Good morning, friends.
Mr. Happy, Steve Laube, is going to say happy things today that will warm your hearts and tickle your toes.
Well, maybe not.
Unfortunately some may not like this dose of reality, but to prepare you for the wild and woolly world of publishing I think you should hear it.
Getting an agent to represent you isn’t a guarantee of a book contract. It is a step in that direction. But only among the first steps.
Of course, we are going to try our best, based on our experience and our instincts, to represent a writer and a project that we think will find a great publishing partner. It’s how we make a living! If the project doesn’t sell, we don’t get paid either.
However, we do provide the author a partnership, a person who can guide the writer to the best career choices, to lend expertise on all manner of idiosyncrasies in our industry. Someone who cares about you and your work!
We feel it when we receive a rejection for your project. Imagine if we have a dozen different book ideas circulating with multiple publishers. We can receive rejection every day, sometimes more than one a day. We know that telling you the news isn’t happiness on your end. But we, too, are disappointed.
However, rejection is part of the business. The old-style, door-to-door salesman wouldn’t make a sale at every home; but if they made one or two out of a hundred they would be considered successful!
We also believe that it may not be the first project we try to sell that is the “one.” It might be your next idea, or your third. We have a number of clients whose first book didn’t dent the publishing rosters, but with perseverance a home was found for their book ideas.
All this is to say, we don’t have some super-secret formula that works every time. We believe that our time will be well spent when we sign a new author to our agency. But there are always disappointments. Be sure to keep that in the back of your mind when you talk to a prospective agent or agency. Managing expectations is part of becoming a professional in this business!
Fun Fridays – October 21, 2022
The wild and wooly bookish biz
(so it seems, so I’ve been told
by the experts) really is
something just like panning gold,
crouching in a freezing stream
up to you-know-where in sand,
looking for the shining gleam
in nuggets (Hey, I cannot feel my hand!).
What’s in the pan is washed away,
for it lacks that heavy ore,
but sometimes flakes and pebbles stay
to open the life-changing door
of wealth that makes heart and head spin,
and drives to do it all again.
I did some modeling and acting in Miami for a couple years “back in the day.” My success rate was about 1 gig for every 8 auditions/“cattle calls.”
I kept track of the rejections and learned to see them as stepping stones to success. The most difficult part was the successes not being evenly distributed through the rejections. I once had four successes all together. There was an off-setting dry spell either side.
You just can’t quit.
I read biographies about people like Ray Kroc snd Thomas Edison to keep myself moving forward.
I try to tell myself that a “thanks but no thanks” from a publisher isn’t a hard “no” so much as it is a “not today, but maybe next year.”
Thanks for the information. It’s good to know. Thank you for your newsletter; it has been quite informative.
So true. I’ve learned a lot by trial and error. The best thing that’s ever happened to me was to be represented by Tamela. I landed my first contract when I thought I might be taking up space on her roster. Listen to the advice of your agent and be persistent.
Yes, such important info for us to know. We have to keep writing new things, even past getting an agent. Perseverance!
Steve Laube, ray of sunshine. 😉
But really, your frankness and realism is appreciated. Knowing that the first book doesn’t always land a home is encouraging for those of us on book two, three, four…
Can you think of any particular authors who didn’t sell a first book that might surprise us? Have you had any who were able to go back and sell that first book later in their career?
Thanks for the reality check, Steve.