The question really is, fellow writers, who really hooks whom… or is that who?

The question really is, fellow writers, who really hooks whom… or is that who?

This blog is in response to Susan Braun's blog. Susan addresses the agent syndrome that all truly passionately serious and patient would-be-authors experience. The conclusion that I have come to is one of personal belief. Agents are only front men to their own agency. They are the public face that has to show up at the conferences in order to catch the attention of what could be the next Nicolas Sparks, Steven King, Dan Brown, or Danielle Steele. So they are not stupid, they have their pitch all ready.

We on the other hand come with our hopes and dreams entwined around our 40,000 – to 90,000 word children we carry in our arms. So when we step up to these Word Wizards of Oz that we hope will be the answer to our dreams, something really does happen.

An invisible collar is attached around our necks with miles of invisible chain. The other end is securely hooked to one of the hundreds of rings hanging off their belts like scalps. They do this because they are not going to risk the possibility that standing in front of them at this moment disguised as grey-haired grandmothers, lanky love sick college students, retired or soon to be retired individuals from every walk of life could be the next #1 Best Seller that their skilled expertise will have snatched from the writing pool.

If they were humane they would ask us while we are right there in front of them to condense the 90,000 words we have given years of our blood sweat and tears to, not to mention the social life and time with family that has been sacrificed, down to a one minute synopses and decide right there and then. Which that, in itself, I find ridiculously impossible. Oh, no, instead they make sure the chain is secure by adding, “Send me a copy of your manuscript and I will get back to you.”

They do this because back at the ranch they have a team of well schooled ghost-readers who are highly skilled at knowing the criteria of what to pass on to the agent for a second look or chunk in the rejected manuscript compost pile. Then months later when the composted pile of rejects has grown too large and begun to ferment they pound out a stack of standard reject letters which they address, stamp and send out on a Friday just for good measure knowing they will lay in the postoffice for yet another two days. 

Ah, the joy of wanting to be an author! I have decided that agents come from the same emotional rock quarry as did my father. It took me years to realize that he never ever had any intentions of doing what he promised when he said he would. It was simply to put me off as long as he could before he had to actively respond to my request. Thus you have the equivalent of the book agent.

I realize that my father having only me and one other sibling to ignore, these agents get hundreds , sometimes thousands, of our wordy children all clamoring for their attention. So I will give them that.

We on the other hand start looking the very next day in our mail boxes, both electronically and by snail mail hoping to see that long white coveted envelope. Howbeit sad, we cannot stop. Those who did not dance to the agent’s charming tunes for years but surrendered to the self-publishing world welcome all of us last-ditch stand-off believers. Of which I have to say I was one.

Although, this post sounds dreadfully morose, it isn’t to me. My books, though still patiently waiting to go home with any eager reader who thinks them worthy of their time, are alive and in the world.

I have the satisfaction of having accomplished that part of writing. I hung in there; I wrote day after day, edited and edited and edited, designed covers, forged through frustratingly hard formatting and did not give up.  So when I click on books by Susan Todd on Amazon and those books are mine, well, Katie bar the door! I am an author in my own rights!