Coming to a depressing conclusion

[valarltd]

I need money.
I need a fairly large lump sum.

I need to hunt down an agent or a publisher who will acquire an advance for me for a novel. As much as the idea of not earning out terrifies me, the idea of never paying off the dentist and letting my teeth rot out of my head, despite daily brushing and flossing, terrifies me more.

My problem, I've been doing it all myself for so long in the small-press world, I have no clue how.

Now, I know I have authors on here who do have agents and advances. What is the fastest, easiest way to do this? You who know what I write, who do you recommend?

This is me, begging shamelessly.

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, the only thing I can advise is to pick your best project, the one you think is comparable to something out there in the mainstream and start subbing it to EITHER an agent or mainstream publishers. I say either because you don't want to spend a year sending it to publishers - and then when it's been rejected 20 or so times, send it to an agent - they don't want something that's already been out to publishers.

Don't be afraid to submit to the largest publisher you can find - aim at the highest and work your way down. Stick with presses who do print primarily (nothing wrong with them also doing ebooks, of course, but there's only a couple of pubs that you'll make any decent money with with ebooks - and you are already in with Elloras Cave.) because they give the advances. midlist advance for new author with a publisher is average of 4-5K, and there's no guarantee the book will pay back the advance - most don't!

Keep working on it, and don't get despondent. It took me 3 years to find an agent for JUnction X, and although I didn't send it out half as often as I should have, I still accumulated about 50 or more rejections.

Follow as many agent oriented blogs as you can stand, and check their links because agents link to other agents blogs. Many of these blogs make announcements like "New agents actively seeking..." so you can be in on the ground floor if you have a project you can immediately get into an email.

There's probably a million other pieces of advice, but I won't bang on endlessly. Meta writer is going to be gearing up on query letters this month - and I'll kick Chris Smith regarding the other group you are a member of, because what you say here is exactly what that list should be addressing!

I'm no expert, but If you ever want to ask anything, never hesitate to email me!!

[chris-smith-atr.livejournal.com]

Yes, by all means, do post this on the other group -- maybe ppl will be able to help.