“I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” – Harper Lee
It’s been twenty hours and nineteen days since I sent out my first query for Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two: The Memoirs of an Emotionally Unstable, Middle-Aged Marathoner. Considering I’ve been working on this book since 2012, that doesn’t seem very long. But it’s killing me. I’m not sure I have what it takes to do the dance of finding an agent and publisher. While friends urge me to self-publish, I really want to give this agent thing a try. This is by far the best book of the many I’ve written.
While I wait, I’m researching other agents using my favorite tool querytracker.net. I sort agents by genre then genre within genre and even genre within genre within genre. I narrowed the 1,400 agents in the data base down to those accepting queries, limited that to those interested in memoir, then narrowed that list by those who are interested in pets. (Morgan, our yellow Labrador, is featured prominently in the book.) And finally, just for fun I limited it again to agents who are interested in sports. That only left me with twelve agents, two of whom work for the same agency, so I decided to just use the 300 some folks interested in memoirs as my working base.
Querytracker also lets me see, according to the data its users provide, which agents are more likely to request pages. This is a limited sampling of course since not all writers use this data base, but it’s a way to sift through the agent pool in a manner other than just throwing darts at their names pasted on a wall.
Another useful bit of information it provides is all known clients of an agent. With the links to amazon.com, I can skim the books each agent has represented and see if any are like mine. I’m not always certain what to do with this information. If a book is similar, does that mean the agent is more likely to take on my book or does it mean her stable is full of memoirs by middle-aged, bipolar, marathoners who love dogs. The process is complicated.
An additional quandary is what to do when several agents who seem to be good matches all work for the same agency. It’s bad form to query more than one agent at the same place. The other day I found five agents who all like pets and sports and who represent memoirs and are open to queries. Five! Do I pick the most senior agent on the theory that he or she is more experienced and therefore “better?” Or do I go with the newbie who has no clients listed and who might be more eager to take a chance on a new author? I’ll probably take the goldilocks method: not too hot, not too cold. I’ll take the middle way and query one of the mid-range agents.
Thankfully this process gives me something to do while I await a response from agent number one. In the future, I’ll submit to more than one agent at a time. But I wanted to give this one agent who seemed like an excellent fit a chance before sending simultaneous submissions. I’ve been told by people who know that I should wait three weeks before sending a “nudge” email to the agent. I’m not a patient person so it’s been interminable.
When I’m not researching agents, surfing Facebook, or playing computer solitaire, I’ve filled the remaining hours researching contests. I submitted to one contest after being terribly confused by seemingly inconsistent deadlines and instructions. But I received a kind email saying they had received my submission and would let me know in August (August!) if I’d won anything.
Time. This process takes time. If you can think of anything else for me to do while I wait, let me know. I already run nearly twenty miles a week. Maybe I should take up crochet or needlepoint. Maybe not.