The Other Shoe Drops
Oct. 23rd, 2016 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ahunter3On October 18, Janet Rosen, assistant to Sheree Bykofsky, wrote back to me to say that she had completed her reading of my manuscript and that although it was not without merit, this was not a project that Sheree Bykofsky Associates could pursue.
This wasn't entirely surprising (the longer it became since Ellora's Cave folded and informed me that they would not be publishing my book, the less likely it seemed to me that Sheree Bykofsky Associates would continue to act as my literary agency and find me a new publisher). To review, I obtained their services to help me negotiate a favorable contract with the publisher AFTER the publisher had made their offer; they never took me on as a conventional client. Yes, I was hoping that some intellectual proximity, a bit of sympathetic loyalty, and a pleasant experience of me as a person to work with would make them more likely to represent me than if they had merely received my query letter in the large daily slush-pile stack that lit agents get every day. And maybe it did, just not sufficiently to cause them to embrace THE STORY OF Q, who knows?
So I am situationally back to that mythical drawing board, with neither publisher nor lit agent, and again taking up the querying process.
The experience has changed my attitude and approach somewhat, though, as well as having at least netted me a good solid editing job from EC's Susan Edwards as part of the process. Firstly, I now stand at nearly 800 queries to literary agents, culminating in my query to Sheree Bykofsky Associates post-EC, all of which have failed to land me a lit agent. In contrast, I've queried 12 small publishers and received one publication offer. It may be a mildly tainted offer insofar as it came from a publisher on its last legs and in its dying throes, but any way you cut it, the math speaks for itself. I will continue to query lit agents, mainly because publishers tend to want exclusive consideration while they look at one's manuscript, so I can query lit agents as a way of twiddling my thumbs. But my main effort will go towards querying publishers.
Meanwhile, since I have a publicist — John Sherman & Co, hired to promote my book — I'm diverting his focus towards getting me exposure, speaking gigs, media coverage. I've given some well-received presentations to the kink community, which has been wonderfully supportive of me so far, and I do not wish to denigrate that in any way, but it's a somewhat self-limiting audience: people are relatively unlikely to talk to folks outside the BDSM world about this interesting presentation they heard in a BDSM venue. It is still a world in which privacy is highly valued by most, where people know each other by their FetLife nicknames and may not know a participant's real name or, if they do, would by default assume it is NOT ok to mention it elsewhere. In short, although I apologize for the ingratitude that may attach to expressing it this way, I need to do some of my presentations outside of the BDSM ghetto in order to get more traction. Kinky folks have been extremely welcoming, not only to me but to other identity-marginalized people whose peculiarities are not really a form of erotic fetish — google up "pony play", "puppy play", and "littles" in conjunction with BDSM for instance — but yeah, genderqueerness isn't really a fetish and the people I really need to reach are only sprinkles in moderate levels at BDSM events.
Speaking of making presentations etc, I read a 10 minute segment adapted for outloud reading and venue purposes, at WORD: THE STORY TELLING SHOW on October 19. It was fun, was well-received and well-applauded, and came at a very good time for my frame of mind. I need to do more of this, and more of the drier more abstract material presentations such as I did at EPIC and Baltimore Playhouse and LIFE in Nassau, and perhaps more personal-anecdote of the non-humourous variety sharing, and so on, in order to build my platform and widen my exposure, and because doing so is communication, which is the end in itself, the entire reason for writing the book in the first place.
I am currently working with John Sherman to blanket the world of academic women's studies and gender studies programs, letting them know of my availability to do presentations. We will soon be expanding that to campus and non-campus LGBTetc organizations including student associations on campuses and non-university-affiliated groups.
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This wasn't entirely surprising (the longer it became since Ellora's Cave folded and informed me that they would not be publishing my book, the less likely it seemed to me that Sheree Bykofsky Associates would continue to act as my literary agency and find me a new publisher). To review, I obtained their services to help me negotiate a favorable contract with the publisher AFTER the publisher had made their offer; they never took me on as a conventional client. Yes, I was hoping that some intellectual proximity, a bit of sympathetic loyalty, and a pleasant experience of me as a person to work with would make them more likely to represent me than if they had merely received my query letter in the large daily slush-pile stack that lit agents get every day. And maybe it did, just not sufficiently to cause them to embrace THE STORY OF Q, who knows?
So I am situationally back to that mythical drawing board, with neither publisher nor lit agent, and again taking up the querying process.
The experience has changed my attitude and approach somewhat, though, as well as having at least netted me a good solid editing job from EC's Susan Edwards as part of the process. Firstly, I now stand at nearly 800 queries to literary agents, culminating in my query to Sheree Bykofsky Associates post-EC, all of which have failed to land me a lit agent. In contrast, I've queried 12 small publishers and received one publication offer. It may be a mildly tainted offer insofar as it came from a publisher on its last legs and in its dying throes, but any way you cut it, the math speaks for itself. I will continue to query lit agents, mainly because publishers tend to want exclusive consideration while they look at one's manuscript, so I can query lit agents as a way of twiddling my thumbs. But my main effort will go towards querying publishers.
Meanwhile, since I have a publicist — John Sherman & Co, hired to promote my book — I'm diverting his focus towards getting me exposure, speaking gigs, media coverage. I've given some well-received presentations to the kink community, which has been wonderfully supportive of me so far, and I do not wish to denigrate that in any way, but it's a somewhat self-limiting audience: people are relatively unlikely to talk to folks outside the BDSM world about this interesting presentation they heard in a BDSM venue. It is still a world in which privacy is highly valued by most, where people know each other by their FetLife nicknames and may not know a participant's real name or, if they do, would by default assume it is NOT ok to mention it elsewhere. In short, although I apologize for the ingratitude that may attach to expressing it this way, I need to do some of my presentations outside of the BDSM ghetto in order to get more traction. Kinky folks have been extremely welcoming, not only to me but to other identity-marginalized people whose peculiarities are not really a form of erotic fetish — google up "pony play", "puppy play", and "littles" in conjunction with BDSM for instance — but yeah, genderqueerness isn't really a fetish and the people I really need to reach are only sprinkles in moderate levels at BDSM events.
Speaking of making presentations etc, I read a 10 minute segment adapted for outloud reading and venue purposes, at WORD: THE STORY TELLING SHOW on October 19. It was fun, was well-received and well-applauded, and came at a very good time for my frame of mind. I need to do more of this, and more of the drier more abstract material presentations such as I did at EPIC and Baltimore Playhouse and LIFE in Nassau, and perhaps more personal-anecdote of the non-humourous variety sharing, and so on, in order to build my platform and widen my exposure, and because doing so is communication, which is the end in itself, the entire reason for writing the book in the first place.
I am currently working with John Sherman to blanket the world of academic women's studies and gender studies programs, letting them know of my availability to do presentations. We will soon be expanding that to campus and non-campus LGBTetc organizations including student associations on campuses and non-university-affiliated groups.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
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no subject
Date: 2016-10-24 09:48 am (UTC)I agree - you need mainstream venues now, to expand your audience. The BDSM people were to warm you up (!) and help you get your legs going. Now you have to do the walk with the real people in the wider world. I surely wish I knew how to advise you on that.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-25 03:35 pm (UTC)I read your TWO "October surprise" emails with genuine dismay! HOW a publisher, much LESS a lit-agent could turn down such a magnificently literate PUN in a book-title is beyond me!
Funny (I know -- "t'ain't funny, McGee!") enough, I'm currently reading Jay McInerney's new novel "Bright, Precious Days" (perversely, there IS a comma in a freakin' BOOK title!). Updating two of Jay's earlier novels, the hero runs a small NY publishing house.
Jay, as an aging author (aren't we all?!), knows well the current economics of publishing -- and his frustration shows in every well-crafted page.
Dammit, Allen, it ain't fucking fair! I write that as a would-be reader of your opus --
as an aware gender-bender, I NEED to read the thing.
I think as Musicman does: you gotta go after the broader consumer community. (Hey, after reading HIS book, send Jay a fan-letter, introducing yourself and proposing lunch. After all, to the NY litwrary cognoscenti, your theme IS compelling.)
Best of luck -- you're a better man (?) than I!
Cheers, Justine
no subject
Date: 2016-10-25 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-26 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-26 09:44 pm (UTC)Question: Do you think you have other books in you?
Reason I ask is because yes, it might be prudent to cut your losses on Q. (I'm assuming there are losses, but maybe not.) It's not uncommon for writers to publish their first manuscript after their second has found an audience. If you think you have more to say on the subject, or different things to say on the subject, or different ways to phrase the things you say on the subject, you might think about giving it a shot.
You probably learned a lot writing the first book. You could target the second one using some of the feedback you got with Q.
Just a thought.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-27 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-27 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-27 03:04 pm (UTC)I do have a second book "in the works" but it isn't as central on what I think needs to be said. It would have decent entertainment value but not better than this one, and target audience would, if anything, be more limited. There's a third and fourth waiting in the wings but I don't have a lot of interest in writing them until and unless I get the first one (and probably first two) in print.
I'm inclined to give STORY OF Q a lot more time; if I can't find a way to get it published, I think Plan B is to go back and get a PhD, then write a theory book on the subject and get it published. That's a good 5-10 year commitment that would probably have to wait until my economic situation has changed. So I plan on continuing to hawk STORY OF Q for another couple decades at least.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-27 03:07 pm (UTC)I like the PhD option, too. Lots of authors end up publishing their PhD theses.
no subject
Date: 2016-10-27 05:24 pm (UTC)Blog entries about it are at this tag:
http://ahunter3.livejournal.com/tag/guy%20in%20ws%20%28book%202%29
no subject
Date: 2017-01-25 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-25 04:57 am (UTC)