It's important to realize, and then to remember, that there are a lot of factors to the business of writing and publishing.
Agent Janet Reid points out that even having a (small) offer in hand might not make it worth an agent's time to take you on.
Just about any agent blog will tell you that the agent has to truly love your work before he/she will commit to taking you on as a client. An agent is committing to a relationship based upon your future career; the first sale is just the beginning of the relationship.
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2 comments:
Dal,
this was a discussion in my writing group recently. We discussed how an agent can usually determine whether they will represent a piece based on the first five sentences of a book. I think that's a good thing to keep in mind when trying to write a book.
You're quite right there.
The old axiom -- "I don't have to eat the whole pie to know it's burned" -- applies to most manuscripts in the slush pile.
Even in the top ten percent of manuscripts, an agent learns to quickly taste when the spices are off.
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