I know there are a couple of you, but I don’t know specifically who you are. At any rate, I hope to join your ranks soon.
The problem is my agent. He is moving this process along at such an agonizingly slow pace I’m about to pull my hair out. I sent him my book proposal at the end of May, and he isn’t even going to look at it until the first of August.
Whether or not this is typical, I don’t know. However, what concerns me at the moment is this: how long was it from the time you sent your first book proposal to your agent until the time you saw your first check?
We don’t use an agent although we’re looking at the moment. Either they promise the earth and I don’t believe them or they want a cut of markets we’re already doing OK in. So that cuts off a fraction of time for us…
The publisher we generally deal with runs on a 18 month cycle. So it can take them 5-6 months to make a decision then they sign. The 18 months start from the date of contract. It was especially special the time they said they would take the book but not contract it until the next calendar year. That comes out next June. It paid us an advnace of $500 last month with another $500 next May when the book reaches the warehouse. Royalties will probably kick in later that year.
Another publisher took almost 2 years from contract to book in shops. But I love her because she has actually succeeded in getting reviews in about 30 papers. REally should count them and gloat :). We’ve yet to see royalties from that book.
Your agent doesn’t sound all that organised but it doesn’t sound all that bad either I’m sorry to say. If they are a good agent, then it will take time until you are Stephen King. The industry is a painfully slow one.
Well I once wrote a chapter in a book, but I doubt many people have read it at ca. $4500. It was titled “1,3-Dioxins, Dithiins, Oxathiins and Related Heterocycles”. Rivetting reading it was not.
Whaddya mean scientists don’t count?!?!?!
I couldn’t get an agent to touch my book proposal. I ended up shopping it around myself.
Brace yourself, it can be a very long time between having your proposal accepted and seeing your galleys, let alone seeing your first check. In my case it was 2-3 years. And I still haven’t actually seen a check – I’m still earning back the advance I blew on getting permissions and such.
Ahh, the life of a writer. It’s a good thing I didn’t quit my day job.
I never use agents. Agents are Satan’s Spokesmodels. Any publisher who only deals through agents? Screw 'em. Besides, I publish through university presses—no way is a major house going to be interested in the esoteric stuff I turn out . . .
Well, I only have one novel published, and that was a collaboration. One of my collaborators was an established author, and we used his agent. I have never used an agent to market short stories, and I don’t know of any agents who would waste their time marketing stories – the payoff is too small.
18-24 months is not an unusual turnaround time for publication even after a book has sold. If you are trying to sell a novel from a treatment, rather than a finished draft, you have a strike against you unless you have established a track record for completing works professionally and on time. The rules for non-fiction, as I understand them, are a little more forgiving, but a track record still helps. Remember, even if your idea is golden you are asking an agent and publisher to take a chance that you have the skill, discipline, and determinatin to see the idea to fruition.
BTW – I agree with Eve’s description, but I still think agents play a useful role. Simply remember that they are sharks and use them for what sharks do best. In my experience (peripherally, from watching a number of books go through the shop, sell, sontract, publish quagmire) agents do a much better job of bleeding advances from tightfisted publishers than they do of shopping novels for little-known authors.
Thanks for all the advice. Personally, the fact that my agent takes a cut doesn’t concern me. With my agent, I might get 85% percent of something. Without my agent, I will most assuredly get 100% of nothing. It’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.
It doesn’t sound as if your agent is that slow to me.
As for me, agents are not that bad. Mine has been very good for me. Mine does all of that garbage that I cannot (due to location or whatever) or choose not to do. I write. I am not a businessman or a self promoter. She has really increased the impact of my stuff just by whom she has contacted or negotiated with. I had a very limited audience until her agency stepped in.
1994-5 I was one of three people who wrote columns every three weeks for the “Vienna Connection”. I wrote about various goings-on at my school.
Since thne I’ve been involved in alumni magazines in high school, as well as editing and contributing to lit mags and the school newspaper.
I have yet to write a book, and if and/or when I do I know roughly where to go to get it looked at, and I doubt you’d have any luck with the group I’m going to (mostly because I’m “in” with them and because they aren’t a publishing company).
I’ve had an article picked up by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, about animal adoption. I’d provide a link but it was a few months back and is no longer part of the free archive. It was one of a small bunch of articles that went out on the New York Times wire service.
That’s my only non-academic published work so far; I had a few things in in-house journals put out by my college.
Good luck to you. My advice is not to let the slow pace get you down. I do not work with an agent, but I have published something like 45 books under my name and three or four pseudonyms. Sometimes the pace is quite fast. That is especially true when you have already worked with a publisher and they know you know your stuff; they’ll give you a contract/advance/whatever on the basis of your track record with them and a quick glance at a proposal.
But sometimes it’s quite slow. Agonizingly slow, in fact. Two months to look at it feels terrible, but really isn’t that long in glacial terms (the usual terms of the publishing world). As a general rule, they will take months, even years, to look at something, and then want revisions or whatever in days, even hours. In one case, a company sat on a manuscript for two years–I had a contract and a small advance–then wanted revisions in less than a month; I of course had forgotten most of the material in the meantime. In an even worse case, I submitted a proposal, saw it grind through the acquisitions department, had it accepted, did some revisions as requested…and nearly three years after the original submission still have not seen a completed book or a single penny on it.
But don’t give up (he says on that cheerful note). 'Cause ya never know.
