Chasing Agents and Publication

There are many ways on how people might strategically approach an agent. As a newbie and aspiring author, one may resort to silly tactics that might annoy a potential representation, or track them elsewhere on the internet (especially their social media accounts and personal email) that breach the submissions guidelines on their official websites.

There is a reason why agents prescribe ways on how to contact them for making a query. The very obvious reason is volume. Agents receive a lot of queries everyday, and it easily piles up in a month. When an agency becomes preoccupied with their present clients (especially those who represent bestselling authors), they tend to be more selective on taking up new clients. A steady income without too much work (which is why they want to take in very talented authors) is simply the aspired business model.

But of course literary agencies exist to seek new talents and future bestselling authors so the query line is always open. However, aspiring writers must be aware that big agencies have very high standards compared to the rest of the literary agents in the market. Just by looking at the authors they represent will tell you the obvious reasons.

A successful query really depends on the goods you are willing to offer on the table, and a talent is a talent, so once you have found the perfect agent for your book (who is supposedly so in-love with your story that they are willing to work with you editorially and invest their precious time on your manuscript), that it will open doors for you as a potential full-time author in the future.

But just like querying where you get the perfect hook right, where the voice works in the first few pages, and the story seems plausible, yet suddenly the voice changed in the ending and it falls flat, a painful rejection might send the story back to square one.

When the ending seems to be disappointing despite a promise in its beginning, it is time to reflect and check the story arc's shortcomings. Maybe the POV did not work? Or the main protaganist did not steal our hearts all the way. Whatever it is, authors must be able to find a way to salvage the whole story while taking revisions into account, and prevent its unfortunate collapse.

To get the attention of the agent is a lot easier than attaining the attention of the market. In the book shelves, your book will sit beside established authors. It is very hard to get the attention of the readers in these occasions despite consistent marketing efforts. In the making of a book into eventual publication, everything is considered right up to this point, which is focused on selling copies of your book. 

Writing is a passion for many, but it is still a business. Make sure your start is as good as the ending because readers are intelligent and they can sense the unnecessary change to the author's voice or POV. The last thing you do not want is for them to suspect that the author was just stealing ideas everywhere without a clear direction.

And that is going to be a complete shame.

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