Journey's Next Step

For me, the second step of a journey is usually harder than the first. Taking the first step I get excited; I've started something new. The second step means, okay, now I've got to follow through and keep going. Am I really ready to blog from now until the book gets out to the world? I don't know; we'll see.

Today it was time to follow up on contacts I've already made. One of them was Jewish Lights Publishing. I sent them a book proposal last month, 50 pages of paper by snail mail, with the content and format they specified. They seem like a good potential publisher for me because they say their intention is to bring primarily Jewish books to "people of all faiths and backgrounds [who] yearn for books that attract engage, educate and spiritually inspire." That's the intended audience for Holy Beggars.

Since I had sent out the proposal a month ago, I figured that this would be a good time to follow up and see how it's going. Right? It seemed like a good idea until I took another look at their web site, where it said, "After sending your material, please allow approximately three to six months for a reply." Yikes! What are they going to do with it for six months? Do they expect me to wait around for a reply?

Well, moving right along, I decided to follow up with a literary agent in New York, Levine Greenberg. I also sent them a proposal last month. I like their process better, because they ask for your stuff on-line, which I find much faster and easier and seems designed to provide faster turn around. I double checked their web site to find out how they feel about authors following up, and came up with this ambiguous statement: "We will let you know within two weeks if we would like more information about your project." Does this mean they will contact you within two weeks, or that they'll contact you only if they would like more information? If they don't want more information, what does that mean? I decided to call them anyway. Since their policy is for authors not to try to contact specific agents, my only choice was to leave a voice mail in the "general mailbox."

The thing that's taking me a while to fathom is that the literary agents, at least those with any kind of track record of getting books published, seem as hard to contact as the publishers. Go figure! I thought that when they took a look at my manuscript, maybe they'd be discerning enough to see how great it is, and maybe they'd actually want to represent me. I thought that maybe my biggest problem would be sorting through the promises that each would make me, and deciding whom to believe, and which one to trust with the success of my valuable property.

The good news is, that's one problem that so far I don't have.