# Submit or not?



## Mytherea (Dec 28, 2016)

Okay, so, I'm not sure if this is the right place for this question, but it seemed like the subforum that fit it the most. 

About a month and a half ago, I participated in a pitch session at a conference with an agent that's one of my dream ones. And it went bad. I'd never done a pitch session before and have this crippling problem when it comes to talking about my stuff (I'm a master of deflection and vagueness, mostly 'cause on some level, I'm utterly convinced I'm boring my audience and they just want me to hurry up and shut up). I was utterly unprepared and botched it bad. I'm pretty sure no one knew what I was talking about by the end--I sure didn't. It also didn't help much that I pitched the exact wrong book for the agent in the exact wrong category at the exact wrong time. And yet, even after these fifteen minutes of failure, the agent gave me their card and invited me to submit a synopsis. I tucked the card away, pretty sure this was some sort of weird consolation prize and everyone was getting one of these and I drowned my sorrows in whiskey, pretty much convinced I was an absolute failure and I'll never get anywhere in this publishing thing. 

I found out later that this wasn't the case, that only a few got the invitation. So now I'm stuck. Do I submit? Pretty much all of me is convinced I'd garner a rejection for this, and I frankly don't ever want the agent to remember my name out of shame and embarrassment for how badly I did, but there's a very tiny part of me that's saying, hey, try anyway. Worst that can happen is a rejection, right? But then, there's that part of me that's already traipsed over into fantasy-land and is saying, yeah, but what if you're offered representation? Do you want to work with someone who made you feel like absolute crap for weeks? And then the rational part shoots down the fantastical one, insisting that the chances of this even being looked at for longer than thirty seconds are so slim, even with the agent's card, it doesn't matter anyway. Argh. I have no idea what I'm doing, and there's yet another part of me that's taking that as evidence that I'm not ready and probably never will be. 

So. To submit or not to submit? That's my question. And will it matter if I don't make my decision for another month? Three months? Six months? Or did I already miss my window of opportunity and really shouldn't submitted the day after?


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## Chessie (Dec 28, 2016)

Submit and write your next book.


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## Heliotrope (Dec 28, 2016)

Just a question, at what point will you feel "good enough" to start submitting? 

Think about that. Are you ever going to feel good enough? Or are you going to continue to be too embarrassed, no matter what you write? 

Here is the thing about this profession... you have to be OK with making a total ass of yourself. 

Submit.


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## Mytherea (Dec 28, 2016)

Heliotrope said:


> Just a question, at what point will you feel "good enough" to start submitting?
> 
> Think about that. Are you ever going to feel good enough? Or are you going to continue to be too embarrassed, no matter what you write?
> 
> ...



Those are...hard questions, ones I don't have an answer for. I've never heard it put that way. I'll have to think on that.


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## Penpilot (Dec 29, 2016)

First, remember these people are professionals, but they're also people too, and they understand people get nervous. I'm sure in their experience they've encountered many people who have fumbled through things. But I'm sure they're skilled enough to ignore the fumbles and pick out the meat of what you're presenting.

Second, this is a second shot to present/sell them on your story, but this time, no pressure with the public speaking and stuff like that. You should now be in your element, right?

IMHO submit. If you don't roll the dice, you never even have a chance at rolling the right number.

Quick story. Recently, I found an anthology looking for a certain type of super-hero story. I came up with a story, finished, but I though something was missing from it. Wasn't feeling it 100%. But it was deadline time, so I sent it in anyway, with zero expectations. 

When I got a response, they said, I'd made it to the second round of selection, and I'd get a final answer soon. 

Two weeks later, I found out I didn't get picked up, but they said I was in the top 60 stories up for selection out of almost 800. And that they were passing because at this point they were picking stories based on theme, what they wanted the overall anthology to feel like, not story quality.

Not great news, but not terrible either.


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## skip.knox (Dec 29, 2016)

I can answer Heliotrope's question - you'll never feel good enough. So submit, already!

Sometimes it helps to re-frame the question. What I hear you asking is this: should I try?

What a question. As if someone is going to advise you not to try. Submit!

Try and fail, then try again. Keep trying. Keep failing. Keep trying. You're not really bleeding, it only feels like it.

Also, your book probably is bad. What the agent saw wasn't the bad novel. What the agent saw was the writer's potential, and the possibility (no, probability) that the author can improve that novel. But only if you ...

Submit!


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## Caged Maiden (Dec 31, 2016)

Go to the agent's site, read thoroughly for the next few days or weeks, until you know what the agent represents, what they want to see in a novel, exactly what they want in a synopsis (and have had the chance to send it to a few friends or post it up here in the Showcase, to get some critical eyes on it) and once you feel prepared, take a couple hours to compose a beautiful query letter and synopsis (and anything else the agent asks for on their site, like three chapters or twenty pages, etc.) and then hit send. I usually spend 2-4 hours on each query letter I send, triple-checking everything and making sure everything is customized to the agent's requests. And I spend days with query letters sitting in my email "drafts" folder, while I do the research until I feel really confident I know exactly what the agent expects, wants, and likes (and until I can put something personal into the letter that I think matters).

If you had an agent that you really want to work with hand you a card at a conference and ask for a synopsis, that's better than sending a query (even a really great one) to a stranger and getting a partial request, I think.

Go for it! You have absolutely nothing to lose. If they write you back saying they don't feel they can represent it, hopefully they'll say why. And if you have another novel to send them, send an email thank gin them for their time, and ask whether they would allow you to send another query (I've done that and the agent responded with excitement). You cannot burn a bridge as long as you are professional and are sending your best work. Agents know writers have to refine their work over years or decades. They might take another query for this novel in a year or two, when it has been thoroughly revised (most say so on their site, if they do).

It doesn't hurt to remind the agent in the query that they met you at Such-and-such a conference and requested the synopsis. People forget stuff, but it may jog their memory, and besides, it always helps to be able to say thank you up front, in my opinion. 

Best wishes!


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## Mytherea (Dec 31, 2016)

@Penpilot: I hope so, I really, really do. And, in a way, submitting a query and synopsis doesn't freak me out half as much as actually having to talk about my writing to a complete stranger for a whole fifteen minutes. Or even talking about it to a not-stranger. I'd rather write a hundred queries and another dozen synopses than pitch again. ...And the more that I'm thinking about it, it's the entire "uninterrupted fifteen minutes of undivided attention" that threw me. I can talk about my books in conversation, I can especially talk about my books if we've already had a few minutes to chat about other things, about books we like to read, shows we watch, and I find we have something in common there and they seem actively interested. Which now makes me wonder, is pitching just a practice thing? Do people get better with it or is it always uncomfortable? Did I walk into it wrong planning for a conversation?

Still, I applaud you for how close you got and while I imagine it must suck to be turned away for something so entirely out of your control, it's nice that it was something entirely out of your control. It's not quality but something completely unforeseen. Which still sucks, but I wish you all the luck finding another home for it.


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## Mytherea (Dec 31, 2016)

@skip.knox: Yeah, I'd been having the same thought, but wasn't going to say. And now that you rephrase it that way, it does sound like a really silly question, doesn't it? Since reading your comment yesterday, I've been working on countering my internal dialogue about this, rephrasing it as "trying" instead of "submitting" and it really been shining a light on how ridiculous this is, that I'm trying to talk myself out of trying. Ugh. This really is an unfair question to ask. 

I hadn't considered that an agent would pick from writers they planned to improve. I'd always thought--well, feared--that the novel had to be as close to perfect as possible. 

I will. I plan to. Erm, next week though, and possibly after getting asking a few more people to look over my synopsis. I recently scrapped and rewrote it for brevity, so it's had the least amount of attention and is freshest, and only my betas have looked it over, and I'm thinking they might be biased having read the novel and filling in the gaps unconsciously, like I am.


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## Mytherea (Dec 31, 2016)

@Caged Maiden: This is where I wish the agent in question had a blog. The only resources are a few interviews, the newest from a few months ago. They don't have a very large online presence, but I've read a couple books they've represented, far more that the agency as a whole represents, but, again, at best, that info is a year old. I hadn't thought about putting the synopsis up here for critique. My beta readers have looked it over, but both did so after reading the book, so I'm a little worried that they, like me, are blind to the flaws where I failed to explain something that would trip up someone who had no preexisting knowledge. 

It sounds like you spend about as much time on queries as me, though I've only ever done cover letters for short stories. I sit on the email drafts of my queries for weeks. And weeks. And stare at them sideways. And stare until the words stop meaning anything and everything is schlock. And then I get someone else to hit submit and I spend the next day wondering, "But did I spell so-and-so's name right? I'm pretty sure they was a silent 'g' in there somewhere, right? Extra 'e'? A salutation with the wrong sex?" 

Hopefully, yes. And, sadly, no, nothing I'd ever want anyone else to see or I'd die of shame. This last one was the first I felt halfway confident that it came out okay enough for another person to read. The new one, which is shaping up okay so far, is still only at the one-fourth mark and won't be ready for at least another eight months. I would never have thought to do a follow-up pitch of another novel though, so thanks for that! I'm working really, really hard to unwrite that unhelpful mental narrative that you only get one chance with a book and any one agent, no resubmits unless asked for, no rewrites unless it's been overhauled so drastically as to be unrecognizable. I'm not sure where or how that belief got stuck in my head, but more and more, I'm realizing that's it's mostly false. But it's really hard to rewrite something that's been stuck in your brain on repeat for years. 

I plan to and hopefully, the agent will remember the conference in a better light than I fear, and I agree. Spirit of gratefulness and so forth. Thanks!


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## psychotick (Jan 8, 2017)

Hi,

Submit! (To my will dammit!!!) Well someone had to say it!

Look, I've just said this elsewhere - my first rule for all writers who truly want to be writers is Publish and be damned! If you want to become the best writer you can be, you have to publish. It's as simple as that. So you always take every step you can to be published.

Now you get a choice in how you decide to try and get published - trade and indie. You've made the choice to go trade. That's fine. I commend you on it. Having said that now you have to do everything you can to get published by this method - at least until you reach a point where you realise it's not happening and decide to go indie.

So that means submit. Find what the agent wants. The form of the submission. Do exactly what is asked for and submit. Make sure your cover letter is perfect. Your synopsis as well. (You can get advice /crits here and in other fora on these.) It may be rejected. It may be rejected with some critique - which is an excellent outcome. It may even be accepted though brace yourself, this is extremely unlikely because the odds are stacked against you.

It doesn't matter which of these options happens. What matters is that as you go through the process, you are coming closer to your goal of becoming an author. Even the worst rejection you can get whatever it might be, is a positive if only because it makes it easier for you to submit the next time.

Remember writing is a passion that you can simply do for love without any cost to you. But publishing is a confidence game full of pain. You simply have to put aside your fears and push through. Otherwise you will never become the writer you want to be.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Russ (Jan 8, 2017)

Okay, time for a dose of tough love.

You obtained the chance to pitch for one of your dream agents for fifteen minutes and were "utterly unprepared"?  You don't deserve whiskey you deserve a good swift kick in the pants.  There is no excuse for being unprepared for a key opportunity, none.

Don't let it happen again.

Now, on the direct question, submit the manuscript.  By pitching you are saying to the agent "I have something to show you I want you to represent."  If they say "I'd like to see it." than you need to fulfill your end of the promise and send them the manuscript.

You may not want to be remembered as the person who made the bad pitch, but it would be worse to be remembered as the person who was asked to send in some material and did not.  

Be prepared for rejection.  One of my close friends who now makes a very good living writing had seventy rejections before he sold.  It is a tough game and a thick skin, persistence and patience all are valuable traits.

And while the agent is reading your manuscript, find ways to work on both your pitch and people skills in general.  They will always be important skills in the traditional publishing industry.  Publishing is really a people business and building those skills and relationships will pay off down the road.

While I would not go as far as PT directly above (publish and be damned) I would say that to get in the door you have to try and open it.  Submit and be damned.  You can't hit a home run or even a single sitting on the bench.  Get in the game!

(As an aside, for most agents it is considered courteous to request at least a partial in any live pitch session)


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## TWErvin2 (Jan 8, 2017)

That you went there unprepared is a problem, but that's past and there is only the future.

I guess an important question you'll have to consider is two years from now, how will you feel about not submitting the novel to the agent? Will be kicking yourself in the shorts, feeling remorse for what might've been?

Yes, from what you said, you embarrassed yourself a bit. But you aren't the only author in the world that struggles with promoting your work one on one with a professional in the industry. But in the end, writing is a business. The agent will determine if your work is something to represent based upon the manuscript's merits. Yes, if you had better prepared, you might have gotten a request for the full manuscript. Do you want to say later on down the road, Yes, if I had decided to send the manuscript off for consideration, it might've found representation and eventual publication?

You indicated, what have you got to lose? If your manuscript gets rejected, nothing really is lost. If it is accepted, you and your agent will be able to laugh off your initial meeting.

But in the end, you have to decide. No one can make the decision for you. Just be sure, as indicated above, to check the guidelines and submit the synopsis and whatever else might've been requested, exactly how it's requested by the agent, and tough as it may be, in your cover letter, remind the agent that after the pitch session (giving the date/info) the agent requested the sent materials.

Good luck which ever direction you decide to take. And move forward, in any case, learning from the past.


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## Christopher Michael (Jan 14, 2017)

TWErvin2 said:


> The agent will determine if your work is something to represent based upon the manuscript's merits.


That's not entirely true, unfortunately. Agents, and publishers, are human. Did you approach them on an off day? Are they in a bad mood? Have they already seen a hundred other manuscripts of the same/similar stuff? Did they JUST accept something that ticks all the same boxes?


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## oenanthe (Jan 14, 2017)

Yeah, I kinda made a noise when I read that you didn't actually have an MS ready. But now it's ready, right?



> "Dear Agent;
> 
> Thank you for inviting me to send [STORY TITLE], a [wordcount, age category, genre] at [convention name.] [COMP TITLE 1] meets [COMP TITLE 2] when [Character, Goal, Stakes.]
> 
> ...



Take a deep breath. You've written your first query.
You have 49 more to go.


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