![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Assuming I am motivated to write a Part the Second.
I just came home from attending a class at The Loft Literary Center (http://www.loft.org/) on what agents look for in a first novel, taught by a literary fiction agent. It was a perfectly fine class - well organized and presented, with a reasonable list of resources. On the downside, she had some issues getting the whole genre thing, apart from mysteries, which as we all know possess literary merit well beyond that of sf/f, horror, romance or anything else apart from...literary fiction. The Minnesota Book Awards have this same problem--forget being in the finals, let along winning, unless you're a mystery author. It's fascinating in its annoying and I-don't-write-mysteries-so-why-should-I-care-or-support-these-awards? sort of way.
But I digress.
So I run into sundry author pals from different parts of my life as one does at these things, and the first question I am asked is "What novel are you looking for an agent to rep?" A perfectly reasonable question considering I'm about 45k words into one novel and 20k into another, plus having 2 more outlined and started. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not agent hunting at the moment.
I've had 2 short story collections out with 2 presses so far (Torquere and Lethe) and will have the antho I'm editing out with Lethe released this year, for a total of 3 books with my name on the cover. Another antho with Lethe is a possibility and the re-release of my first collection, now out of print, is a probability. In addition,I have had stories published with Cleis, Alyson, Circlet, Seal, Thunder's Mouth, Constable and Robins, Carroll and Graf, Meisha Merlin, Haworth, Vehicule and Blue Moon, not to mention sundry presses and e-zines no longer up and running, for a grand total of something like 60 or so published stories. I've been in 6 volumes of Cleis' Best Lesbian Erotica series, 2 volumes of Best New Erotica and 3 volumes of Alyson's various "Best of" books, plus having one story final for the Spectrum Award and another story make it to the recommended list of Best of the Rest: Small Press Science Fiction and Fantasy. By many standards, I'm a wildly successful medium/small press author.
What that really means: I do a lot of readings, I travel to out of town conferences when I can afford to, I do a lot of panels, I blog and in short spend a lot of time tap dancing about in front of people in hopes of building up a fan base/readership/selling a few more books. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But every sale counts, every positive review counts, every new reader counts and every award nomination counts because there is no ad budget and no travel budget. Everything has to be fought for and celebrated or agonized over.
In return, I get a lot of say in what my books look like. I know how they get produced and how and where they sell. I don't have to change my name every 3 books because the last few titles didn't speak to your average B&N shopper. And, most importantly, I get to write what I want. I'm not locked into any strange formulas ("there has to be a sex scene every 6 paragraphs and it must include a reference to the color blue") and I can take risks with my work.
On the downside, I'm missing my shot at the writerly Holy Grail: quitting the day job to live off my writing.
How many writers do I know who've done that? Ten or twelve off the top of my head. How many have done this without the full financial/health insurance support of a spouse or partner? More like 3. The average writing income, based on one novel or a whole lot of articles per year, supposedly comes in at about $4000-$6000 US, and that's considered pretty good. Most professional writers don't make that much. Can you support yourself, let alone any other family members you may be responsible for, on this amount?
The ones who do manage to support themselves primarily by writing often also teach or do workshops, write in multiple genres under different names and have some other income generating project on the side.
And while these are not exactly unknown or invisible pieces of info, I'm still asked when I'm going to quit my day job and whether or not my publisher is sending me on tour. Sigh.
It is a remarkably durable mythology that no amount of information or good sense seems to correct, particularly within genre fiction. Is it a possibility? Perhaps. Will having an agent definitely sell any novel I crank out? Maybe, maybe not. Will having that agent sell one of my novels enable me to quit my day job? In the absence of a graphic novel, movie rights and a Broadway musical or at the very least a Pulitzer, probably not. Does it mean that I'll never go looking for an agent to rep one of my books? Of course not.
Perhaps a better question would be: have you found a successful way to juggle all the elements of your life such that you can carve out enough writing time to produce the work you love? Possible answers include: if not, can I help? If so, that's terrific! I hope it continues.
I just came home from attending a class at The Loft Literary Center (http://www.loft.org/) on what agents look for in a first novel, taught by a literary fiction agent. It was a perfectly fine class - well organized and presented, with a reasonable list of resources. On the downside, she had some issues getting the whole genre thing, apart from mysteries, which as we all know possess literary merit well beyond that of sf/f, horror, romance or anything else apart from...literary fiction. The Minnesota Book Awards have this same problem--forget being in the finals, let along winning, unless you're a mystery author. It's fascinating in its annoying and I-don't-write-mysteries-so-why-should-I-care-or-support-these-awards? sort of way.
But I digress.
So I run into sundry author pals from different parts of my life as one does at these things, and the first question I am asked is "What novel are you looking for an agent to rep?" A perfectly reasonable question considering I'm about 45k words into one novel and 20k into another, plus having 2 more outlined and started. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not agent hunting at the moment.
I've had 2 short story collections out with 2 presses so far (Torquere and Lethe) and will have the antho I'm editing out with Lethe released this year, for a total of 3 books with my name on the cover. Another antho with Lethe is a possibility and the re-release of my first collection, now out of print, is a probability. In addition,I have had stories published with Cleis, Alyson, Circlet, Seal, Thunder's Mouth, Constable and Robins, Carroll and Graf, Meisha Merlin, Haworth, Vehicule and Blue Moon, not to mention sundry presses and e-zines no longer up and running, for a grand total of something like 60 or so published stories. I've been in 6 volumes of Cleis' Best Lesbian Erotica series, 2 volumes of Best New Erotica and 3 volumes of Alyson's various "Best of" books, plus having one story final for the Spectrum Award and another story make it to the recommended list of Best of the Rest: Small Press Science Fiction and Fantasy. By many standards, I'm a wildly successful medium/small press author.
What that really means: I do a lot of readings, I travel to out of town conferences when I can afford to, I do a lot of panels, I blog and in short spend a lot of time tap dancing about in front of people in hopes of building up a fan base/readership/selling a few more books. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But every sale counts, every positive review counts, every new reader counts and every award nomination counts because there is no ad budget and no travel budget. Everything has to be fought for and celebrated or agonized over.
In return, I get a lot of say in what my books look like. I know how they get produced and how and where they sell. I don't have to change my name every 3 books because the last few titles didn't speak to your average B&N shopper. And, most importantly, I get to write what I want. I'm not locked into any strange formulas ("there has to be a sex scene every 6 paragraphs and it must include a reference to the color blue") and I can take risks with my work.
On the downside, I'm missing my shot at the writerly Holy Grail: quitting the day job to live off my writing.
How many writers do I know who've done that? Ten or twelve off the top of my head. How many have done this without the full financial/health insurance support of a spouse or partner? More like 3. The average writing income, based on one novel or a whole lot of articles per year, supposedly comes in at about $4000-$6000 US, and that's considered pretty good. Most professional writers don't make that much. Can you support yourself, let alone any other family members you may be responsible for, on this amount?
The ones who do manage to support themselves primarily by writing often also teach or do workshops, write in multiple genres under different names and have some other income generating project on the side.
And while these are not exactly unknown or invisible pieces of info, I'm still asked when I'm going to quit my day job and whether or not my publisher is sending me on tour. Sigh.
It is a remarkably durable mythology that no amount of information or good sense seems to correct, particularly within genre fiction. Is it a possibility? Perhaps. Will having an agent definitely sell any novel I crank out? Maybe, maybe not. Will having that agent sell one of my novels enable me to quit my day job? In the absence of a graphic novel, movie rights and a Broadway musical or at the very least a Pulitzer, probably not. Does it mean that I'll never go looking for an agent to rep one of my books? Of course not.
Perhaps a better question would be: have you found a successful way to juggle all the elements of your life such that you can carve out enough writing time to produce the work you love? Possible answers include: if not, can I help? If so, that's terrific! I hope it continues.