In de ghettoooooohhh...
Thank you, Cartman.
So as some of you know, I've been chipping away at selling a novel recently. Or, more accurately, I've been chipping away at getting someone else to sell it. As in, I've been trying to find an agent I can convince to represent my sorry butt. A publisher friend (you know who you are) advised me to give this a shot at least, as its his feeling that in the probably rather commercial world in which the book I just produced is mostly likely to find a home, promoting it on your own is only so practical. And let's face it, I've never really been a sales kinda guy.
It's a bit of a pain, needless to say. As noted in previous posts, the agent thing can be a key in the trunk dilemma for someone trying to sell their first book. As in: it's hard to get an agent if you haven't sold a book and hard to sell a book until you've got an agent. Neither is impossible of course. Just dicey. (And I'd like to think a few years as a published reporter and occasional freelance fiction guy might have some weight, though that remains to be seen.)
In the case of the thing I'm trying to get sold, I've been getting some ghetto anxiety over the whole thing too.
The trouble is: I went and wrote, for my first completed novel, a book that leans heavily on the fantasy tradition, and a book I conceived principally as appealing to the young adult demographic slice.
Right. "Leans heavily on the fantasy tradition." Let's just say it:
It's a fantasy novel. Pretty much archetypally so.
There. I said it. I'm so proud.
Why did I write such a thing? I've no idea, really. I'd never really considered doing so, before I sat down at the keyboard, though I did read my share of them as a kid. Somehow, it just seemed to be the book I felt like doing at the time. I'd taken a shot or two at more clearly 'literary' books, and still think I might have a few in me, but I haven't yet drawn one of those to a satisfying close. The kids' book, somehow, it got done.
The trouble with that, however, is I've now gotta find an agent who'll represent such a book. And it seems to be looking more and more as though such agents are a bit specialized. And those that don't do those things, including folk who've sold books I rather liked, and who I'd love to have represent me, seem to me to be rather quick to turn up their nose at such things. I've a few 'no thanks' slips sitting around here now that seem to say so rather clearly, I'm afraid.
Thus my ghetto anxiety. I really don't want, based on one book (or, okay, a few; as the kids who read this for test really liked this one, I'm thinking I might give them a sequel; it had always struck me as a sensible enough course) to wind up pigeonholed as a fantasy author, or a young adult author. As delighted as I'd be to make the people who read such things happy with this work, I do not wish anyone to assume I'm a one-trick pony based on it.
I suppose at this stage in my writing career (as in, the stage at which I really don't have one, or at best, the stage at which I have a rather rusty one left sitting some years back), I should probably just worry about getting any kind of attention from the publishing world, agent or press, and worry later that I might turn into the literary equivalent of one of the poor beknighted Star Trek actors, who will never, whatever they do, escape the shadow of a show they did 40 years ago. But you know me. Why worry about one thing when you've ample processing power to worry about several simultaneously?
I mean, I gotta do what I do best.
The hell of it is, if you ask me (and okay, I'm biased), I'd like to think the book really has a shot at overturning some of the perfectly valid reasons people do sniff a bit at fantasy. Yes, I used a very traditional (even hackneyed) fantasy plot line. But I always saw that as a way of making it accessible, and as a way of giving myself a nice, obvious framework on which to hang the thing, rather than as craven exploitation of a cliche. There is still a decent literary novel only cursorily hidden in there, if you ask me, with some reasonably involved characterization. It sure as hell ain't Prince Valiant. Or at least I sure as hell hope it's not.
Not sure what I'm gonna do about it, if anything. Just muttering to myself, I guess.
Probably, partly, it's submission fatigue. I really do deeply hate the business of making queries, sending queries, tracking queries that never return due to the vagaries of international mail and who knows what else.
I am still motivated to get this damn thing out to someone who might be able to promote or publish it... But let's face it. It ain't my favourite activity.
Anyway. Back to the trenches. Hand me my shovel, please.
So as some of you know, I've been chipping away at selling a novel recently. Or, more accurately, I've been chipping away at getting someone else to sell it. As in, I've been trying to find an agent I can convince to represent my sorry butt. A publisher friend (you know who you are) advised me to give this a shot at least, as its his feeling that in the probably rather commercial world in which the book I just produced is mostly likely to find a home, promoting it on your own is only so practical. And let's face it, I've never really been a sales kinda guy.
It's a bit of a pain, needless to say. As noted in previous posts, the agent thing can be a key in the trunk dilemma for someone trying to sell their first book. As in: it's hard to get an agent if you haven't sold a book and hard to sell a book until you've got an agent. Neither is impossible of course. Just dicey. (And I'd like to think a few years as a published reporter and occasional freelance fiction guy might have some weight, though that remains to be seen.)
In the case of the thing I'm trying to get sold, I've been getting some ghetto anxiety over the whole thing too.
The trouble is: I went and wrote, for my first completed novel, a book that leans heavily on the fantasy tradition, and a book I conceived principally as appealing to the young adult demographic slice.
Right. "Leans heavily on the fantasy tradition." Let's just say it:
It's a fantasy novel. Pretty much archetypally so.
There. I said it. I'm so proud.
Why did I write such a thing? I've no idea, really. I'd never really considered doing so, before I sat down at the keyboard, though I did read my share of them as a kid. Somehow, it just seemed to be the book I felt like doing at the time. I'd taken a shot or two at more clearly 'literary' books, and still think I might have a few in me, but I haven't yet drawn one of those to a satisfying close. The kids' book, somehow, it got done.
The trouble with that, however, is I've now gotta find an agent who'll represent such a book. And it seems to be looking more and more as though such agents are a bit specialized. And those that don't do those things, including folk who've sold books I rather liked, and who I'd love to have represent me, seem to me to be rather quick to turn up their nose at such things. I've a few 'no thanks' slips sitting around here now that seem to say so rather clearly, I'm afraid.
Thus my ghetto anxiety. I really don't want, based on one book (or, okay, a few; as the kids who read this for test really liked this one, I'm thinking I might give them a sequel; it had always struck me as a sensible enough course) to wind up pigeonholed as a fantasy author, or a young adult author. As delighted as I'd be to make the people who read such things happy with this work, I do not wish anyone to assume I'm a one-trick pony based on it.
I suppose at this stage in my writing career (as in, the stage at which I really don't have one, or at best, the stage at which I have a rather rusty one left sitting some years back), I should probably just worry about getting any kind of attention from the publishing world, agent or press, and worry later that I might turn into the literary equivalent of one of the poor beknighted Star Trek actors, who will never, whatever they do, escape the shadow of a show they did 40 years ago. But you know me. Why worry about one thing when you've ample processing power to worry about several simultaneously?
I mean, I gotta do what I do best.
The hell of it is, if you ask me (and okay, I'm biased), I'd like to think the book really has a shot at overturning some of the perfectly valid reasons people do sniff a bit at fantasy. Yes, I used a very traditional (even hackneyed) fantasy plot line. But I always saw that as a way of making it accessible, and as a way of giving myself a nice, obvious framework on which to hang the thing, rather than as craven exploitation of a cliche. There is still a decent literary novel only cursorily hidden in there, if you ask me, with some reasonably involved characterization. It sure as hell ain't Prince Valiant. Or at least I sure as hell hope it's not.
Not sure what I'm gonna do about it, if anything. Just muttering to myself, I guess.
Probably, partly, it's submission fatigue. I really do deeply hate the business of making queries, sending queries, tracking queries that never return due to the vagaries of international mail and who knows what else.
I am still motivated to get this damn thing out to someone who might be able to promote or publish it... But let's face it. It ain't my favourite activity.
Anyway. Back to the trenches. Hand me my shovel, please.
posted by AJM at 2:12 p.m. (Permanent Link)
