The 'Dear John' I Sent to My Agent

I have ended the arrangement with my dear agent. The contract expired months ago, but we hung in there together, despite the fact that she was ill for most of last year and was so far behind with her work.

It was a very hard decision for me. She absolutely loved The Place of Dreams - which title she suggested rather than the original, somewhat cumbersome, Hafan Deg. So I will keep it. It's almost representational of all my writing - for when we write, doesn't it feel like a kind of dreaming?

And I continue to dream about what is possible for all my work, despite the setbacks.

Finding an agent who has fallen in love with your work is a very special thing. I clung to the idea that this was the one, this time we would get somewhere...but it wasn't to be. I didn't want to add more stress to her days with constant emails, didn't want to ask where the manuscript had been. I was so very, very patient, and I truly am not getting any younger.

But on Monday, sending off queries for my other books (which I mentioned I'd started doing in my last post), I suddenly saw how underhanded I was being. It felt a little treacherous, even though I had signed with her for only one book, over eighteen months ago. So I sent off my sad little message, suggesting it was time to find someone new. And it felt just like a 'Dear John' letter - really!

So The Place of Dreams is now out there in the agent-ozone, waiting to be opened, to be read, to get a nice "Interesting!" or "Do-able!" response. Or to join the other books on some kind of digital slush pile.

I'm sort of ok with it now, but I was a bit lost after I fired off that email on Monday. Trooper that she is, a true lady, she was friendly and understanding about my decision. She even agreed that we should remain in touch, shoot the breeze from time to time - my need more than hers, I suspect, as a writer does crave a certain amount of sympathy quite regularly.

And once again I'm back at QueryTracker and Publishers Marketplace, et al, every day, researching, researching, looking for that perfect agent who will fall in love with one of my manuscripts - well, let's be frank - who will fall in love with one of my queries.

Shakespeare wrote "The play's the thing!" as Hamlet tried to "...catch the conscience of the King." But the Query is the most important thing from where I'm sitting, as it tries to catch the eye of an agent. Of course, Shakespeare didn't have to look for an agent - in fact, some say he was the agent for the real playwright of all those works he claimed as his.

Boy, did I get off topic. It's been happening a lot, lately.

This querying business could damage one's mental health. Just saying...

Summer Reflection on the Query Process

I received a rejection for Hafan Deg yesterday, from a New York Agent. Here it is - succinct and concise - "Sorry, tough to sell here, in my view." Well, I think she said it all with that 'here'. Considering the amount of interest I did receive, I think I wasted my time with all those New York queries and should have approached Britain in the first place.

For your interest, I've now received 15 rejections, 13 haven't responded after 90 days, 1 offer of representation, 1 request for the full manuscript received after the offer, and there are still 3 pending, for a total of 33 queries since February 16. I suppose I could email the pending ones and tell them I have an agent now, but that would defeat the purpose of keeping a statistics summary. Of the ones who never got back to me, 2 were the only online form submissions, and 9 accepted one page queries only. They were also my earliest queries, and I improved as the weeks went by, became more confident, less tremulous in my approach. I hope all of this makes you feel a bit better about your own query experiences, if you're there yet.

Thankfully, Strachan's Attic is now safely with my agent, too, and perhaps I'll get a verdict on it before I take my vacation. I am now in a strange no-man's land of wandering my apartment finding odd things to do, little tasks that get put on the back burner during my normal day. It's the summer of course, making my brain slow down, and allowing me to appreciate this short, short time of easy strolls, and outdoor meals. Not that our summer has been so great; it's more reminiscent of an English summer the way things used to be over there, before their weather patterns changed.

Speaking of vacations, I think my cats know I'm leaving soon. They are strangely quiet and contemplative around me. I believe they sense my plans, somehow, even though I've only pulled my rolling bag out once, to clean the wheels. My friend up the street will come in twice a day to tend to them over the two weeks, and to sit with them and have a chat. Not that Jeevesie will come out from under the bed while he's here, although it's possible. It will be an opportunity to teach him that I'm not the only one in the world who cares about him. Perhaps by the time I'm back, Jeeves will be sitting on Larry's lap. I do hope that happens. I have huge guilt about this, you understand. But a cattery would be worse.

Have a quiet, easy weekend. It's that kind of sticky weather here where nothing too physical gets done, and that's fine.

Querying Two Novels - How tricky is that?

I wrote over two chapters this weekend (6,600 words) in my effort to move my main protagonist, Strachan, permanently back to the modern world. She doesn't want to go, so I'm stuck in the 40s for a little longer. I remind you that I am at the mercy of my characters. This week is crunch time. Who's the Momma here?

Soon, probably by fall, I should be querying agents for two novels. You can't query them together, because they don't want to know about your second until they've sold the first, but it makes life a little easier for me, this round. I've researched and approached so many agents, that it will be relatively easy to identify the true possibilities. I know who doesn't respond at all (a bit rude, I think - the bottom of my list), and the tone and substance of rejections, so the most approachable will be at the top.

But what if you sent out one book to a new agent on your list who hated it, when she might have loved the second? I suppose, depending on the quality of her rejection, you simply shoot back a second query, saying something like, "Well, I do have this other one, by the way, which could be more your style..." I mean, you've established contact, right? That's one of our biggest challenges.

I know a lot of you have written more than one book, yet to be picked up. How do you deal with it? Or, if you're in the same boat as I am, how will you deal with it, when the time comes.

As it is now, I end my query letter with, "This is my second novel. The first is currently being revised." So far, no one has sent a rejection with the postcript, "Oh, do send us details on your other book when it's ready, as perhaps we'll like that one much better."

We writers are an over-imaginative lot, aren't we?

Full Manuscript Request and Very Little Giddiness...

I don't know if you saw my postscript on Monday or not, but, after my positive thinking about that nice agent who asked for the partial, I was promptly asked for the FULL Hafan Deg manuscript! He also requested a thirty-day exclusive on it, and I'm happy with that.

Funny thing is, I'm not overwhelmed by this, and I thought I would be. I mean, I don't want to sound casual about it, but I am just so relaxed with this whole query process. If it happens, it happens. (Which is in keeping with my more or less Buddhist philosophy on life, anyway.) You'd think there would be anxiety, but I've so come to terms with the constant reminders of the time it can take to find an agent, that I'm not really expecting one yet. How practical and sensible is that? Anyway, one agent has Hafan Deg from start to finish, and I hope he enjoys it, but I'm also thinking that a partial is now being opened at another agency, mailed the week before, and I'm wondering if something might come of that, too. It would be uplifting to have to apologize to them that the full couldn't be released to them yet, right? Oh, optimistic fool!

When I first started querying, I was surprised at how easily I sent my snippets out. I enjoy the research, tweaking my little stats spreadsheet I've set up in XL, and updating my Query Tracker list. I figure I have a lot more names to add before the exercise is complete - if ever. The act of querying has become a sort of game, and quite fun.

Can you believe that after all this time, re-writing and re-writing, weeping over words, reading blogs that depressed or alarmed me, being warned about "agent" con artists, hearing about failing publishing companies, and that e-publishing is the wave of the future...all of this stress suddenly disappeared as soon as I let the book go? Well, it did.

Hafan Deg is on its own out there now, I hope safely, in professional hands, and I'm not experiencing that stab of pain felt when I handed a child over to school that very first day, and I thought I would.

We've all had it drummed into us online that it could take 30, 40, 50 or more queries before we get a nibble. Some never get a nibble. So I came into this expecting to wait quite a while, and it somehow released me to get on with writing Strachan's Attic. I honestly think this has been the saving grace. If you haven't already done it, start on that next book now. It will renew you.

So - Query Summary - 12 Pending, 1 Partial, 1 Full with exclusivity, and 5 Rejects.

And I'm just about as relaxed as I can be.

Spring is Here!

All the little new things will be here soon - leaves on the trees, flowers, tiny birds, and new-born lambs. I love the Fall, but Spring is renewal time. For all of us, but especially for those of us who live in the Northern snow belt, this is the energizing season, when all of us are coming up with plans for ourselves - to re-do the living room, get the garden seeded, do some yard sale browsing. For the writer, it's to get the book finished, to get it edited, to get it published, dang it! I am full of optimism and energy. I hope this beautiful season brings you the same joy.

I shot off another query yesterday, to keep my percolating ones to a count of 12. Summary: 12 pending, 5 rejects, 1 partial out there. When I sent off that query yesterday, I mistakenly said I had pasted in 10 chapters (I wish!), instead of the suggested 10 pages, so I quickly sent a correction to them. This morning there was a response, and I thought it was bound to be one of those instant rejects, but it was "No Problem!" Such a generous response! Such an upbeat two words! Such an enthusiastic exclamation mark! Surely I can read something into this... As it's such a lovely day, I believe I will.

Of course, spare cash is always a problem, isn't it, for most of us? I was therefore delighted to receive this email yesterday. A Half-Million Dollars for helping someone out? My goodness, talk about perfect timing!

"Hi Dear,

l saw your profil and go through it and willing to contact you, I have to introduce myself for you, I am Mr.David Komu, the only son of late Chief and Mrs George Komu, I wish to request for your assistance in my efforts to procure the transfer of my inherited funds for investment ventures.

I have Five Million Dollars ($5.000,000.00) here in my name with one of the prime banks here and I will require for your assistance in receiving the transfer of the funds in your local bank account for investment purposes. As it is my desire to come over to your country to further my education
while you take goodcare of the investment, I will be very glad to give you 10% of the total sum for your co-operation.

I will be very appreciative if you can return to me with urgent dispatch to enable me advise you on the modalities.

I am waiting for your immediate response.

My Kind Regards!
Mr.David Komu

Please reply to me with this my private email.
davidkomu002@yahoo.com"

Seriously, I'm amazed that this kind of stuff is still floating around. Do we all come across as total idiots, naive Westerners with no brains to speak of? I think it's that assumption that most offends me. Give me a slick, clever, intuitive con man any day, over the insulting ones.

I was going to suggest that we all, as many as possible, email him back and lead him on, as it were. I found a wonderful English site some years back, where this chap kept up tanatalizing online correspondence with several similar writers for months, representing himself to them as a vicar, a baronet, a professor, and so on. The stuff he posted was some of the funniest I've read. Of course, finally the naughty crooks realized what was happening to them. If I can find the "vicar's" post, I'll put it up sometime.

Take a break from the writing this weekend and go out and enjoy this new season. It's still cold here, but that's just the last of Nature's little jokes. Pretend it's really warm.

POSTSCRIPT: That nice agent just asked for three-chapters!