Tag Archives: agents

Boats, Planes and Trains

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Jack’s Wednesday guest blog – –

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a flight to Italy where my old band ‘Heritage’ were booked for a festival.

We played concerts, tours, and festivals almost every summer in Scotland and all round Europe for fourteen years, and often times other aspiring singers and bands would ask me how we got the bookings.

Here is an example of how we “booked our gigs,” so that you can see how I couldn’t really help them much:

I was at a party in a friend’s house in Edinburgh, where I was introduced to a French artist who illustrated the cover of a magazine called ‘Escargot Folk.’ He suggested I send information about our band to them, which I did. About a year later I received a copy, and there we were – but – my address was completely garbled and miss-spelled!

Another two years passed, and I got a postcard.

It was from a guy in the northeast of Italy who organized a regional festival there. He had received a bundle of the French magazines and wanted to know if we would be touring in Europe the next year. Well – of course! I blessed the postman who deciphered the address and delivered it.

That first visit to FolkEst in Friuli was by train, which was a great adventure involving us, our luggage, and our instruments…and changing trains in Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Milan before arriving in San Daniele. The next time was the flight over the Eiger!

All our other travels started with similar ‘happenstances’ – we didn’t have an agent, so things just came out of the blue. But it all took me to places I would never have seen and introduced me to people with whom I still keep in touch.

Finding the Joy in the Journey

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The garden has its second planting. The canner is going full tilt. I got another personal rejection from a fiction agent.

It’s a journey. The rejection was friendly, kind even, and specific about the reasons. It’s good grist for the improvement mill, and I’m grateful that 1) I am now consistently getting past the interns with most agent queries, and 2) some agents are kind enough to supply feedback, believing in the maturity of the author to incorporate it rather than fling it back in their face. Good on ya, agents. Your job can be emotionally draining, and it’s so helpful when you send that kind of information.

When I get a personal rejection, it feels invigorating. Someone cared enough to read my work and give me an honest opinion. That’s quite something in today’s crowded, noisy world. It means there’s a reason to fight another day to get my work to the right person.

Agents are a lot like dating: you have to find the person whose worldview either aligns or at least encompasses yours. You have to impress each other. You have to learn to trust and believe in each other. It’s a LOT like dating.

And it’s actually fun. In a success-driven society where people literally make “friends” with each other based on how useful they think you’re going to be to them later, hunting an agent feels honest. And like a learning opportunity. It’s a financial contract with emotional edges. It’s a strategic process where you learn what works and what doesn’t, pit what you think against advice from experts, and learn to flex.

As you send your five queries per week, it can feel like a game. Which is a good thing. Helps you keep your sanity as you add another rejection to the RESPONSE column of your query spreadsheet.

These days those response entries say things like “Personal no, too much romance,” and “personal no, possible reconsideration if…” When I scroll up a dozen entries, I wasn’t getting past the interns. A spreadsheet doesn’t just keep you from querying someone twice, it shows you progress.

Forward, onward, north to Narnia – or Chicago, New York, Charleston. Not all the awesome agents are in NYC.

There’s a joy in the journey, and a satisfaction to knowing you’re writing something worth looking at. To having done the work. The gatekeepers are part of the work, so make them part of the fun.