Offers of Representation

It’s amazing how, since The Demon of Darkling Reach hit #1 in the UK (however briefly), the offers of representation have been pouring in.  More than one literary agency has rushed, a year–or more–after the fact, to assure me that they had meant to offer me representation.  That they’d loved my project from the beginning, but it had somehow “fallen through the cracks.”  And would I be interested in representation now?

To them I say:

Because, you know, it was the same book a year ago.

Of course they want to represent me now.  Now that I’ve proved myself capable of selling a few books, they want to cash in on my success.  And I think there are authors out there who’d be so thrilled with offers of traditional literary representation that they’d agree.  Which is unfortunate, because what I’ve proved here is that I didn’t need an agent in the first place.  I got to this point without one; what can an agent offer me now?  I’m an attorney; I’ve negotiated my own contracts just fine.  And clearly, I’ve sold books just fine.

Moreover, I’m not interested in working with people who don’t believe in me.  It really was the same book; if you saw that query letter, and were too lazy to get back to me, then you and I don’t have a compatible work ethic.  And if you saw that manuscript, and thought “this has no commercial potential,” then you have bad business sense.  And if you’re the kind of person who lurks in the background, never taking any risks, but only attaching yourself to people who’ve already achieved success, then you’re a gold digger.

Don’t get me wrong–the interest is flattering.  But it’s not interest in me.  It was just me a year ago, two years ago, trying to get someone to take an interest.  Back when people had nothing to judge me on, except the strength of my writing.  But it’s like Toby Keith sings, how do you like me now?  It’s your loss for not believing in me, back when I needed someone to believe in me.  And I would tell the same thing to any other aspiring authors out there: take your life, and your success, into your own hands.  Don’t be like the fool in the Kafka story, Before the Law.  You are your own gatekeeper.  Don’t let people who don’t know you and don’t care about you hold you back, thinking you somehow need to earn something from them before you can press forward.  The only person–the only person–who can determine that is you.

And yes, sometimes that means people get left in the dust.  It’s their loss.  They didn’t feel beholden to you back when even ten minutes of their sustained interest could have made a real difference in your life; don’t feel beholden to them now, that they’re sniffing around looking for opportunities.  For them.

The ironic part is that had I gone the traditional route, I wouldn’t have the catalogue now that I do.  I have four books out currently and, if all goes according to plan, will have three more out by the end of this fall.  After which point I’ll hopefully publish my mystery project in the winter, and then start writing The Black Prince.  Had I gone the traditional route, I might have The Demon of Darkling Reach.  You wouldn’t have seen The White Queen yet, or maybe even at all.  And who knows what changes I would have been forced to make, thus transforming it into a completely different book–a clone of some other book that had achieved some minor success, because traditional publishing has very rigid ideas about “what sells.”  Unless and until, of course, some maverick comes along and–somehow–manages to publish something different.  Then that, in of itself, starts a new genre of spin-offs.  Case in point being The Da Vinci Code.  Religious thrillers were not a thing ten years ago.

So my traditional publishing fan club, who now wants the goose, are the same people who would have killed the goose.  Who some of them, despite protestations of having “missed” me in the pile, actually did write back to me and tell me that my work wasn’t salable.  That I wouldn’t, indeed, sell a single copy, that my manuscript was junk.

Nothing succeeds like success is one takeaway, here, but I think the better takeaway is that you never lose by taking the risk of being yourself.