The End of the Agent Hunt

I have fabulous news to report -- my search for an agent is over! It all ended much more quickly and dramatically than I expected. Two weeks ago, I was worried that I might never sign (yes, I'm impatient -- it often takes years to sign). But then, last Thursday, a totally wonderful agent called me while I was at work to offer representation!

She was already at the top of my list based on her reputation, and her sheer enthusiasm for my work while she offered representation was enough to put her over the top. Still, I've read enough horror stories about failed agent/author relationships to be wary, and so I contacted the other agents who were considering my work to let them know that I had received an offer. By the end of the weekend, two other agents had made offers -- and so as of Memorial Day, I was suddenly in the unexpected position of having to come up with interview questions so that I could choose between the three offers!

I spoke to all of them on Tuesday, and while I felt that all of them could have been good fits for my work (and one in particular was the other top agent on my list, making my choice more difficult), I ultimately decided that the first agent was the best fit for my long-term goals. I mailed the contracts on Friday, and we're talking again this week to discuss the process for submissions to publishing houses.

So, it's been a complete whirlwind, and obviously I'm very excited. However, I realized while I was on the phone with one of them that I've successfully scaled the agent mountain and reached the peak -- only to discover that there's another, bigger mountain looming in the form of beginning the search for a publisher. Happily, my agent (I love saying that!) will be my partner on that climb, so I'm not alone -- but this is by no means a done deal. I spent the weekend brooding over that sobering fact, but I can't brood for long; the excitement of continuing to make progress towards my goals will pick me up again.

This means that, as of tonight, "The Agent Hunt" will be retired as a label -- staring this week, "The Publisher Hunt" will begin! Stay tuned...

Updates From the Agent Search

I'm actively seeking an agent -- a nervewracking process punctuated by fits of euphoria and bouts of depression. Several of my friends are applying for business school, and while their applications are much more time-consuming (pages upon pages of essays, packets for recommenders, and of course application fees and GRE scores), they at least have the solace of knowing that by April or May, everything will be decided and they will know where they are going. Looking for an agent offers no such guarantees -- an agent may take a month to get back to you because they're just that backlogged, or they may never get back to you because your email was eaten by their spam filter. It would be nice to know that by X date I will either have an agent or must switch gears, but that won't happen.

Instead, I'm keeping a close eye on my submissions and sending out more letters when agents I've queried have not gotten back to me within their self-set guidelines. I'm actually doing pretty well -- I've had three requests for partials (the first fifty pages)! I rewrote my query letter in January and have sent out six queries since then. Three resulted in partial requests, and the other three have not been responded to yet.

At the very least, it's good to know that I can apparently write a decent query letter. The waiting is nervewracking, but I feel like I'm taking tentative baby steps towards my goal of publication. Seriously, I cannot remember a time in recent memory when I was as blissfully happy as I was the morning that I got my first request for a partial from an agent. Hopefully I'll have more of those feelings and less of the "why doesn't anyone like me?" feelings in the coming weeks.