Experiences after submission to publishers??

[Dontrocktheboat]

Hi, just canvassing experiences really - after the euphoria of having an agent and months of revision my agent has now submitted to various editors at publishing houses, many of whom she has spoken to in advance. The trouble is, I now have no idea what to expect - it seems from googling it could take weeks/ months/ years for anyone to make an offer on it, maybe never! It's a bit disheartening to realise having an agent is not necessarily end of the process...

If anyone who has been at this stage is happy to share experiences, it would be much appreciated!

Thanks for your thoughts Japanese Tea. Do you work in the book trade? Always good to know people's background when they're lecturing folk about the role of a literary agent and how we should behave around them.

No-one here has mentioned calling at evenings and weekends. And I'm pretty certain that no decent literary agent has 200 clients - some agencies maybe but not individual agents. We're entitled to be curious re progress though - as my agent put it in an email the other day: "It's your career and it's ok to ask questions and wonder what's happening." He's also pointed out in the past that he works for me not the other way round so I shouldn't worry about getting in touch.

All Best, Toast.

(Not the next Atwood but still a hard-working writer who doesn't like being patronised.)

histinyhandsarefrozen The moving - so much moving! It's amazing anything gets done between people packing boxes and ordering new business cards!

I'm off to see family next week and they're all so excited about my agent and they'll have so many questions about publishers etc. Kind of dreading it because there's only so many times you can smile and say 'No news yet. Things move slowly. I'm not worrying at all.'

Fingers crossed you hear something soon.

No-one here has mentioned calling at evenings and weekends. And I'm pretty certain that no decent literary agent has 200 clients - some agencies maybe but not individual agents.

Seconding this.

If your agent has 200 clients or more you should seriously consider getting a new agent. That's far too many for them to represent.

(And yes, I work in trade publishing and know a lot of agents and editors.)

I personally think no news is good news. My agent sent a new ms to my publisher in Feb and it only went to an editorial meeting this week. Publishing is SLOW! If they haven't said no yet then it is still in play. Of course some manuscripts will go to auction and have people wetting themselves over them within days of submission, but I think the vast majority take much, much longer. Just crack on with writing something new and try to ignore the madness if you can.

Thanks Schmalex - really helpful to get your (constructive!) input as you hear so many contradictory things about waiting times! Think I will do as you and some of the others say and crack on with something new while I am biting my nails!

It's really helpful to read all this, with having two ms with publishers at the moment the waiting is excruciating - the fiction one said they'd be back to me mid sept with a definite yes or no. Non fiction is taking it to aquistions in October but still waiting to hear back from them about some revisions before that. It's all so slow! But I prefer to go with the no news is good news adage. Sounds good to me.

Great to hear from some people longer in the industry, too. I like the advice to concentrate on other things, you can drive yourself mad thinking about the ms stuck in submission land, when you'd be better off working on other stuff. I'm going to take my own advice on that in the coming weeks

It makes sense to keep going on the next thing. If they say yes to the first one then you may be under pressure to complete a second quickly. And if they say no to the first one, it helps you to feel that you have an exciting new idea well underway!

Also, I know several people whose first book went on sub and didn't sell, but their second (or third, etc) did get a publisher and did very well. It's important to think of yourself as a writer and not get too fixated on one book (although it would obviously be very nice to have a massive smash hit!)

My biggest problem is that while I agree with my agent that I should just concentrate on the next book, the next book should really be the sequel to the book that's out on submission. If that doesn't find a home then it's going to be impossible to place the second in the series! Book 2 is 20k-ish of first draft at the moment and a fairly detailed plan - enough to direct the plot, not enough that I feel like I'm just filling in the blanks and getting bored.

So I'm dithering between that and a couple of other ideas - both set present day instead of the 1920s, one is first person - and getting nothing of substance done. One of those has a very rough 50k first draft and the other is an idea, a handful of scenes and a few pages of notes.

I think I need to just pick a lane and stick with one of them for a while, don't I?

Hi burning, that sounds great that you've got a few projects on the go already. I can see the problem with not being sure whether to plough on with the sequel until you have a definite published for the first though. What does your agent think?

You are doing better than me, so far I only have a few ideas and notes for the next one. Think I might set myself a challenge of using nanowrimo to try and make some proper progress on it.

Interesting the poster who commented that nothing will happen until after Frankfurt - that was kind of my fear! Suspecting not likely to hear much this week and definitely not next!

Hee hee did I strike a nerve with the bugging your agent? Perhaps that is unfair on new wannabe authors, maybe that happens more once You Are an actual Author.

Yes yes get on with the next book (s). If you do get a deal it’s all anyone will care about anyway.