It’s Wednesday and I’m sitting here having my coffee and taking one last stab at looking up literary agents. I’ve been at this game for awhile. I know we’re not supposed to say that, but sometimes you have to wonder why not? I’ve read articles where the writers says, don’t say you’ve been trying to get published for a long time. So saying, “I’ve been working to be published for years,” will cause agents and editors to be turned off? I always thought that when you worked to achieve something for several years or more that it showed determination to succeed. That you truly wanted what you were fighting for. That you developed experience that no one else had. It’s how you succeed in business and writing and publishing although a love, is also a business.
My research often involves stopping by Writers Digest.com and partaking of the various articles including the How I Found My Literary Agent forum by Chuck Sambuchino, which is always of interest. But something I noticed, and I just tweeted @ChuckSambuchino to ask – I mean, asking never hurts right?
Many of the postings are from authors, and props to them, who were able to obtain their agents within a few months to a year. It’s wonderful but – what about those of us who haven’t quite yet reached that pinnacle? Looking at them perhaps the rest of us may wonder, what are we doing wrong? We’re doing everything that needs to be done. We’ve done a complete Remington Steele, you know, studied and apprenticed, we’ve read, we’ve written, we’ve had our work beta-read, and we wrote the perfect query. We’ve had bites, we’ve even published online but we have still haven’t quite made it.
Then of course, the doubts start creeping in. That little voice that says, you know exactly why you haven’t received an offer. You try to ignore it but it isn’t always easy. A little encouragement goes a long way.
I believe it would be helpful if the forum posted a story from someone who had to take a big chunk of their lives before they succeeded for various reasons. Life sometimes gets in the way. Did I say sometimes? How about a ridiculous number of times? It would be very heartening to see that despite this, there is success at the end of the tunnel.
Now I know people have to volunteer to post but as previously stated, I’m hoping there is somewhere in the archives, an instance like this. And if not, I’d like to encourage my fellow authors who had to take the long road to an offer to post. From the WD.com site and as Chuck Sambuchino wrote, “If you have a literary agent and would be interested in writing a short guest column for this GLA blog, e-mail me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com and we’ll talk specifics.”
I for one would be very interested in seeing these stories. Anyone else? Post your support here.
It’s off to the 9 to 5 for me in a little bit. Have a fab day, everyone!
Peace~
CJ Black
Musings 7/30/14 ~ Writer’s Digest: How About Our Lit Agent Stories?
Author WA Simpson 