Well, we will see about that! When we met, I told him about the broad outline of book 2 and he seemed enthusiastic about it. As you say, you can’t help the ideas that come to you. Each to their own, but I’m not really interested in churning out the same type of book 10 times.
Would you look for a different agent in that case? I guess depends on how book 1 goes. I imagine agents/publishers are able to overlook almost any kind of thought crime it there’s money behind it
I already know how book 1 went, so that's not the issue. My agent could not sell book 1 and I subbed it to small presses and it's under contract with one now that I'm very happy with so far. It paid me an advance, does marketing, has generated some bestsellers, but my agent would not rep me with this contract because it's a small press and she said the advance was too small for her agency to be involved. Which is fine. But it means I have an agent but no book out with her and she's not interested in my WIP, so I'm not really sure where that leaves me. She is, however, very interested in idea #3, which I likely won't even start writing until next year and since it's a historical, it will take me a while to write (i.e. likely more than a year). So that's a while down the road.
So what to do with WIP? I'm a little more than halfway through it at this point, and I'm trying not to think about it yet. But I'm guessing this will be my strategy:
1. Pitch it to my agent even though she said she doesn't want to read it. She told me it's not marketable, but it seems clear to me and everyone who's read any part of it (all writers) that it's just that it's not what she does. I and everyone who's read both my WIP and my debut says the WIP is way more marketable. People can't believe my agent isn't into it and keep sending me comps to show her to prove how marketable it is. So my first step will probably be to email her something that is more of a pitch (though informal, since she's already my agent) about why it's marketable, comps, comments from other writers and betas, etc. and attach it and beg her to at least peruse it.
2. If she still balks, I will ask her if she can refer me to another agent at her agency who handles this genre. She was already at a medium size agency and now it was bought by one of the largest in the country, so there are a lot of agents there.
3. If she says no, I will ask how she feels about me seeking another agent just for this book and coming back to her with book #3. If she says ok, I will query. if she says not ok, I will decide if I want to give her up or approach small presses on my own with this book.
4. Approach small presses if all of the above goes nowhere.
I may change the order of this depending on how publication of my current book goes and whether the publisher is interested in my WIP. If I'm still happy with the way things are going with my debut when I'm ready to pitch this, I may just ask the publisher if he wants it. I think he'd like it and he publishes many genres. But he also only takes on books that he thinks he can get film deals for, as he's in LA and has developed a lot of film industry ties and it's a large part of how he keeps his press afloat and able to do things like pay advances and do marketing. And while I think he'd like my WIP, I think it would be difficult to make a film of.
So that's what I'm thinking I'll do, but right now I'm just focused on writing it, when I focus on it at all, which I have not done in the last week.
