BBKristopher.com

I decided that with Meredith MacKenzie and the Uruk Empire, I didn't want to do the 'submit, wait a year, get rejected, rinse, repeat' thing. Instead, I decided to try and get an agent.

There are several reasons for this. First, it's accepted practice to query more than one agent at a time, which cuts down on how long the whole thing takes. Second, I'm going to need an agent anyway, if for no other reason than I've discovered I don't like worrying about the business end of writing, and I'm probably going to end up with books spread across two or three publishers. Third, an agent will open up new markets for me, and Fourth, an agent will get me read a lot faster.

Will all that in mind, I went ahead and picked out an agent I thought was likely to take me on. Talked to him a bit, (he's a friend of a friend) and got things squared away. On the other hand, he's got a two month turnaround currently, and I figured it couldn't hurt to have a backup plan.

So, I went out and looked around for agents who I knew by reputation, or who represented authors I liked, and starting Tuesday, I began sending out queries.

Two paper queries went out on Tuesday. Two email queries on yesterday. One email query in the early hours of this morning, and two more paper queries today.

Both of the email queries that went out yesterday got same day responses. The first was a rejection. The second was a request for a full manuscript.

Which is what this is:

That is roughly six *pounds* of paper, according the the scale at the UPS store. 518 pages. 96,000 words.

The current stats stand thus:
1 Rejections
2 Agents with the First Five Pages
1 Agent with the First Ten Pages
1 Agent with the First Three Chapters
2 Agents with the Full Manuscript

This is less impressive than it sounds. One of the agents only takes full manuscript submissions, so I've only had one specific request for a full manuscript. Still, it was the second query I'd gotten a response to, and I may over-analyzing* but I think the response sounds fairly promising.

"Hi Brian,
Thanks for your query. I really enjoyed these opening pages, and would be happy to see the rest of the manuscript. At your convenience, could you send a copy to the address below? Thanks. I look forward to reading it. In the meantime, if you have any questions for me, please don't hesitate to ask.
best, [Agent Name Redacted]"

So, all told, I feel like I've had a pretty good week as far as writing goes.

*(Is it still rejectomancy if you're analyzing an acceptance, or do we need a new term? Acceptomancy maybe.)