The waiting is the hardest part

This article sums it up well. Publishing, and getting published, is generally a slow industry and a slow process. It takes time to write a book…sometimes years for folks. It takes time to track down an agent or editor and get a contract signed. Again, sometimes years. And then, a contract, on the short end, is often a year, if not two. It’s a waiting game.

On Waiting

At this point in my writing, I’m often waiting to hear back on queries or request partials from agents. I have a spreadsheet that lets me track when I submitted something, where it went, and if I’ve heard back from them or not. Let me check that and see if I can find some dates.

The longest I’ve waited for a response on a manuscript is: 6 months. If you send a manuscript direct to a publishing house, assuming they accept unsolicited, unagented manuscripts (which a lot don’t nowadays), you’re often looking at a similar wait of 4-6 months. Most agents manage a turnaround of 4-6 weeks (and the accepted wisdom is to wait twice that long before contacting them to see if they did in fact receive the query).

The shortest? An email query for a short story that was answered within the hour I sent it.

There are reasons though. There are a lot, lot, lot of people submitting to only a limited number of agents and editors every day, every week. They really do have a rough, time-consuming job sorting through all the queries and manuscripts. And once a book is coming out, you have to give it time to generate some publicity, get revised, send out advance reader copies (“arcs”), and hopefully get some good reviews so that people actually get an idea of what they book is and whether they want to buy it. This all takes time. Trust me, I know how easy it is to get caught up in the rush of having the bestest, most amazingest story out there that absolutely is going to rewrite the genre. I also know what it’s like to wait six months and get rejected. It’s all part of the business. Read through the Q&A of that article and see what these people, professionals in the biz, are telling us writers.

A few pointers that I dug out:

Be patient– That’s key. You’ll only work yourself into a mental tailspin if you lurk at the mailbox or refresh the inbox every ten seconds.

Persevere– If you give up, the story will never see publication, no matter how good it is.

Remain professional– Agents and editors appreciate it when people actually take the time to follow their guidelines and write queries in something other than crayon-a’la-napkin, and you’ll get points for spelling their name right.

Any other thoughts or experiences as we all wait for our big breaks? Writing isn’t misery, but it still enjoys company, except for when we actually have to write. Then company is too distracting.

I see that smile.