Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

“I have no idea whether beginning with my accident was the best decision, as I've never written a book before. Truth be told, I started with the crash because I wanted to catch your interest and drag you into the story. You're still reading, so it seems to have worked.”

That’s the opening gambit in Andrew Davidson’s new novel, The Gargoyle. His dark love story begins with a horrifically detailed account of a car crash, followed by a graphic stay in a burn ward.

Today, Davidson tells us how he found an agent who supported this difficult and awe-inspiring material, part of my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions.

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
Can you describe your search for an agent a little bit? How did you write a pitch letter for this genre-bending book? Any advice for writers who struggle with the agent search process?

Andrew Davidson:
Writing a book is hard; finding an agent is probably harder. Continue reading...

I know what worked for me, but it doesn’t mean it will work for anyone else.

But here goes: the first thing is to do the work—by this, I mean do as much research as possible on the agents you would like to approach. Learn which writers they represent, which genres hold their interest, and what they might be looking for now. Learn how to spell their names correctly.

Rewrite and proofread your query letter a hundred times before you send it off. (If you’ve put years into a novel, what’s forty more hours on a query letter?) Be polite. Don’t tell them how lucky they would be to represent you. Be professional.

Don’t present half your story and tease with: “Want to know how it ends? Ask for my brilliant manuscript.” Include self-addressed stamped envelopes for their replies.

But remember this: when those agents use those SASEs to reject you—and they will—it’s nothing personal.

It’s nothing personal. It’s nothing personal. It’s nothing personal. It’s nothing personal.  It’s nothing personal. Because really, it’s nothing personal.

Agents get thousands of submissions each year and if they thoroughly read all of them, they wouldn’t have time left to eat, much less attend to the clients they do have. So they give your work a quick glance—ten seconds, maybe a minute—and before deciding it isn’t for them. And look! The writer has conveniently included an envelope into which a form rejection letter can be placed.

When those rejection letters arrive, this should prompt your next step: to immediately send out new queries to new agents. Because maybe next time....

I know: even though the rejection letters aren’t personal, of course they’re personal. Each one will make you feel as if you have been judged and found wanting; it’s inevitable that you’ll feel this way, unless you’re not quite human. But when you feel this, ask yourself: “Why do I write?”

If you write because you want to find an agent, or if you write because you believe your work has meaning only if it finds an audience, or if you write because you think a paycheck will validate you, you’re writing for reasons I don’t understand.

Somehow, magically, my book snuck through to the right agent on the right day. I did all the work to prepare for that happy accident and I wrote with a style the agent liked, but I know that there was a precise alignment of events that I could never orchestrate. I’m incredibly grateful for my good fortune, but if I had never found representation, I would, at this very moment, be writing another novel instead of answers to an interview—and I would be doing so happily.

I write because I love to write, and no agent is necessary for this.

Want to read more of Andrew Davidson's advice? Follow these links to find out:

How Davidson Cut 40,000 Words Out of His Novel

and What Books Inspired The Gargoyle

and How To Balance a Day Job and a Writing Life.