By Lydia Lukidis
Like many of you, I’ve been knee deep in the querying trenches, desperately trying to make my submission stand out in the staggering slush pile. And as we all know, this process is time consuming. It goes on and on, peppered with rejection letters, until we finally get a bite.
I signed with my first agent a few weeks after I got my first bite. In my mind, my problems were now over. Yahoo! No more submissions! No more Twitter pitch parties! No more querying! I was already visualizing a book contract with the Big Five.
But that’s not how the cookie crumbled.
Here are 3 truths nobody tells you about landing an agent:
1. It can be anti-climactic: Don’t expect a book deal the next day, week or month.
2. You will still need patience: The submission process is laborious, no matter who’s doing the submitting.
3. You will still get rejected: The difference is that now, the rejections get sent to your agent.
These were sobering lessons for me. That said, getting an agent was a step in the right direction. I was ecstatic my manuscripts were now floating into the hands of reputable publishers.
My agent submitted four picture books over the course of the next year. I waited. And I waited. It was rejection after rejection, or no answer at all. I knew there was no set timeline on when that first contract would materialize. It’s always a gamble. I told myself I would give my agent a year and then re-assess.
BUT- early on, I began to have my doubts. I foolishly cast those doubts aside and remained in denial for months. I continued to feel my agent and I were not so aligned nor did we communicate the same way. I ended up waiting a year and a half.
I have no regrets. But my advice is this: TRUST YOUR GUT. If you feel something is askew, I suggest communicating this to your agent clearly. See if things change. If things don’t improve, you may need to re-evaluate.
When I finally decided to part ways with my agent, it was excruciating. I lost sleep for a week as I obsessed over the pros and cons. But I knew what I had to do. The day I pulled the plug, I sank into depressing thoughts and wondered if I did the right thing. And then I realized, with horror:
I HAVE NO AGENT AND I AM RIGHT BACK IN THE TRENCHES!
It took a few weeks for me to come to terms with that. When I was ready, I took a deep breath and got back to work. After a few rounds of submissions, I fell upon an agent who was passionate about my stories. We had several conversations and she remained patient throughout my ridiculously long list of questions (after all, I had been around the block and knew better what I wanted).
I still have to deal with rejection and long wait times, but this partnership feels right. The journey we’re on feels exciting. Everything turned out the way it’s meant to: I got an agent, walked away from that agent, and then found a new one without losing my mind. I admit that last part is debatable, but it was all worth it!
In the end, everyone is on their own journey. For those of you in the querying trenches: I feel you. Keep working hard and trust your intuition, and things will eventually fall into place.
Lydia Lukidis is a children’s author with over 33 books and eBooks published, along with numerous short stories, poems and plays. Her latest picture books The Space Rock Mystery and A Real Live Pet! were released this spring by Kane Press.
Lydia is passionate about spreading the love of literacy and has been giving writing workshops in elementary schools since 1999. She writes fiction and nonfiction for ages 3-12, and has also composed over a dozen educational books. Her background is multi-disciplinary and spans the fields of literature, science and puppetry.
For more information, please visit http://www.lydialukidis.com/
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Finding the right agent fit isn’t easy. We think having submission ready work and querying is hard but really, the hardest part is assessing what we need as a creator and researching who meets those needs best. Glad you found your fit!
Wow, Lydia, this I quite an adventure. So glad you followed your instincts and found a better partner, and I definitely agree with “it’s not what you expect” getting an agent, I got the worst imposter syndrome after I got mine, wondering if I’d never write anything good again, luckily, over the next few weeks, and months I got a whole bunch of awesome ideas and felt reaffirmed, but I’m still so nervous about submissions!!
Thanks for the encouragement & CONGRATS to you!