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Over the past 23 years, I've had and lost 3 literary agents... 1/16 (tagging some writers in case anyone thinks worth sharing @Jacopo_della_Q @gabehudson @alex_segura @denishaughnessy @Gabino_Iglesias @ericsmithrocks @mjseidlinger @chantelacevedo @JoshuaIsard) #WritingCommunity
...After months and months of querying, I got an agent for my first novel LOST around 1998. She loved the book and sent it to some editors/publishers. No acceptances the first round but I was hopeful we'd get lucky with the second round of submissions... 2/16
...Then she quit agenting and I found out I was her first client. She was an agent's assistant, which she had not told me, and very young/inexperienced. She decided publishing wasn't for her, left industry. I was blindsided and no longer had an agent for the first novel... 3/16
...A few more months of querying and I ended up getting a new agent, but after a while I suspected it was at least borderline scam. She wanted me to pay monthly photocopying/mailing fees and didn't seem to have editorial contacts that would be helpful... 4/16
...Also, she was only vaguely familiar with the Internet (it was around 1999, so near the beginning of Amazon). That's when I decided to self-publish LOST in 2000, a much less common thing to do than today... 5/16
LOST got a great review in the Philadelphia Inquirer and I re-self-published in 2019... 6/16
http://scottsteinonline.com/books/lost/
http://scottsteinonline.com/books/lost/
I never got an agent for my second novel MEAN MARTIN MANNING. It was satirical, impolite, quirky, political, didn't fit neatly into a genre--I queried but wasn't surprised that no agenting offers came... 7/16
Eventually it found a home with a small press and got coverage/reviews in places like the Philadelphia City Paper, Philadelphia Inquirer, American Spectator, Reason magazine... 8/16
http://scottsteinonline.com/books/mean-martin-manning/
http://scottsteinonline.com/books/mean-martin-manning/
For my third/new/latest novel THE GREAT AMERICAN DECEPTION, I spent around a year and a half querying before finally signing with an agent at a big agency. She wanted to sell the book as YA because she thought the robot narrator and jokes would appeal to that audience. 9/16
Also, she thought selling it as YA made it possible to get a deal for a series. I had never thought of it as YA, but I did know that my 13-year-old (back then) laughed the whole way through reading it, so I believed she was on to something... 10/16
She said it did not need major revisions to work as YA. We then spent a year making those not-so-major revisions that became more major... 11/16
Months into it, I was asked to turn my hardboiled adult detective into a young teenager so it could sell as YA. I did so half-heartedly and ended up with a teenage detective who talked like Humphrey Bogart. It wasn't working. We went our separate ways... 12/16
It was for the best. The agent and the book were not a good match. I thought THE GREAT AMERICAN DECEPTION, while entertaining for teen readers too, would appeal to adult fans of Douglas Adams, P.G. Wodehouse, The Naked Gun. She didn't know editors who wanted that... 13/16
Eventually THE GREAT AMERICAN DECEPTION found a perfect home with @TinyFoxPress and was published in 2020. Got a starred review in Publishers Weekly (which named it a book of the week) and was recommended by Kirkus. I'm now writing the sequel... 14/16 http://scottsteinonline.com/books/the-great-american-deception/
I am currently agent-less. I still like the idea of having an agent--someone rooting for my book, seeking opportunities (need a movie deal!), giving advice. I recommend writers try to find one. But I guess the points, if there are any, would be that... 15/16
...getting an agent is not the final goal and doesn't mean you've arrived. Having the wrong agent can be worse than having no agent. Don't be blinded by greed or need for validation when making decisions about your book. Publishing is crazy and frustrating. Keep working. 16/16
