As I mentioned previously, I met with two agents last weekend to pitch them my novel, and graciously, both expressed interest in seeing it once it’s finished. Though I had only ten minutes to speak with each, I took many things away from our conversations, the best being: an ounce more confidence than I’ve ever had before as a writer. I’m on the right track, and someday, this book will be published.
In the past few days, some people have asked me how I came about the opportunity to pitch an agent so I thought it might be helpful to share my answer here. It started with a tight budget and a new years’ resolution: my grace period for going without work is definitely in its final phase, and I knew this coming into 2015. Dying were my aspirations to self-publish the novel – I would need professional help, I decided, if I ever really want to see it when I walk into Barnes & Noble (and I do!). So, I set a resolution to publish my novel this year: ambitious and far-fetched, but if you don’t try your darnedest, you don’t get anywhere now do you?
So there it was. In the early days of January, I started my research. I looked at the spines of my favorite books and followed each publisher I saw on Twitter. I started looking for addresses: where could I mail a sample of my novel so that a publisher might pick it up? RED LIGHT. You cannot mail your manuscript to a publisher and hope it will end up in print someday. I mean, you can. Nothing is stopping you. But it won’t work. Maybe, maaaaaaybe a small publishing house with in-house agents/readers will stick it on a desk before filing it in the trash can, but Penguin, Random House? Forget it.
So, I asked Google, how does a person get published anyway? Which led me to a great number of articles on the importance of having an agent in order to be published. Oh yes, an agent – I already knew this but somehow forgot it. Isn’t that life? So I looked in the Acknowledgements section of my favorite books and found the names of some agents. I Googled them: they’re all in New York. I looked in some of my more local books and found some more agents: still all in New York. I began to panic because, sure, you can mail your manuscript to an agent and have at least a mild expectation that it will be read, but everything online (and my gut instinct) tells me I need to meet an agent in person if for no other reason than to demonstrate that I’m not just another insane wannabe author like they deal with every single day. And I can’t fly to New York; the budget just won’t allow it.
So, hi there Google, tell me how a Seattleite meets a literary agent without leaving town. And voila, I found yet another piece of information to which I already knew the answer but had forgotten: attend a writing workshop with agents present. Yes, yes I can do this. Seattle has no shortage of writing conferences. Just one more problem: they can be very expensive. And none of them happen in January.
A bit of online digging brought me to Chuck Sambuchino’s Seattle Writing Workshop, the perfect confluence of timeline (coming in February!), content (agents available to hear your pitch!), and pricing (only $129, plus $29 per agent-pitch!). To say the opportunity was too good to refuse is to understate it. And in retrospect, I would have paid twice as much (just don’t tell that to Chuck) – the value of the workshop exceeded expectations on all fronts, contained the most relevant information on how to get published, and opened doors I never thought I could open on my own. Plus the confidence thing.
Long story short: do you have a lifelong dream? Pick a year to get it done, start your research, meet some people, and go from there. The internet can direct you to resources you haven’t even imagined. (Or otherwise forgot.)
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