their web site such as . . . has worked as an acquisition's editor--but then don't fill in the blank as to what publisher they worked as an editor for.

If I were submitting work through such an agent--I wouldn't hold my breath. They can send subs all over the place claiming to be an agent, just as you could send them on your own--but without a track record (sales you've heard of and sales the publishing world has heard of) then you won't have any more luck or any quicker response than if you did it on your own.

And publishers also recognize fluff padding when they see it.

I repeat what James says so often. If you have something on submission forget it and go on to the next thing.

Also add, a bad agent or an unknown agent is worse than no agent at all.

And if I was going to list my work at places such as Publisher's Marketplace, I'd darn well make sure that my page there at least looked and sounded professional.

Simply having an agent does not make you a "real" writer.

Shawn
 

Jamesaritchie

Re: Sheesh

The reason it happened so fast with me was partly luck, partly research. The research was finding the right agent, the luck was in the timing. The agent knew an editor who needed just the kind of novel I was writing to fill an open slot at just the time I was writing the novel.

There were only a couple of other contenders, but I was the only writer who had any sort of publishing history, mainly short stories to national magazines in the same genre the novel was in. The editor was running out of time to fill the slot, the agent knew this (a good agent knows what editors want and when they want it), and that was that.

Had I submitted the novel only a couple of weeks later than I did, that slot almost certainly would have been filled, and who knows what the fate of that first novel would have been?
 
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