In Vegas, As In Life, All Bets Are Off (or I Take Two Steps Forward, I Take Two Steps Back*)

*With apologies to Paula Abdul

Tip of the Day: Put it all on black! (I'm in Vegas, baby!)

So, even when things are going along swimmingly when you're subbing for pubbing, some things you have no control over can slow you down. For example, when your agent decides to leave the agenting business. This is what happened to me last week.

I wish my agent the best in her new/return to her previous career! She is a great woman and I know she's doing what's best for herself, though I will miss her.

This does leave me, however, agentless and back out there in query land. Good thing Miss Querylicious has been giving me some tips these past few weeks! But I haven't had to go through this research/query process for a while and it is a time-consuming yet exciting process. So I'm shopping a brand new novel to agents and am hoping to get someone's attention.

Meanwhile, I am still subbing for pubbing! The manuscript my agent shopped has been revised and repolished, so I'm sending it out to editors on my own. This is also a lot of research and time. Phew! Go agents who do this every day for their careers!

This experience of querying both agents and editors has been eye-opening to me; it's made me really look at what's selling, what's grabbing the attention of publishing pros, and what it entails to really focus on who wants what types of novels. I also feel that this time around in my agent search, I know what questions to ask before signing, what specialities the agents should have before I even query, and what different authors are saying about who they work with. Fortunately, with so much info online, it's fairly easy to get a lot of this info!

But it doesn't mean that the agent who sounds "perfect" for me will want me!
:-o
So I must continue to query widely.

I also believe that everything will work out the way it is supposed to work out, and in the mean time, I'll continue writing, writing, writing!

And if anyone wants to recommend their fabulous agent, feel free to leave me a comment! :)

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing