From: cope@davecopeland.com
To: XXXXXXXXX
January 2, 2007, 2:24 p.m.
Re: swift kick in the pants

No is the reality of the business. In my experience, it's been the baker's dozen rule -- you get told no 12 times before someone finally says yes. And they may just be saying yes to read your proposal after you query, and then they'll say no. Just remember that their job is to say no and they'll find any reason to do their job: they have dozens if not hundreds of great and not-so-great writers pitching them. Getting an agent is the hard part; once you have one, at least you'll have someone else soften the blow when the publishers say no.

If it helps, I queried 12 agents. Seven or eight agreed to read the proposal but only one agreed to represent me. And when 20 or so publishers had said no, he dropped me, leaving me to pitch four last publishers on my own. ONE said yes.

So the odds are long but have faith in your abilities and know that a certain amount of this is luck. And persistence generally increases your odds of finding good luck.

All that said, I pretty much broke the "no simultaneous submissions" rule. My feeling is that a query is not a submission and, 18 months after the fact I still haven't heard back from some of the agents I pitched. So if I played by the rules very literally, I'd be pitching agent two or three right about now instead of planning a book release party. The industry is so fickle that a good idea today may be an bad idea six months from now so you need to protect your interests and be proactive about getting feelers out there.

The biggest piece of advice I can give you is sign up for MediaBistro for a month or two and research all of the agents you're interested in pitching. They do a great job of featuring different agents and you'll get lots of info you won't get in places like Publisher's Weekly or Writer's Market.

Most importantly, you'll learn how each agent likes to be pitched: some want a one-page query only while others, at the other end of the spectrum, want the full proposal. Knowing how they like to be pitched will save lots of time and also show you've done your homework. So in response to your "Is this what you did?" question, it is, for the most part, but there were some cases where I needed to change it up a bit.

If you are lucky enough to get multiple agents interested in your project, figure out which one is going to work hardest for you. While he didn't ultimately sell my book, I loved my agent and hope he'll represent my next project: he was well liked by the publishers I spoke with but more importantly, he and his wife spent three months helping me fine-tune the proposal before he even sent it out to anyone. There is a reason why publishers say he represents the best written proposals. He also put me up for consideration for another project when it looked like B&V was dead; the publisher was looking for someone to co-author a book with a noteworthy figure and I ended up being one of three finalists for the project because of him recommending me and selling me.

In other words, look for an agent who is interested in seeing you develop a career as an author; some agents will take what you give them, blindly mail it to a few editors, follow up with phone calls and figure if they get a deal, it's an easy 15%; otherwise, there are plenty of other writers sending them proposals. The best agents are helping you think about your next project before you even sell your first one.

But most importantly, get it the hell out there. You're going to be told no over and over again so at the very least, it's good practice. But more importantly, the sooner you can get all those no's under your belt you'll be that much closer to someone saying yes.

If you'd like me to take a quick read of your proposal before you send it out for style suggestions, I'd be more than happy to do so. Otherwise, good luck and don't hesitate to hit me if/when you need someone to commiserate with.

Labels: bloodandvolume, writing

RSS feed

Atom feed

Get this blog via email