Publishing a book: the agent list

It is a process

DALL·E 2 / “a printing press in a bright green field”

To take a break from complex geopolitical matters for a week, today I’m returning to a subject I’ve brought up here and there since starting this Substack: my unpublished novel. When we last checked in, I was playing the waiting game with a literary agent to whom I’d sent my full manuscript in April. It’s been over 6 months now, and I haven’t heard anything after two follow-ups and some indirect prodding through the person that originally connected us. The agent in question is pretty well established and represents writers I deeply admire, so if he were to find my work compelling, that would be a Very Big Deal to me.

Now, it might sound like 6 months of radio silence is bad. It’s definitely not great. Definitely not my preference! At the same time, this is an incredibly slow industry, there’s no doubt this guy is super busy, and the world around us is as hectic as ever. And more importantly, actually waiting around and twiddling my thumbs would not only be excruciating, but super unproductive. That’s a huge reason why I started this newsletter—to challenge myself to keep writing consistently, even if it wasn’t fiction. Another thing I could (and would like to) do would be to actually write new fiction. I’ve had an idea for another novel percolating for a while, and playing around with that would be the perfect productive distraction. I fully intend to force myself into that endeavor soon even though there’s no guarantee the book I’ve already written will get published one day.

In order to increase Fatherboy’s chances though, what it’s also time for me to do is dip back into my agent list. Don’t put all my eggs in one basket, and all that.

So what’s an agent list? Well, at a basic level it’s a spreadsheet. The sexiest of mediums in which we put information. There are columns for agent name, agency, email, Twitter handle, submission guidelines, and status. Like so:

Right now, there are 83 agents in this spreadsheet. From 2020-2021, I queried 34 of them with V2 of my novel (I’m on V8 now). 18 of them never responded, 16 sent back a form response rejection, 0 sent back a personalized rejection, and 0 asked to read more. Clearly something wasn’t working! And unfortunately I burned through a lot of my list before fully realizing that. It’s unlikely any of them would take another look at an updated version of the same pitch, even years later.

However! There are still 49 agents in there, and plenty more whose information I could track down in a similar fashion—by prowling QueryTracker, Publishers Marketplace, the acknowledgments section of books I like, etc. And since I last sent a cold query, I’ve taken a couple writing workshops, gotten a ton of feedback, made edits after edits after edits, and nailed down my pitch through a reality show competition that I’ll detail in another article someday. For now, it’s time to take that pitch and start (slowly, intentionally) working my way down the list again. Maybe I’ll get a bite. Or a few. Which I can then use to light a fire under the first interested agent. The long game!

Wish me luck.

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