Publishing’s Rocky Road Continues. You’ve completed your manuscript, revised it, polished it. You’ve followed the advice in my last post, Literary Agent Search Savvy. You’ve submitted to the right agents for you, not exclusively, but no more than six at a time. Now, as if out of bright blue nowhere, the anxiously awaited call or email has arrived. An agent is seriously interested in your work, maybe even a topnotch agent. Hallelujah!
You think you have exited Publishing’s Rocky Road. Think again. Don’t get me wrong. A momentous thing has happened in your writing life. You have captured the attention of an agent, not an easy thing to do. Good agents don’t waste their short supply of time requesting work that has not genuinely attracted them. But this doesn’t mean you’re off Publishing’s Rocky Road. You have detoured onto its unmarked byway, the Wait-Wait-Wait Highway.
“I’ve already been here,” you exclaim. You have most likely traveled through a pile of submissions and a pile of rejections too, wait-wait-waiting what felt like eternities in between. The current view beyond your windshield may feel and look a lot the same, anxious and skimpy on roadside attractions. The order of the day is once again to Wait-Wait-Wait, and waiting periods are trying, in civilian life and in author life.
Console yourself first with this reality. You have already traveled the hardest leg of this adventure. You have conceived and created an entire book. A book that is attracting positive attention in the land of the publishing professionals. Do not ever underestimate that accomplishment. It is the foundation of everything to come, and it hasn’t crumbled so far.
So, why do you not feel consoled? No matter how far out of control you felt in your initial agent search submission phase, this new phase somehow feels more out of your control than ever. During that initial period, you dropped your work into multiple black holes, expected rejections and, when one came, made another drop into the next black hole on your list. It was something to do. Now there is only a single repository and nothing to do but, you guessed it, wait-wait-wait.
So, how do you keep from losing your mind? Right here, I’m going to say something that sounds so lame, so Pollyannaish you will want to climb through the screen and wring my neck. To jeopardize my neck even further, I must preface that something by agreeing with you. This phase of your struggle to become published feels so far out of your control because it is. And, here comes the I-get-throttled part. You must simply let go and travel on.
What did she say? I said you must let go of longing for control and let your work find its way. Harder still, you must have confidence that it will. While you attempt, however imperfectly, to build this confidence, turn to your first powerful resource, the rest of us, your writer friends in your writers’ community. We are your shoulders to lean and/or cry upon. Whether you need a strategy session, a consult, or just a boost in the spirits-up department, we are here.
Next, get back to work. If you’ve not already done so, dive deep-down into your next book or continue your series. Professional authors are forever moving on to the next project, which keeps us from bogging down with anxiety over the one that’s out there in the publishing world ozone. It also guarantees we will have a continuing career, bent upon producing a shelf load of books eventually. Disciplined forward momentum prevents, or at least lessens the severity of, running out of fuel along Publishing’s Rocky Road.
Never forget that you are tenacious. You have traversed this far on an obstacle-strewn path. From that process, you have forged your own personal template for doing so again and again with each new project. Have faith that will be the case, and take my word as well. I have watched it happen with countless authors, including myself.
In the meantime, there is the joy of the doing. The joy of the writing work, at every stage of its challenging course. You are on that course, moving along it, as well as deeper into it. Publishing’s Rocky Road Continues, but you, with fire in your belly, are ready for the ride. Bon voyage.
Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com
A Wrong Way Home – Alice Orr’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – is a FREE eBook HERE. Enjoy!
Alice’s latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving– Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE. Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving. “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.
https://www.facebook.com/alibettewrites/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/
Everything you said. Realistic as always; motivating as always.
Thanks for the great advise.
Great advise which is important for me to remember. Thanks – best wishes for a wonderful April.
Hi Louise. I generally offer advice because I need to hear it myself. That is certainly the case here. My patience bar is way too low, and I need to practice what I preach. I am very heartened to hear that my words are of help to somebody else, especially someone as supportive as you have been to me. Thank you for all of that. Blessings. Alice
Great advice!
Thanks Jennifer. Generally I find the best advice is the advice I most need myself. Over the years, I’ve fallen into the trap of letting myself get thrown off track, like a leaf in the wind, too many times by the sometimes maddening speed, or lack of such, of the publishing process. I still experience that in indie publishing, though in a different way. The only solution seems to be to keep soldiering on with the next project, or marketing for the current one. If I may be unoriginal for a moment, may I observe that living and working the writer’s life is a marathon, not a sprint. We must keep our jogging shoes tied tight always. Alice
Thanks for this great reminder that slow and steady wins the race.
Yes it does Anna. Slow and steady and relentlessly forward bring us to the finish every time. That may sound dogged and perhaps dull, but this is writing we’re talking about, messing around in the unpredictable land of the imagination. A wander through that land, whatever the pace, cannot help but be a wild adventure. Thanks for your support. Alice
I need this talk. I am in the midst of edits and the editor seems to want to change my entire voice. As you said, I just need to do it and move on. Thanks Alice
Dear Kathye. That is a very difficult place to be. I had the same experience once, and I’ve never forgotten it. You will probably handle it more maturely than I did. I was pretty impetuous back then, and resisted way more than was good for my career. If I had to do over, I would have picked my battles better. I’d have made a list of the worst scenario cases being foisted on me, then prioritized them in order of what I could and could not live with in order to maintain my own sense of what my story was about. Then I would have written a very diplomatically worded email to the editor. After that, perhaps a reasonable negotiation process could have been possible. Maybe it can be possible for you too. After all, it will be your book out there with your name on it, and only you will have to answer for the quality of its storytelling. You’re a wise woman, and I know you will choose the right course. I wish you a good and rewarding experience of that. Alice