Why is it so hard to get an agent's attention?

Why is it so hard to get an agent to even read my work?  And what can be done about it?

The other week I passed on three chapters of a novel, not because I didn't like them, but because I simply didn't have the time to read them. They had been sent to me by an author I'd considered in the past and who I remembered as talented. However, after requesting them, I realized I was simply overwhelmed with work--authors under contract who were ramping up their book publication, clients whose novels I had to read and edit etc. (Not to mention I was moving and had a sinus infection--yes, one's personal life does come into play.)  I could and possibly should have waited until I had more time, but in that moment, simply crossing something off the list was a means to my own sanity, and I very honestly told the writer that after looking at my work load, I didn't have the time to give it the attention it deserved.  She wrote me back the following:

"Thank you for your quick response and for your candor.  While I entirely understand how busy you must be and how that affects your decisions, it's a source of constant frustration to many of the good writers I know that so many agents are in your position.  It means there's a real bottleneck when it comes to having work seriously considered, and I think that's a main driving force behind so many people looking to alternative publishing routes.  At some point, I think this may work out for everyone, but at the moment it's chaotic, confusing and, in some instances, flat out discouraging.  Writers can't get work out there unless they're established and sometimes not even then.  The biggest loser in all this is readers who miss the opportunity to find a broader range of significant voices, which basically means the whole society."

She has a point.  What's a writer to do? This question has stayed with me and I think I have, if not the answer, one suggestion. * I am too busy right now, and I while I have pockets where I am not, for the most part, I am not taking on a lot of new clients.  But, not so long ago I did have the time and I would have jumped at the chance to consider this author's work. In 2002, I was working as a junior agent at an established agency, where I was supported by wonderful, seasoned agents, who not only gave me the chance to take on my own clients, but supported me every step of the way, making introductions to the right editors, offering second reads, and generally encouraging my list. So, my answer to writers who are feeling this bottleneck effect is to cast a wider net when submitting to agents.  A lot of the authors I work with now signed with me when I had three sales under my belt, and they are still with me, working on their 3 or 4th book (a special shout out to Lynne Griffin and Allison Winn Scotch who both chose lil old me over more established agents when I was working at Kneerim & Williams.) So, taking into consideration my own experience as an agent just starting out, I would read the Who We Are sections on agency websites and start submitting to younger agents at those shops. When you get a bite, don't be shy if you have reservations about their small list of sales about asking how the agency works. Is it collegial?  Do they have mentors, etc?

Anyone out there have a similar experience?  Or other advice for writers frustrated with this whole process?

* I have to give credit where credit is due. I sat on an agent panel with the lovely Zoe Pagnamenta, who originally offered this suggestion up when a frustrated author asked her a similar question.

Rae Meadows and Mothers & Daughters

Dear Writers,

Simply put, I am in awe of you.

Anyone that can put together a novel together with a beginning, middle and an end (even if it’s awful!) is pretty amazing to me. So, when you can do it beautifully, well then you are a superhero in my book. (I read Bird by Bird in college and decided then and there that being a writer was not for me.) So  I am forever always asking authors, how do you do it? How do you carve out those hours in the day? How do you come up with your ideas? How do you deal with rejection? How do you persevere? 

Today I am chatting with Rae Meadows, author of the upcoming Mothers and Daughters (Holt 2011).  We’re discussing the moment her book first formed and how it evolved to what it is now. Rae’s novel is told in three voices and spans a century, from New York’s Lower East Side during the 1900’s and the Orphan Train Movement to modern day motherhood and the choices women still grapple with.

CAN YOU SPEAK A LITTLE ABOUT THE INSPIRATION FOR MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS? WHAT WAS THAT FIRST KERNEL OF AN IDEA THAT GOT YOU FIRED UP TO WRITE THIS BOOK?

The subject of my fiction often seems to emerge from a serendipitous collision of ideas. For Mothers & Daughters, I began wanting to write about my grandfather. He was the youngest of eight children, born into rural poverty in Barren County, Kentucky. When he was three, his family moved north to Illinois so his father could take a job in a lumber mill. I planned a sweeping story about family history and migration, imagining my great-grandparents at the turn of the 20^th century, packing a wagon, seeking more for their children than they could eke out from their small parcel of Kentucky land.

BUT THE HISTORICAL PARTS OF MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS INVOLVE THE ORPHAN TRAINS.  HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT THEM?

As I was writing my mom happened to ask me if I’d ever heard of the orphan trains. I hadn’t, and I was immediately enthralled. Beginning in the mid-19th century, under the direction of The Children’s Aid Society, orphaned, delinquent, and poor children from New York City were shipped out on trains in the hopes they would be adopted by Christian farm families in the Midwest—without anything set up in advance or any screening of potential adopters. Whoever showed up at the makeshift viewings could simply take home a child, as if picking up a sack of corn meal from the mercantile. 

I HAD NEVER HEARD OF THE OPRHAN TRAINS UNTIL YOU MENTIONED THEM TO ME!  I AM NOW EQUALLY OBSESSED AND FIND MYSELF ASKING OTHERS IF THEY’VE HEARD OF THEM.

I was shocked I’d never heard of this fascinating piece of American history. But the orphan trains were no secret; there has been plenty written about them, mainly devoted to personal accounts of orphan train riders. Most of what I read on the subject was folksy and sentimental. It wasn’t until I turned to the history of child welfare that the underside of the Orphan Train Movement became apparent: there was no protest or regulation of the trains because they were effectively draining New York City of a poor, useless class, delivering these children to labor-starved areas where they could be put to work for very little or for free.

HOW LONG DID YOU SPEND RESEARCHING?

I researched for about six months I think, reading everything I could about the orphan trains and about New York City in 1900. A bunch of the research I did was for the part of the novel that went away, about the doctor at the Wisconsin Insane Asylum. It was fascinating material, though, all original sources, so I don't feel it was wasted time. If you ever want to know how a run a turn-the-century asylum, just let me know.

MAYBE IT WILL FIND ITS WAY INTO YOUR NEXT NOVEL.  HOW DO DID YOU GET FROM THIS HISTORICAL MOMENT, TO FINDING YOUR FICTIONAL STORY?

I started to envision a novel about two disparate characters brought together by one of the trains. One would be a girl who leaves Kentucky with her mother and ends up in New York City’s dismal Fourth Ward. The other would be an ex-Civil War doctor who runs the Wisconsin Insane Asylum, allowing me to delve into the history of Madison, where I’d lived for the past five years. I spent hours poring over photographs and asylum records at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and I read everything I could about the orphan trains and New York City in the last years of the 19^th century. I was ready to write.

WOW, EVEN THIS ELEMENT OF THE STORY CHANGED SO MUCH. WHAT HAPPENED?

I had a baby.  Motherhood turned my life on its head and made me question myself in a way that was scary and new. The first year was a time of euphoric highs and soul-doubting lows, and as the months slid by, I feared I would never want to write again. When my daughter was a year old, I finally sat down with all my old notes and creaked out some pages. But I was a different woman than I’d been before becoming a mother, in the obvious ways, of course, but also in subtle shifts of perception, longing, and contentedness. And I was a different writer, too. When I wrote about the doctor, it felt clunky and studied, dark and Gothic in a way that no longer felt right. What I wanted to write about—what I now felt compelled to write about—was motherhood.  Admitting this allowed the novel to take shape. Springing from the original inspiration of my grandfather’s life, it became an exploration of mothers and daughters through three generations, anchored by the story and legacy of a scrappy girl named Violet who boards an orphan train in 1900.  Mothers & Daughters melds my family history, the orphan trains, and the experience of becoming a mother. It is a manifestation, I hope, of the writer I have become.

AS A MOTHER, WHEN DO YOU FIND TIME TO WRITE? DO YOU SLEEP? BE HONEST.

I don't sleep! But these days, home full time with a three-year-old and a new baby, there's not much writing going on. I hope to get back to it in a couple of months, and I'm guessing it's all going to happen after the kids are asleep. One of the tricks I used to write Mothers and Daughters was to write two pages a day. That's how I eked out a first draft with a toddler underfoot. Not elegant, perhaps, but it got the job done.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE OF THINGS, YOU DIDN'T SHARE THIS WITH ME UNTIL YOU WERE FINISHED. WAS THAT A CONSCIOUS THING?  DID ANYONE ELSE READ IT?

It was a conscious decision not to send to you until it was pretty well formed. I, probably like most writers, am not thrilled about sharing projects in the works, even though I know it's a good idea. My husband is always my first (and sometimes toughest!) reader. He told me what I already suspected--the Insane Asylum thread of the novel wasn't working. When I lived in Madison, I was part of a group of woman novelists, and, after I reworked the manuscript, I had them read it. Their comments were very insightful, particularly in terms of craft. Then it went to my sister, Susannah. And then to you! 

THANKS, RAE!  To find out more about the author, check her out at http://raemeadows.com/

This past weekend, three of my dearest agent friends and I packed up for Connecticut for a much needed Mother's Weekend away.  The trip had been planned for months, and we were determined that  nothing would stop to stop it from happening. Nope. Where there is a will to sleep, eat and drink when you want, there is a way! Despite a storm that left us with a foot of snow, husbands and mothers telling us it was a really bad idea to drive under such conditions, a highway closed down due to said storm and a car that  rattled the whole way on the back roads (yes, the ladies drove through a snow storm on a bald tire) we made it.  We really felt like pioneer women when we had to ditch the car at the end of the road and hike though said foot of snow to the house. But it was so worth it. By 10pm we were sitting fireside, enjoying our late night dinner of cheese and wine (cooking was too much effort) and laughing at how determined (or stupid) we were.

I wanted to share that little story because our determination reminded me a bit of what it's like to sell a book these days. You have to really want it and be ready for a lot of setbacks. People telling you are nuts, roadblocks, detours and well, you get my analogy.  Things don't always happen the way you expect them to, but with a little luck and a lot of hard work, it is worth the ride. With that in  mind, in the coming weeks, I am going to be doing author interviews on all aspects of writing and publishing.  Next week I will be interviewing Rae Meadows, author of the upcoming novel, Mothers and Daughters (Henry Holt, March 2011) on the inspiration behind her book, based in part on the Orphan Train Movement. 

Happy New Year!

Since I didn't get my first cell phone until 2004, I thought it appropriate to start blogging in 2011. Who knows,  maybe I'll join Facebook in 2012.

Now that I am here, I have no idea what to write about, so dear readers, any questions for this here agent? Please fire away!

Weed Literary has a very busy year ahead, with 10 books publishing this Spring alone. Of them, there are five debut novels hitting the bookshelves, so I am looking forward to interviewing these lovely authors about their experiences leading up to this exciting moment in the coming months.  More to come!