Welcome back to Taylor Talks!
Today was a day to which I had been counting down, a day highlighted on my calendar and marked on my brain. Today, it has officially been six weeks since I sent my first emails to prospective literary agents.
Today was a day to which I had been counting down, a day highlighted on my calendar and marked on my brain. Today, it has officially been six weeks since I sent my first emails to prospective literary agents.
Six weeks ago, I sent emails to a handful of literary agents with a letter describing my book and why I believe they should represent my work. Unfortunately, I realized after the fact that I had the wrong email address for one agent, and resent my email to her the following Monday, so I still haven't hit the six-week mark with her, but the other three agents have now had my letter sitting in their inbox for six weeks.
What's the big deal with six weeks?
To tell you the truth, I have no idea. But everything that I've read about finding a literary agent says that they'll usually respond to you in about six weeks if they want to read your whole novel. You see, when you first email them, you only send them the first ten pages or so of your book, and then if they want to read the rest, they'll get back to you... in six weeks.
So I've finally hit the six-week mark, and I can breathe a sigh of relief now right?
Wrong.
Here's what I truly don't understand about this whole process... I didn't hear back from anyone today, but I don't think that this means that I won't hear back from them. I mean, was I supposed to take this six-week point as a definite day that I should be getting emails from anyone who is interested in my novel? Or is this more of a guideline, a suggestion as to when you should start double-checking your inbox to see if anyone has written to you?
Literary agents must have thousands of letters sitting in their inboxes just waiting to be read. So how do I know that it's going to take them exactly six weeks to get to my letter, read my letter and ten pages, and write back to me? Maybe they won't read my letter until tomorrow. Maybe they won't get to it until the end of the week. I have no idea!
When I first started writing to literary agents, I picked four to whom I wanted to send emails. I didn't write to anyone else on my list yet, because if something was wrong with my letter and I didn't capture anyone's attention, then I still have the chance to fix my letter and send it out to other agents. But when do I know that I should fix my letter? I just don't understand how strict this six weeks is supposed to be. It's so confusing!
While I feel like I can breathe now (figuratively... I'm all stuffed up so the literal version is a little iffy at the moment), simply because this long stretch of time is over, I'm also starting to panic about how long I need to wait before really knowing if all agents rejected my letter. I feel like I need to pick a date and tell myself that if I haven't heard back from any agents by that point, then I should start re-writing my letter and emailing other agents. The only problem is that I don't know what date to pick.
I think that it's time to do a little more research and see if I can find out anymore information about this process. I thought that I understood it, but apparently there's a lot more that I need to know. In the meantime, I'll just keep my fingers crossed that all of the agents I wrote to will see my emails in the next few days and that someone (or all of them) will want to read the rest of my novel. I truly believe that if I can just get my entire novel to them, they'll be intrigued and show interest in representing it as I try to capture the attention of a publishing company. Wish me luck!
Your continued support means the world to me. From foster care to novels, and family to work experiences, I look forward to sharing more of my life with you each day. Don't hesitate to share your own stories with me or ask me questions about my life. Please don't forget to like and share my Facebook author page as well!
I’d greatly appreciate it if you would share this blog with friends and family through your favorite social media sites. If you’re sharing on Twitter, don’t forget to tag me (@TayTayK02) and use the hashtag #TaylorTalks.
Thanks!
Taylor
What's the big deal with six weeks?
To tell you the truth, I have no idea. But everything that I've read about finding a literary agent says that they'll usually respond to you in about six weeks if they want to read your whole novel. You see, when you first email them, you only send them the first ten pages or so of your book, and then if they want to read the rest, they'll get back to you... in six weeks.
So I've finally hit the six-week mark, and I can breathe a sigh of relief now right?
Wrong.
Here's what I truly don't understand about this whole process... I didn't hear back from anyone today, but I don't think that this means that I won't hear back from them. I mean, was I supposed to take this six-week point as a definite day that I should be getting emails from anyone who is interested in my novel? Or is this more of a guideline, a suggestion as to when you should start double-checking your inbox to see if anyone has written to you?
Literary agents must have thousands of letters sitting in their inboxes just waiting to be read. So how do I know that it's going to take them exactly six weeks to get to my letter, read my letter and ten pages, and write back to me? Maybe they won't read my letter until tomorrow. Maybe they won't get to it until the end of the week. I have no idea!
When I first started writing to literary agents, I picked four to whom I wanted to send emails. I didn't write to anyone else on my list yet, because if something was wrong with my letter and I didn't capture anyone's attention, then I still have the chance to fix my letter and send it out to other agents. But when do I know that I should fix my letter? I just don't understand how strict this six weeks is supposed to be. It's so confusing!
While I feel like I can breathe now (figuratively... I'm all stuffed up so the literal version is a little iffy at the moment), simply because this long stretch of time is over, I'm also starting to panic about how long I need to wait before really knowing if all agents rejected my letter. I feel like I need to pick a date and tell myself that if I haven't heard back from any agents by that point, then I should start re-writing my letter and emailing other agents. The only problem is that I don't know what date to pick.
I think that it's time to do a little more research and see if I can find out anymore information about this process. I thought that I understood it, but apparently there's a lot more that I need to know. In the meantime, I'll just keep my fingers crossed that all of the agents I wrote to will see my emails in the next few days and that someone (or all of them) will want to read the rest of my novel. I truly believe that if I can just get my entire novel to them, they'll be intrigued and show interest in representing it as I try to capture the attention of a publishing company. Wish me luck!
Your continued support means the world to me. From foster care to novels, and family to work experiences, I look forward to sharing more of my life with you each day. Don't hesitate to share your own stories with me or ask me questions about my life. Please don't forget to like and share my Facebook author page as well!
I’d greatly appreciate it if you would share this blog with friends and family through your favorite social media sites. If you’re sharing on Twitter, don’t forget to tag me (@TayTayK02) and use the hashtag #TaylorTalks.
Thanks!
Taylor
RSS Feed
