Fanfare! Submission Gong

Erica Verrillo

13 Writing Conferences in February 2017

  • Erica Verrillo
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Jay Aitch

ProWritingAid opinions

  • Jay Aitch
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Robinne Weiss said:
DING, DING, DING! First three submissions of a totally rewritten novel that I haven't sent out in a year. Hoping for new traction this year, as it deals with an emerging disease spread by Aedes aegypti...not to capitalize on the horror of Zika virus, but I was planning on restarting my submissions of it anyway.
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Good luck! Nothing wrong with being topical.
 
Robinne Weiss said:
DING, DING, DING! First three submissions of a totally rewritten novel that I haven't sent out in a year. Hoping for new traction this year, as it deals with an emerging disease spread by Aedes aegypti...not to capitalize on the horror of Zika virus, but I was planning on restarting my submissions of it anyway.
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Good luck! I've made 36 queries in the last two weeks, receiving three swift rejections—including one from an agency who sniffily replied that they only accept hard copies—even though their website states they're glad to take queries by email. This sort of thing is typical, and I swear agents don't read their own sites.
 
Paul Whybrow said:
Good luck! I've made 36 queries in the last two weeks, receiving three swift rejections—including one from an agency who sniffily replied that they only accept hard copies—even though their website states they're glad to take queries by email. This sort of thing is typical, and I swear agents don't read their own sites.
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36!
It took me half the day to submit one. The next one requires a CV! That's another half a day.
 
I did send out my second submission of the murder mystery to the last! Australian agent two weeks ago. Ding ding ;-)
 
So, up until now, the only people who have known about my writing are the good people of Litopia and a few close family and friends.

But today, I sent off 20 submissions to UK based agents for PET FOOD - THE STARTER.

Some with 2-page synopsis, some with 1 page, some with 300-word synopsis. Some online forms, some with the first 3 chapters, some with the first 5000 words. Lots of different formats, but they have gone.

Now, I have the funny feeling of not knowing what to do next? I looked up some of the agent's profiles on Twitter, and they look to be settling into the Christmas party season, silly hats and silly grins. I shall send another batch tomorrow, but it's an end of sorts, so I am glad about that.

I think this scene from Castaway sums up how I am feeling now.

 
Good luck Emurelda and KG.
KG, send a couple of batches, stop and wait for responses. Wrtie something else, have a drink or two (not too much), play with your kids or pets or whatever. That's the sensible advice. I generally bite my nails and have nightmares during daytime. :rolleyes:
 
Peggy Lou said:
Good luck Emurelda and KG.
KG, send a couple of batches, stop and wait for responses. Wrtie something else, have a drink or two (not too much), play with your kids or pets or whatever. That's the sensible advice. I generally bite my nails and have nightmares during daytime. :rolleyes:
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Yes I agree with the pause. I've done a couple of submissions now I'm reflecting on some good advice and adjusting in the process. I have to say am learning so much now that agents are giving me a bit more feedback to go on e.g. connecting with characters more. That way when I resubmit I'm sending of a fresh story hopefully a little more improved.
 
Good luck to anyone who's submitting. I reckon from my experience of querying, the average waiting time for a response from agents is two months. The slowest took 16 months to respond, but at least they did—it almost made me feel guilty imagining them wading through piles of manuscripts.

I recently received my 15th rejection letter from the latest batch of 60 queries I sent out in October/November, and it was the first personalised message. It came from a relatively new agency that's run by two women—I've found that small independent agencies and publishers are always more polite than the big boys.

The reply said that 'although I write beautifully, giving a keen sense of time and place, and with a compelling plot, my story didn't fit their current search for new projects to take on.'

As rejections go, this was encouraging, but it made me think that even though they liked my novel, there was something lacking. I skipped around that booby-trapped doubt for a while, before pondering that it's utterly impossible to know what commercial considerations an agent is judging a manuscript by—such as location, the amount of sex and violence in the story (too little or too much)—and other irksome factors like the age of the writer, their appearance and existing online presence.

Also—and this is a scary thought, as it's even more unknowable—perhaps the agency you've just spend hours preparing an immaculate submissions package for, simply isn't considering any new clients at all, as they're already at full-stretch promoting the work of their existing roster. The best literary agencies say on their website if they are not looking for new clients—Agent Pete's Redhammer Agency has such a statement about unsolicited submissions.

But, as anyone who's researched literary agencies knows, they are not great communicators and the last place to find accurate information about their likes and dislikes is their official website. I've found sites featuring agents who'd moved on to other firms or retired. Some agents' employee profiles stated that they were actively looking for fresh talent, but their Twitter and Facebook postings declared they had enough clients!

I guess agencies don't update their own websites, for fear of losing out on the next J K Rowling or Dan Brown—even if this does mean they routinely turn away thousands of other hopefuls.
 
Karen Gray said:
Well, I'm of the opinion that my series is considered too big of a risk and likely it will end up my only option. Will keep the gongs going though, hopefully I will get a bite over this next year, if not I'll publish book 1 myself then.
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Have you ever considered Amazon Scout? Or has anyone? It seems like a cool way to get a leg up if you're going the self-publishing route.
 
Very cool thread :) I sent out about 20 queries to agents and 2 to publishers that accept direct submissions in the past month. So . . . GONG! That felt good.

Actually, I feel a little off-footed about having sent the books to publishers as well (Harlequin and Kensington), and I'd love others' opinions on it. Do you think that if, say, someone gets rejected by publishers directly, that if an agent is interested they'll pass them up because they've closed that door? I'm pretty sure that submissions are imprint-based so that if you're rejected by one, you might still be picked up by another imprint within that publisher with an agent. But, is that a huge red flag to agents? Does anyone have any insight on that?
 
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Erica Verrillo

13 Writing Conferences in February 2017

  • Erica Verrillo
  • Replies: 0
Jay Aitch

ProWritingAid opinions

  • Jay Aitch
  • Replies: 4
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