Kerry Allen

There’s this lovely site called Query Tracker. There’s tons of agent information. You can even look up an author to see if there’s an agent of record. (Double and triple check all information, of course—by no means depend on any one source for your agent search. It’s going to have a big impact on your career, so do your homework like it counts. QT makes that research a little easier by linking to agents’ web sites, Agent Query, Publishers Marketplace, and Preditors and Editors, for starters.) It’s free to sign up. You can keep a list of agents you like, keep track of your submission status, and monitor the agents’ stats (particularly handy for those agents with 1,000 queries and 2 responses reported, so you know not to hold your breath waiting for them to get back to you).

There are also user comments entered on the agents’ pages. The good: Provides an idea of turnaround times and level of feedback given. The bad: Holy monkeybeans, so many prime examples of how not to respond to rejection.

I can relate to the disappointment and frustration. I may even have experienced some hostility a time or two under extenuating circumstances. However, it seems counterproductive for anyone looking for an agent to pitch a hissy fit about any agent in a public forum where agents are known to pop in to verify their info, particularly if your username bears some resemblance to your actual name and/or you’re including identifying details about your deathless prose.

I’m going to reveal the big secret behind rejections—right here in this very post!—in hopes of preventing even one future spaz attack.

Rejection says: “I might not be the right agent for your work.”
Recipient’s interpretation: “I stalked you at conferences and all over the web until I was certain you’re the right agent. WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?!?!”
Secret meaning: “Not interested.”

Rejection says: “I am looking to take on new clients, but only with material about which I feel very strongly.”
Recipient’s interpretation: “Unfortunately for you, feeling very strongly that your writing is crap doesn’t count.”
Secret meaning: “Not interested.”

Rejection says: “Not right for me.”
Recipient’s interpretation: “Not right for me, as I prefer to represent clients who write way better than you do, loser. And you’re ugly.”
Secret meaning: “Not interested.”

Rejection says: “I can’t offer any editorial feedback.”
Recipient’s interpretation: “Your writing is so godawful, it would take me a month to point out everything wrong with it, so I’m not even going to try.”
Secret meaning: “Not interested.”

Are you sensing a theme here? No need to analyze a rejection for its secret meaning. It means NOT INTERESTED. Whether it’s polite or curt, rubberstamped or personalized, hundredth generation photocopy printed on toilet paper or handwritten in calligraphy on vellum, it means NOT INTERESTED. It’s a subjective decision not to become involved in a long-term relationship with words on a page, not a rejection of your worth as a human being.

Have you ever been NOT INTERESTED in something—a person, a TV show, elections in a non-Presidential year? Were you obligated to explain, courteously and in detail, your reasons for being NOT INTERESTED, suggest improvements, and invite further attempts to win you over? Did you spare even one thought for the wounded feelings of that person, TV show, or election? Would you have become INTERESTED if that person, TV show, or election demanded more from you, acting all entitled and becoming insulting toward you when you failed to meet his, her, or its expectations?

Mark that submission “closed.” Cross it off your list. Burn it on the grill if you must, but for the love of monkeybeans, quit agonizing over it to the point where it seems like a smart idea to go online and hurl insulting adjectives at the agent who sent it.

Say a year passes, and you’re shopping around your next project. An agent may not remember your name from the last time you queried, but he’s a bit more likely to remember it if you assassinated his character on his listing.

Aren’t there enough reasons for being rejected without adding “because you’re a douchebag” to the list?

… I hate hijacking other people’s blogs with my 5,000-word rants in response to a response to a comment of reasonable length I made:

Until a Sneering Cynic actually reads a romance novel she likes, there is no conversion to “romance reader.” Sneering Cynic doesn’t wander into the romance corner at B&N on impulse and decide to give it a chance. The only way Sneering Cynic finds that book is through a romance reader she knows and respects putting that book in her hand and insisting, “Try it.” Sneering Cynic has never been impressed by an author or reader or reviewer discussing characterization and conflict and world building and research and all the other nonsexual elements involved in crafting a romance. (Never mind that writing a good sex scene is an art unto itself.) The internet abounds with such discussions, but Sneering Cynics never seem to find those, and that is because they seek evidence to support their existing prejudice that romance novels are silly, ill-crafted smut. Do they go to Teach Me Tonight? No, they go to the 16-point reviews at Mrs. Giggles because that proves they’re right.

I continue to not care what Sneering Cynics think. They’re the ones missing out on some amazing storytelling—the genre with its $1+ billion annual sales isn’t missing them, and neither am I. I continue to oppose revamping the genre to make it more appealing to people who don’t want to be appealed to because that’s a slap in the face to the millions of readers who are already here and loving it for everything it is—including sexy.

There’s sex in music, movies, TV shows, non-romance fiction, advertising everything from beer to eyeglasses, and I’ve even heard some people have it in real life. So why should a sex scene in a romance novel be a dirty little secret?

I firmly believe romance is so easy to pick on because so many people are embarrassed to be associated with it, and that does far more damage than any potshots from Sneering Cynics.

I do my part by not hiding my reading material in shame and by suggesting to Sneering Cynics I know that if they think I’m a worthwhile human being, maybe there’s a worthwhile reason I’m reading that romance novel. (I’ve converted a few, too—never strangers, though, because strangers have no reason to listen to anything I say that conflicts with their opinion.)

As for those Sneering Cynics I don’t know and who are never going to have any effect on my life, rather than surrender even a teeny bit of control over my behavior to them, I’m gonna stick with “fuck ‘em.”

Seems like I’m not doing a whole lot more than I am lately.

1. Gabe’s book (sequel to WL). I have a first draft. Love, love, love Gabe. Love, love, love this story. No point investing more time in it if WL goes nowhere, though.
2. “Cover” for mini-novella. No, I haven’t heard anything on that submission (and might not for another month or so), but I found a near-perfect stock photo for a cover, in the event it ends up being a freebie. We spent a couple hours removing the sunshine (sunshine + vampire = epic fail) and changing the gal’s white tank top to leopard print spandex to make the image story-consistent. It will take another couple of hours to add a frame and some texture to prettify it. It occurred to me while I was searching for materials for the next step (Obsidian Dawn, how I love thee) that this could easily turn into eight solid hours of wasted work if the story’s accepted by NB. *sigh* Drop the stylus and back away from the Photoshop…
3. SC-1. Stalled at a chapter and a half. No reason not to keep working on this book, other than being committed to finishing The (Much Less) Interactive (Than Initially Intended) Web Story. This one, at least, is next on my to-write list, barring unforeseen developments.
4. Romance Cooties. We now have hosting—premature in terms of putting up content, but the price was right and soon to expire. First priority there is artwork (ah, Photoshop, there is no escaping you), and then I’ll get back to stressing about the rest of it.

What’s everybody else working on… or not, as the case may be?

IWS: Wrote a little of the werewolf part. Tinkered a little with the vampire part. Seriously considering removing the initial Option #3 and the later Switcheroo Option in the interest of finishing it sometime this decade because the transitions are killing me. (Although I will use the initial Option #3 elsewhere because I never throw away a good torture mechanism.) Seriously, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. Too ambitious a project for a gal once described as having “a dismaying lack of ambition.”

Wreading Week in Review: Read three “man books” in two days. Read half of a “woman book” in two days—it’s good, it’s just slower going because chick POV involves a lot more introspection than guy POV.

To the reviewer who complained because Robert Parker’s books are all dialogue: That’s why they’re great. Quip, inform, threaten, shoot, pet the pooch, repeat. I know Spenser wanted to beat that obnoxious kid with a folding chair because I wanted to beat that obnoxious kid with a folding chair, and all it took to get me there was the obnoxious kid’s dialogue. That’s a skill, not a shortcoming. Sometimes that spareness and simplicity are exactly what’s called for, and anything more is a waste of words.

I’ve read a couple of statements lately of people being put off when writers talk about their unhappiness with something they’ve written. I’m guilty of this, and I’m in plenty of good company, but I’ve been looking at it from a different angle in the past couple of days, and it ain’t pretty.

In my case, minimizing my ability/talent/expectations/everything else is a survival tool I picked up back in the Paleozoic era when I was but wee prey. When you’re at a lofty elevation (say, Cloud Nine), you are an excellent target and therefore more likely to become a target. Even if you’re lucky and the snipers are all lousy shots, sooner or later, you’re bound to get winged. You might survive the shot, but that’s small consolation if the fall from that lofty elevation kills you.

Ergo, upon completing some accomplishment, the safe thing to do is limit any floaty elation you may experience to 5 or 10 seconds, then come back down to earth, present a low profile, and try not to look worthy of a sniper’s attention. Maybe even grasp your arm and look pitiful, since it would be unsporting to shoot you when you’re already done for.

Speaking from three decades of experience, this method serves its purpose. Low expectations often result in being pleasantly surprised by even small rewards, and being knocked from a low perch leaves bruises rather than broken vertebrae.

But.

When you’re trying to sell a product, you have to jump up and down and wave your arms and make some noise to draw attention to it, or no one will know it exists. Okay, now that you have the customers’ attention, what’s your sales pitch?

“This isn’t very good.”

Whoadamn, look at everybody reaching for their wallets to get some of that low-quality merchandise because they feel sorry for you and respect your honesty.

It doesn’t work that way. People expect value for their money. You can’t get around this by giving the product away for free—they expect value for their time, too. They’re not going to give you either (their money or their time) after you tell them you have nothing of value to offer them in exchange.

Time to stop being self-defeating.

If you really believed you’d written worthless garbage, you would have shredded the hard copies and deleted the files from your hard drive in shame, not offered it to someone to read and invited their feedback. Unless you’re some kind of supermasochist who experiences paroxysms of ecstasy upon hearing your writing is an affront to human intellect (in which case, this little confidence pep talk is whistling through your ears right about now because you’re self-stimulating to fantasies of your future 1-star reviews on Amazon), you had to believe there was at least a 50/50 chance you’d hear something positive.

Congratulations! Your confidence has reached the minimum marketability level of 50 percent!

May not sound like much, but it’s actually an excellent, well-balanced position to be in because you’re in no danger of tipping too far to the other side of the confidence teeter-totter and coming off as an arrogant jerk. (Ironically, people have an even less favorable response to “I’m the bestest evah” than to “This isn’t very good.”)

From this well-balanced position, poised in the dead zone between neurotic and insufferable, you should be able, with practice, to avoid assigning value judgments to your work, at least in the presence of potential customers. (Sorry. If there’s a cure for insecurity, I don’t have it. We can learn to leave it at home in its crate when we go out in public, though.)

The process can be broken down into four simple steps:

1. Stifle any inclination you may have to tell people how to feel about the story before they’ve even read the first word (or after they’ve read the last, but that’s a whole other topic).
2. Tell them what the story is about.
3. Tell them where they can find it if they’re interested.
4. Fade into the background and let the story do the rest of the talking.

Bottom line: Pretty much everybody worries about not being good enough, but that’s not the connection you want to establish with readers in your promotional efforts.

There will always be plenty of people eager to point out your shortcomings. Let them have that miserable job. Don’t do it to yourself and risk alienating even one person who would have loved your story… if only she’d been tempted to read it.