Just finished the first draft of Book Two, Clouded Judgment, nearly a decade since Book One. I put this delay squarely down to my inability to get a literary agent.
The failure is a two-sided thing, in my opinion. From my side, the letter I sent out to agents was probably wholly inadequate, revealing my ineptitude at self-publicity. I need an agent to get an agent, but then I’d need another agent to get that agent…
But the process also seems to have a built-in delay. Agents expect a prospective author not to send out too many applications at one time, citing the fact that ‘we talk to one another’. This implies that their egos are so fragile that they will ignore anything that doesn’t make them feel like The Chosen One. So you dutifully send out a mere handful and wait the period of time they say is ‘reasonable’ – during which nothing happens – before even considering the next batch. Eventually a certain amount of disillusionment is bound set in – not much, in my case, but some.
I am curious to know how these books would have been affected by the expert guidance of a literary agent, but I’ll never know, as not one of the seventy odd I have approached so far has deigned to give me any, about two-thirds not bothering to reply at all.
Rant over. I’m off to commission a cover and start revisions. I’ll post another one of these when the book becomes available.
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