Literary Agents are the Ticket if Any of Them Care

I could have labeled my previous two blog entries with Roman numerals I & II and this one as Roman numeral III.  This is the third blog post about my publishing odyssey for It Was a Magical Place.

            To pick up where I left off, I waited patiently for a response from Karen Kingsbury’s team, whom I had submitted my story to.  They said they would have a response in eight to ten weeks.  They never responded.  I do understand that Karen Kingsbury and her team are extremely busy with multiple projects including the release of a book and a movie based on one of her books.  However, I always wanted people to do what they say they are going to do.  I had to find another way to bring my book to the world.

            I understand that publishers generally do not accept manuscripts directly from authors.  Such unsolicited materials quickly go into their circular file, a comedic term for “trash can.”  They accept manuscripts instead from literary agents.  All I had to do was give my book to a literary agent.  This is where the cliché’ “easier said than done” applies.

            I went to a website listing literary agents.  I noticed that most of the agents and agencies accepted less than ten percent of the manuscripts submitted to them.  I filtered the search results on the web page to show the ones with the highest acceptance rates.  Finding this website was itself tricky. Each time I thought I was at the web page I needed to be at, I would find out I still have to click on another link.

            I sent the requested information to many literary agents and agencies.  Typically a small part of the manuscript, biographical info about myself, my contact info and a synopsis of my book were among the requested documents or form entries.  Some sent me rejections which were polite but were still rejections.  Other did not respond at all.  Of those non-responders, many of them said that if I did not hear from them after a certain number of weeks, I could assume they were not interested.  Throughout this process, I felt like I was repeatedly running around a building looking for a door but not finding one.

            I got to the point that I decided I needed to self-publish.  There are some important concepts I need to explain about self-publishing.  But if I do so, this blog entry will be too long.  Therefore, that will be the subject of the next post which will probably be next month.  I had thought my description of my publishing venture would be in three parts, but apparently, I need a fourth part.