3:00 am eastern time, January 30, 2007, “Mystical.”

It was the first word of my first novel. Completed five months later, and after 300 queries, it was picked up by an agent in 2008, and sold to a publisher in the U.K., finally hitting the bookshelves in December 2009.

Then my agent informed me that it was I who would be responsible for marketing the book.

How? I should sign up with Facebook, which she stewarded me through, and gave me a list of people to friend. They were all authors. They wanted to sell books, not buy them. Dead end.

As a new release, the book sold a few copies; my only royalty check was $92. Curiously, a Bulgarian publisher picked it up at the London Book Festival and purchased the rights. I received another $300. I could be a best-selling author in Bulgaria, but I never heard another word.

A year later I found out that quoting movies and song lyrics—which I did extensively—was a big no-no, though neither my agent nor the publisher’s editor informed me. In an email, I explained the liability to the publisher and the tome was pulled from circulation, my rights for the manuscript returned to me.

Having recently looked at it, the writing was amateurish, and I’m surprised the agent considered it. But then, for the services she provided, I’m not surprised. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

However, I must be grateful as she did provide me with a credential. I’m a traditionally published author, even though I never mention the title of the book.

Don’t moan. I still like the story and may rewrite it with the benefit of the practice and study of the intervening seventeen years.

Points Learned

Getting an agent is difficult. Getting an agent with pull in the industry is more difficult. As a newbie with only one offer, I was thrilled to get the call. But there is a limitation to the services that agents without contacts have as opposed to those with history and leverage to be applied on behalf of their clients. Double-check your research about the agent who responds to your query for their experience and the success of books they have brought to publication.

There’s a wide chasm between the big five publishers (possible soon to be the big four with a proposed merger) and boutique publishers. The big houses have sales staff. By perfecting your manuscript before approaching an agent, and the polishing an agent might contribute, once an acquisitions editor for a big house embraces it, they can work with that sales staff to get placement in online and brick-and-mortar bookstores.

If you self-publish, you will do all the marketing. That’s a discussion for another post.