I fired my literary agent last week.
Crazy?
The feeling can only be compared to the time I broke up with my first boyfriend, and the mantra, stuck in my head for days before and after the deed, the same: Will I ever have another?
Strangely, the reason for the breakup was also the same. If you’re going to have a relationship with anyone, business or personal, both parties have to “get” each other; each has to believe in the other and both have to care. It’s like a marriage. There has to be communication and trust and consideration.
Like any bad marriage, the signs are often there before the vows are spoken.
My first book is from the dogs point of view. I knew going into the relationship that my agent didn’t have a dog; my agent didn’t like dogs.
Coincidence that the manuscript has not sold?
You might like something, but if you don’t “get”it, it’s hard to talk anyone into putting money behind it. Personally, I think it is an affirmation on the power of faith…here you may define faith any way you choose.
I sent my second manuscript to my agent last October. She responded in seven days, asking me to change the first forty pages. I did the edits in three days and returned them to her, exactly as she requested. I waited for the rest of the notes on the book so I could get going on the polish. I waited. And I waited. And I waited.
Last Friday, FOUR months later, I finally received an answer. Ironically, I had mailed a letter to her that day, releasing her from our contract.
Now, if I hadn’t already had two well-respected people in publishing read the manuscript for me, this would have been a “Hemingway Moment“: Picture a bottle of Jack Daniels and a shotgun.
Instead, I got busy on doing the edit with a dear friend who edits for a living.
A week later, I again have representation.
It was no problem finding another “boyfriend”, so-to-speak. He actually knocked at my door. And this time I knew going in: he likes animals, he likes my writing, he likes me and he “gets” my story.
The moral? There are two.
One: Do not wait on anything. The game only brings more of the same. Get going.
Two: Have the confidence in yourself to get going and take a chance. There will always be another “boyfriend” down the road—sometimes just outside the gate.