lizwilliams | Agents and networking

jaylake has just posted a very good piece on getting an agent (typically - please check him out on the business of writing). I posted a response to a comment about someone who did not feel that they were in a position to go to conventions and network, and I thought I'd repost it here. I feel that there are a lot of people out there who get dispirited because they can't run about chatting up agents and editors and who feel that because of that, they might as well not bother.

I was taken on by my agent (Shawna McCarthy) some time before we met. I found her through Locus and she was the first agent I queried. Because I'm based in the UK, the possibility of networking in the States was not feasible. I was also published in the US some considerable time before I met anyone from Asimov's or F&SF or Bantam, my US publishers. I still have never met the main men behind Night Shade.

I have not found Worldcon, in particular, to be all that useful as either a networking or a marketing enterprise (and I am fairly gregarious). WFC may be a different kettle of publishers. I won't be going to LA this year because I don't think the financial outlay justifies the results.

You know, I may be naive about all this...but the biggest thing for me is this: just write as well as you can. And send it out! If you're good, someone is going to notice you. This is the ethos that my (RL, based in the UK) writing group has espoused. One of us has just been up for the Clarke's. Another one is on the NYT best seller list. 4 (IIRC) members of the group, which numbers 9 people, have had stories published regularly in Asimov's, InterZone and Realms, stories that get mentioned in the Years' Best lists and the Locus lists. None of those people (apart from myself, now, in the UK) network all that much, because they have families and work commitments.

But they do write damn good stories.

And - this is worth pointing out, though I'm sure it doesn't apply to anyone here - there are a few people who seem to feel that because they network, it's purely a matter of time before they get published. (I know of a handful of cases of genuine nepotism, which ultimately crash when the person involved can't seem to get published anywhere else). I've watched people on the UK scene plug away year after year, to no avail, and they get very bitter about it. And what publishers say about them is: their work is just not up to it. This is a harsh profession (relatively speaking, I mean - to listen to some people, you'd think it was coal mining or bomb disposal) and anyone who comes into it with a sense of entitlement is going to be in for a short, sharp shock.

Here endeth the lecture. Do feel free to disagree!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah--this PR thing is a little out of control, actually. You only network and acquire leverage *after* you write something that's fucking great. And you don't do it every time you complete and sell a short story. You do it once you've acquired the vestiges of a career with a book out. Or two. And even then you'd best be able to see the dividing line between networking and being a bloodsucking parasite starfucker...and the dividing line between doing some networking/PR and no longer having the time or ability to do the thing that's important in the first place: zee writing.

Oh yeah--and *then* even when you *do* get that right, some idiot will come along and call you a commercial sell-out for doing the leverage/PR, even if you just wrote a novel composed entirely of musical notes and random bits of punctuation.

Cheers,

JeffV

>Oh yeah--and *then* even when you *do* get that right, some idiot will come along and call you a commercial sell-out for doing the leverage/PR,

Absolutely - this is the business of you-can't-win. Once you get published, you realise how much you've got to do for yourself in terms of publicity.

Agents and networking

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