Welcome to my blog - a collection of thoughts and musings on the world of writing, books and all those wordy type things.

Thursday 23 April 2015

Maintaining The Search

So, just a quick update for you on the Great Agent Search.

The quest didn't get off to a great start when the first agent that I approached, one that in the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook mentioned their speciality as 'encouraging new writers' replied advising that they weren't accepting new submissions at present.

With that one out of the way, I tried my next favourite. I got a reply back from this company on Tuesday. Unfortunately, another rejection. Also unfortunately, the agent advises - as is often the case, that they are too swamped to go over the reasons as to why it wasn't suitable. I completely understand this situation but it can be a little frustrating to not know what areas may need some improvement in order to give the work a better chance. They did advise to try another agent because publishing is such a subjective business, but, as far as my experience goes, I think that's just a pretty standard final paragraph on a rejection letter.

Yesterday morning (Wednesday), I went back to the list I'd made and chose another agency before heading to their website to read up on them, and check their submission procedure. The first two both took about a week or so to get back to me, which is much quicker than when I was doing an agent search a number of years ago now for my first novel - the delights of the digital age! However, this one does warn of a longer waiting period, so I may well do as I'd mentioned in my previous post and get off another couple of submissions during the next couple of days as well.

That's all the news for now. Sorry I don't have anything more exciting to report! I hope all of your writing is going well, and if you are also in search of an agent, that your own quest is faring a little better than mine at present.

Happy Writing!

6 comments:

  1. Good luck with the hunt.

    A quick reply is good, even if the answer isn't what you want. Some of those I've queried in the past never got back to me at all. I know they're very busy, but I'd expected them to at least press reply and type 'no thanks'.

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    1. I completely agree. It's good to know that you can move on to the next, rather than waiting on a reply that's just never going to come. As most submissions are done electronically these days, as you say, it's pretty easy to just take two seconds to give a 'no thanks' if that's the answer.

      Thanks for the comment, Patsy!

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  2. Golly! how familiar that all sounds! I gave up limiting myself to one submission at a time. It does mean that the rejections come in batches too, but at least you're not waiting weeks between subs.

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    1. That's true! I have still only actually sent out on at a time at the moment, but that was really down to time rather than choice. The latest one mentions they can take some time so I may end up trying to send off a couple more soon.

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  3. Always difficult, but at least you weren't waiting months.

    A few weeks ago I went to a writers' conference, and the panel with the agents was popular.
    Agents, Carole Blake and Ben Clark said it was worthwhile approaching younger agents (who have gained their experience within agencies, and have moved on to set up their own).
    It was that these agents will be looking to build their lists, and obviously the writer would not be trying to get representation when the established agents may already have clients within the same writing area.
    Fingers crossed for you.

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    1. Thanks for the tip, Carol! I can certainly see the logic in that. Definitely something to bear in mind for my continuing search!

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