Yesterday, I shared this post over on my Bluesky (of which I am now Verified so hurray for me being me!):
Which is exciting, but I realized a lot of people in my close circle may not understand what it all means. Let me try to run this all down as fast and as clear as possible, without losing your interest.
I am working on becoming a traditionally published author, meaning I need to secure a literary agent before getting a book on the shelves. See, publishing houses don’t usually take any old schlub off the street with a book idea in their head and soon-to-be extinguished sparkle in their eyes. Unless you’re some TikTok star with 400 million followers, you have to have a literary agent.
They work for and with and alongside the signed author to help polish up the book before submitting it to editors, negotiate payments and payouts, overseas and movie rights, and so on so forth. They’re incredibly busy people.
Which is why, when it comes time to pitch one (called querying, the act of sending them your book’s pitch, your author bio, and the requested pages [sometimes the first 5 pages, the first 10, or the first three chapters, since every agent is different]) you shouldn’t take it too personally when you hear a ‘No.’ They know what they want and most of the time, they’ve received two to four hundred other submissions that month. They know what they’re looking for and can usually tell in the first few pages, or even in how you structure your pitch to them, that they wouldn’t be the best fit to represent you.
I’ve gotten, let’s say, quite a few ‘No’ responses for my books.
But you keep trying, you keep pitching. You keep researching agents, keep looking up what they’re interested in, who they’re representing, what they’re looking for in a story, what book deals they’ve already negotiated, what books they’ve been into on their social media, everything. You do your due diligence to see if they’d like what your work represents. Last thing an agent wants is a book pitch in their inbox that is nowhere near what they’d like reading.
So you pitch, and pitch, and pitch. Which is where I was at. ‘No’ after ‘No’ after ‘No thank you.’
But sometimes…you get a maybe. This is called a “request,” meaning the literary agent enjoyed what they read so far and want to read more. After all, the first 5 to 10 pages aren’t the entire story. You need to see where everything set up in the beginning is going. This can either be a “partial request,” which means they want the next select group of pages, usually the first 50, or a “full request,” where they want the entire book, start to finish.
I’ve gotten a few full requests before on various books. They all turned into passes, but it’s a good sign you’re in the right direction. Maybe your storytelling is getting better or you have a really solid query letter that sells the book right. Whatever it may be, even though it’s a ‘No’ you can take a lot away from it with an open mind.
But what’s happened to me is something new.
An agent requested the first ten pages of the story. Okay, fine, sure. Normal. Then, right as I was starting to think that maybe this book’s opening salvo (Project NESS, if you’ve been following along) needed a massive reworking, this agent reached out to say they enjoyed the book and wanted the first 50 pages. This is the partial request I was talking about earlier.
Okay, no problem.
But then, they reached out again. I freaked out seeing their name and Query Reply in the e-mail header. It’s either a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ and, mathematically, it’s usually a pass.
But it wasn’t either.
They wanted even more. They asked for the full manuscript. A partial request turned into a full request. This agent liked the first 10 pages, then the first 50, then wanted to see the whole thing.
This is a very difficult path to walk. Like most arts, it’s a path of rejection and isolation, of feeling like the thing you’re passionate about, that you want to share with the world to help, to inspire, to entertain, is not good enough.
And the odds are this will also become a pass, they’ll reach the end of the book and realize it’s not for them. And that’s okay. That’s really okay.
But for now, it’s fun living in the clouds, imagining they’ll love it, and soon, I could have a literary agent. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Thanks for reading,
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E-mail: robertmichaelacosta@gmail.com
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