The Waiting Game

I’ve never been a particularly patient person. It’s something I need to work on, because the writing journey is riddled with waiting. At least if your writing ambition is publication. Let me give you a little taste of the whole, complicated process.

Step One: Send out a query. This can be sent to publishers or agents… although *sigh* many publishing houses no longer accept unsolicited query letters – so I have decided to go the agent route. The average response time for a query letter is about six weeks. Crazy, right?

Step Two: Try not to become too obsessed with checking your email each day, secretly hoping you might be the exception to the waiting rule. This will be hard. But for the sake of your sanity, at least try.

Step Three: Wait it out. Eventually, the response will come. And eight times out of ten, it ends with the dreaded rejection letter. The agent’s way of saying thanks, but no thanks. It’s sad. It really is. But if you’re determined, you dust yourself off, and find somebody else to query. I personally don’t like the mass query route – if I’m searching for somebody to represent my work, I don’t want to query any old agent. I know – beggars can’t be choosers. But I’m choosing not to beg yet. On the flip side of step three, there is that possibility you wrote a flawless, professional query letter, and the agent wants to see a partial! Oh wow! Your heart starts racing in your chest, maybe your palms get a little sweaty. You make a few last minute touch ups and send the requested material, eagerly awaiting a response…… but oh yea, you have to wait some more. Another six to eight weeks (on average).

Step Four: Start working on something else. It’s a productive way to get your mind off the waiting. You count down the days, and when the deadline approaches, then passes, you agonize over what to do. Should you email to ask for an update, or should you let it dangle out in the universe for a little while longer? And then one day you get a letter. Usually, sadly, another thanks, but no thanks. And who knows why. Maybe your first line was lame and that’s all the farther they read, or maybe it’s just not what they’re looking for at the time being. Once again, you dust yourself off and go back to square one. It might help your ego to read other rejection stories. Do you know JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series was rejected twelve times before being picked up by Bloomsbury? That ought to help heal the bruises. But let’s imagine it’s not a rejection! Oh man, before your heart jumps out of your chest, you quickly proceed to step five.

Step Five: The agent just requested your full manuscript! The first two or three chapters were good enough to snag an interest. So quit your squealing already and send it off.

Step Six: Get comfortable, because you’re going to have to wait some more. Longer this time. After all, this agent is still receiving plenty of queries, partials, and yes, even full manuscripts (as much as we’d like to think ours is the only one – the competition is intense).

By the time you hear back on this one, it could very well be seven or more months since you sent out that first query. You can imagine how crushing it is when the long wait ends with rejection and you have to start all over at step one.

Ah – but it will all be worth it the day we receive the other kind of news. The phone call or email saying the agent would like to represent us. I can’t even fathom that day. And that’s still just the beginning. Getting an agent is no guarantee for a deal. It increases our chances – but the contracts not in the bag yet, my friends. We have to go back to waiting (and marketing and writing and all that other fun stuff… seriously, I think it sounds fun, but maybe I’m still naive) while our fancy new agent does her thang. And even then, if we get a contract – there’s so much more waiting involved. Usually it takes one or two years before an author sees their contracted book in print. God must know writers need practice in patience. Because we get an awful lot of it.

Question of the day: If waiting is my pet peeve – what is yours?removetweetmeme