“Try to get it published,” I reply.

“Well duh,” says the friend or family member, “but how do you do that?”

“Simple,” I say.  “All it takes is faith and trust, and a little bit of pixie dust.”

My friend or family member’s eyebrows scrunch.  “Isn’t that how you fly?”

Oh, right.  I sometimes get mixed up, because getting published can seem about as impossible as flying.

The good news is, while no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be able to fly (somewhere, a fairy just fell down dead from my implication that there’s no such thing as pixie dust), persistent work may land me a publishing contract.  If I get lucky.  (See, I do believe in fairies, as well as their dust.)

What I’ve discovered inquiring non-writer minds want to know is:  what exactly is that work which, combined with luck, gets a writer published?  That’s what I’m here to tell you.

The Pitch

Once I’ve completed a novel, I must then reduce those 50-100,000 carefully chosen words to 100 or fewer even more carefully chosen words that summarize what my novel is about, capture my tone and style, and make a stranger want to read my book.  Think back cover blurb.

It sounds easy to write a pitch if you’ve already managed to complete a novel, but don’t ever say that to a writer.  Writing a novel is the easy part.  Pitches make writers curl up into the fetal position and wish they’d worked harder at math.

The Agent

If the purpose of the pitch is to make someone want to read my book, then it logically follows that there’s an audience for my pitch.  That would be where literary agents come in.

One upon a time, writers could pitch novels directly to publishers.  In the current economic climate, publishers can’t afford to bank on books that won’t sell.  Since there are thousands of writers trying to get published, the easiest way for publishers to find the novels that will make the New York Times bestsellers list is to consider only work that comes to them via literary agencies.  Agents weed out the drivel and the dreck from  thousands of submissions because they don’t make any money unless publishers pick up their clients.  (An agent typically receives a 15% commission from a book’s total earnings.)

It’s easy for writers to find agents, because we have our own yellow pages of sorts.  The Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market lists the contact info for hundreds of literary agents.  I prefer to use AgentQuery — same info, but free, and also searchable by genre.

The Query

Armed with a pitch and a list of agents, I begin the query process, which consists of emailing and snail-mailing my pitch to agents.  At first contact, most agents only want to see a pitch; a few will, additionally, ask for a detailed synopsis of the entire novel; even fewer will ask for the pitch and the first couple of pages; fewer still ask for a couple of chapters along with the pitch.  Whatever the agent’s submission requirements, I have very little with which to make a big impression!

The Response

More often than not, my queries are met with rejection letters.  That’s something you have to prepare yourself for if you’re going to seek publication:  you will get rejected.  Again and again.  It sucks, but you have to deal with it.

I deal with it by expecting to be rejected; that way I’m never disappointed (well, not much, and not for long), just pleasantly surprised.

So far, I’ve pitched Songs for Piano and Voice to fourteen agents.  Seven of those fourteen agents gave me flat nos (including a few “dear author” form rejections).  Six haven’t responded, though three I don’t expect will at all, as they specify in their submission guidelines that they only respond to projects that interest them.

One agent has responded positively to my pitch.  She asked to read my first five pages to see if my style suited her representation.  Oddly, as I composed this post, she replied to decline my project.

If she’d liked my pages, however, she probably would have asked to read the rest of my manuscript or a chapter-by-chapter summary.  And if she’d liked that, she probably would have offered to represent me.  Then she would have begun the task of shopping my book to publishers.

Rejection stings (content more so than a simple query), but I remain hopeful that someday I’ll tweak the verb tense in the previous paragraph.  Until then, I’ll continue to query.  After all, I’ve only queried fourteen agents out of hundreds.  And I do believe in fairies, and their dust.

And that’s what you do after you finish writing a novel.  Questions?

That was in an agent bio I read yesterday.  Now, she certainly has the credentials to justify name dropping, but it made me laugh nonetheless. Because it made me think of The Office:  “I’m Dwight Schrute, Assistant Regional Manager” and Michael cutting in, “Assistant to the Regional Manager.”  Finding things to laugh about is how I cope with the stress of the agent hunt.  (Actually, it’s how I cope with most stressful things, but this post is not about other stressful things.)

A few of my readers might be writers, and so you’ll know well the process I’m about to describe — and may not have any interest in reliving it!  But for those of you who have ever wondered what happens after a writer has finished a novel and before it’s published, this is what we go through.

After months, or even years (I started my first draft in April, 2008, and finished it in August, 2009), writing, editing and polishing your novel, making it the best it can possibly be, you’ve then got to summarize the entire scope of this 100 thousand word manuscript into a measly 100 words. That’s right:  all you have to sell your novel to an agent, who then must try to sell your novel to a publisher, is 100 words.  And it’s not just your novel you’ve got to sell.  In much fewer than 100 words, you’ve also got to sell yourself as a marketable commodity even if you have zero publications to your name and little writing experience apart from a few short stories in college.  Nothing makes you feel more vulnerable than sending that off to agents whose clients include bestsellers and award winners.  You hit “send” and then are left to wonder whether your novel will sound like the stupidest, most trite bit of writing ever to appear in their inbox.  It’s enough to make you lose sleep, throw up everything you eat (if you can eat at all), chew your nails down to the quicks,or  get really drunk.  Certainly you will check your email compulsively every five minutes.

Fellow writers, this need not be! I have developed the perfect no-stress method for querying agents:

Wait until the last 2-4 weeks of your pregnancy. Querying agents is a great distraction from waiting for your water to break, and nesting the excitement of the impending birth of your child is a great distraction from awaiting replies. And then, when you do receive three rejection letters out of your first four queries, you can’t even really feel that disappointed, because you’ve got a little bundle of joy and unconditional love and acceptance on the way.  It’s an absolutely foolproof strategy, I tell you!

Okay, so it’s really only foolproof if you happen to be pregnant.  What if you don’t have the distraction of a coming baby while you’re in the querying process?  How do you cope with the inevitable rejection?  Because you will be rejected.  Maybe once. Maybe twice.  Maybe three times.  (I was, three times, in the space of 12 hours.)  Maybe more.  Almost certainly more, the more queries you send out.  (And the more agents you query, the more likely you are to find one who wants to represent you.)  How do you deal with the negative responses?

I choose to deal with my rejection letters on a case-by-case basis, looking beyond the “no” for what each agent is really saying about my query.  Here are some examples of my recent rejections.

Rejection Letter #1: The Form Letter

“Dear Author:

Thank you so much for…your query. We’d like to apologize for the impersonal nature of this standard rejection letter. Rest assured that we do read every query letter carefully and, unfortunately, this project is not right for us. Because this business is so subjective and opinions vary widely, we recommend that you pursue other agents. After all, it just takes one “yes” to find the right match.”

On the one hand, I really hate form rejections. They’re so impersonal. Though I think impersonal can be a big help in getting over the rejection, because, obviously, it’s not personal.

At first blush, rejection tends to make me feel embarrassed about the material I sent. The agent must be sitting at her desk laughing her butt off at my terrible pitch and my utter lack of writing experience. How audacious of someone like me to contact someone like her about representing my “work”!

But the truth is, with a form rejection, you can rest assured that the agent is so busy that she’s completely moved on from your query by the time they hit “send.”  You may be a reject, but you’re also a forgotten reject.  Drink deeply of the waters of Lethe!

Rejection #2: The Break-up

“Thanks so much for offering me the chance to consider your material. Unfortunately, your project does not seem right for me. It’s important that you find an agent who will represent you to the best of his or her ability, so I’m going to have to step aside from asking to represent your manuscript.

You should know that my decision reflects my present work-load, and the type and amount of material which I’m presently representing. It does not reflect on your material, and I certainly encourage you to continue to seek representation, especially since this is such a subjective business — what works for one agent or publisher may not work as well for another (I’m afraid, though, that I cannot recommend someone for it).

Our website…contains a wealth of information for writers. You can learn more about some of the projects I represent by visiting the website.

Also, please keep in mind that I welcome queries for exciting new projects from authors who have previously submitted other projects to me.

Best of luck!

Think of rejections as the ultimate “it’s not you, it’s me.”  Which may not seem entirely comforting at the moment, much as it’s not in a breakup, but it’s just as true.  That agent is not right for your project.  She pays her bills by taking on projects she can sell.  Think about that: projects she can sell, not projects that are sellable.  Another agent will be able to sell your project.  But if you give up, you’ll never find The One.

Rejection #3: The Encouragement

Thank you so much for giving [me] a chance to consider your work. While I found your query intriguing I’m afraid I wasn’t sufficiently enthusiastic to ask for more at this time.

As I’m sure you know, publishing is a subjective business and I’m sure there’s another agent out there better suited to your work.

I wish you the best of luck and the greatest success.

Again the “it’s not you, it’s me” line, but more explicit this time.  What stands out to me in this rejection is that the agent specifically mentions my query.  She even gives it an adjective: intriguing.  So now I know that I’m not going about this all wrong, that I don’t need to scrap my pitch and start over.  It’s intriguing.  Some other agent, Mr. or Ms. Right, will find it intriguing enough to make them enthusiastic and ask for a sample of the novel.  A real agent said so.  She did not grant me permission to throw up my hands in discouragement to give up this search.  She told me to get my nose back in the Writer’s Marketplace (lately I’ve been using AgentQuery because it’s an online database — a free online database! — searchable by genre, with hyperlinks to agent websites) and pitch my novel to more agents.

To recap, the lessons I’ve learned from my first three rejection letters for this project so far are as follows:

1. Agents will forget about your query. So forget about their rejection.

2. It’s not you, it’s them.

3. The market is very subjective.  Agents have opinions about the books they sell, just as you have opinions about the books you read.  The only opinion that matters is the opinion of the agent who asks to represent your work.

4. Look for encouragement where you can and cling to it.

5. There are more fish in the sea.

One of my college writing professors had the best perspective ever on rejection. He often said, “I’m not a working writer unless I’m getting a lot of rejection letters.”  Whatever responses you get, know that as long as you are querying, you are a working writer.  The second you give up, you cease to work.

Yesterday I found Nicholas Sparks’ literary agent.  Reckon she’d take on my romance?  A bit ambitious — but a little query never hurt anyone.

On a housekeeping note, you may notice that the comment form at the bottom of posts has changed.  No longer must you be a registered user of lrburt.com to respond.  You will still be required to identify yourself by name and a viable email address (I have too much trouble with spam bots if I open anonymous posting), but you don’t have to worry about remembering a password anymore.  And, if you prefer, you can comment using Open ID or your Facebook, Twitter, or Yahoo account.  Also, the new setup allows for comment threads.  I hope this makes it easier for us to interact on my site!