Another landmark

Published by neil on March 11th, 2009 1 Comment »

Literary agents are the key to securing a viable publishing deal in these day of big business, global publishing. Today I submitted my book to three suitable London agents.

I am under no illusions about the nature of the climb ahead of me to get Persistent Spirit and the rest of the Table Rappers series published and out on bookshelves. (Why I have swung a u-turn back from online publishing to traditional publishing is for another post.)

The chances of me landing an agent without already having some kind of publishing deal, or at least an offer, is very slim. But not impossible. A superb post on advice in finding a literary agent can be found on Neil Gaiman’s site.

It has to be the right one

Last weekend I waded through a database of Literary Agents and was surprised how straightforward it was to filter out those clearly not suitable for my submission. It took about 3 hours of research to pin down three possible candidates, carefully assessing the requirements and tone of their websites, and, of course, their current author list.

The principle criteria for me is to find an agent that understands a long running series of connected novels and associated online and offline elements. One that will respect my career experience and how that can be applied to promotion ongoing is also important.

This begs the question: If I get an offer from a agent who I feel does not properly fit those criteria, will I turn down the offer?

I hope the answer will be: yes, I will walk away for a more appropriate deal. But unless I am actually in that position, I don’t think I can make that decision ahead of time. There is too much to weigh-up.

Waiting for rejection

Sending the three submissions in the post this afternoon was an interesting experience. There is no nervousness, no fears, no nail-chewing whilst listening for the rejection letter response to pop through the letterbox in six to eight weeks.

Thankfully, the notion of rejection is something I came to terms with very early on, when I began venturing into writing. Fear of professional rejection is irrational and as a guaranteed stepping stone on the usually long, winding path to be published, is something no-one can side-step.

I do not lack confidence in my work. I know there is an audience for it, and I’ll just keep hammering at doors until I find someone who understands where that audience is.

What’s next?

Agents, like publishers, quote around six to eight weeks for a response. I’ll not confuse the issue by submitting to more agents in that time, but may make some direct to publisher submissions if I feel it is necessary.

Work on the final chapters of Persistent Spirit continues, and work on the second book, A Shot in Time, is accelerating in the background with story structure and planning starting to kick-in when there’s the time.

This one will be an exciting project for me coming to a new novel after my experience with the first – there will be less mystery, and less trying to work out just how to make it happen. This is a good thing because the story is promising to be more complex being split into two distinctly different locations (I’m not giving anything else away on that, it’s a surprise!).

Tags: agents, Persistent Spirit, planning, submissions, writing
Posted in Getting it Done, TableRappers | 1 Comment »