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I just got word from the guy who's organizing the author-agent speed dating for the Nebula Award weekend that I got pitch appointments with my top four choices. Yes, the Nebula weekend organizers are actually calling it speed dating. Can I just say that I'm deeply ambivalent about pitching right now?
Right now I feel about the impending author-agent speed dating sort of the way I imagine you might feel about the prospect of playing Spin the Bottle with strangers, when a boy you like has already asked obliquely what you're thinking of wearing to the prom. It's not as if you actually have a date or a declaration, or really anything, but there's just enough of a hint that something good might happen, you don't want to mess it up.*
Since the most recent interested agent asked for a longer partial, I've been holding my breath. Which is silly. This is the third time an agent has liked the partial enough to ask for additional materials, and in both of the other cases, months of silence followed. Nobody has asked for exclusive consideration. (Apparently it's customary for an agent whose interest is serious to ask for an exclusive, and in return for that exclusivity to promise a straight answer in a stated period of time, usually less than a month.)
It's easy to imagine a good working relationship with the agent who has the partial now. She said she'd be sending back extensive proposed line edits to the first 150 pages. That's an investment of time that deserves to be respected. It's incredibly generous. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out any way to let her know that I'm pitching to other people that wouldn't come off as pestering her to make up her mind in a hurry. Efforts to pester and rush agents are universally considered offensive. (Fair enough. The rest of us don't like being pestered and rushed.) And yet I can't help thinking that for me to go blithely off and pitch to other agents without saying anything to her would come off as taking advantage of her time.
Dan says my Spin the Bottle analogy doesn't really fit, that people in the computer industry don't think about business relationships that way, so he doubts people in the publishing industry would. The mighty powers in his world ask for non-compete and non-disclosure agreements when they want them, and if there is a mechanism for asking for an exclusive and it hasn't been invoked, then I should think of myself as free.
So tomorrow I'm picking up my armor from the dry cleaner and taking the train into the city for an Absurdly Expensive Haircut. I practice and practice saying the two-sentence condensation of the Big Book. I wonder whether having my ms already under serious consideration elsewhere will make me more nervous or less when I pitch to these new people on Friday.
*(Just for the record, I've never actually played Spin the Bottle. When I was young, my friends and I were so preoccupied with geeking out together about the books we liked, I don't think the possibility occurred to us.)
Right now I feel about the impending author-agent speed dating sort of the way I imagine you might feel about the prospect of playing Spin the Bottle with strangers, when a boy you like has already asked obliquely what you're thinking of wearing to the prom. It's not as if you actually have a date or a declaration, or really anything, but there's just enough of a hint that something good might happen, you don't want to mess it up.*
Since the most recent interested agent asked for a longer partial, I've been holding my breath. Which is silly. This is the third time an agent has liked the partial enough to ask for additional materials, and in both of the other cases, months of silence followed. Nobody has asked for exclusive consideration. (Apparently it's customary for an agent whose interest is serious to ask for an exclusive, and in return for that exclusivity to promise a straight answer in a stated period of time, usually less than a month.)
It's easy to imagine a good working relationship with the agent who has the partial now. She said she'd be sending back extensive proposed line edits to the first 150 pages. That's an investment of time that deserves to be respected. It's incredibly generous. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out any way to let her know that I'm pitching to other people that wouldn't come off as pestering her to make up her mind in a hurry. Efforts to pester and rush agents are universally considered offensive. (Fair enough. The rest of us don't like being pestered and rushed.) And yet I can't help thinking that for me to go blithely off and pitch to other agents without saying anything to her would come off as taking advantage of her time.
Dan says my Spin the Bottle analogy doesn't really fit, that people in the computer industry don't think about business relationships that way, so he doubts people in the publishing industry would. The mighty powers in his world ask for non-compete and non-disclosure agreements when they want them, and if there is a mechanism for asking for an exclusive and it hasn't been invoked, then I should think of myself as free.
So tomorrow I'm picking up my armor from the dry cleaner and taking the train into the city for an Absurdly Expensive Haircut. I practice and practice saying the two-sentence condensation of the Big Book. I wonder whether having my ms already under serious consideration elsewhere will make me more nervous or less when I pitch to these new people on Friday.
*(Just for the record, I've never actually played Spin the Bottle. When I was young, my friends and I were so preoccupied with geeking out together about the books we liked, I don't think the possibility occurred to us.)
