I haven’t even started and already I’m complaining.
I’m a writer. I write stories. I study and practice the craft of writing fiction. What the hell do I know about marketing?
Slowly and painfully, I’m working my way through a preliminary list of literary agents trying to determine who to query (or is it whom to query? … oh, whom the fuck cares). The first ten or so I researched were kind of fun. I’m now about halfway through my list and I want to kill myself.
I feel like I’m back at the University of Waterloo adjudicating bursary applications. At first it was super fun deciding who got money and who didn’t. Oh the power! But after my first fifty applications, I wanted to shoot myself in the head. (I changed jobs instead.)
Faces and biographies and deal histories on Publisher’s Marketplace are beginning to meld together like a five-cheese dip that was once colorful but has now turned into a weird, unnatural shade of yellow. By the time I finish this list, I don’t think I’ll remember who I liked and didn’t. Sure, I’m ranking as I go, and my spreadsheet is pretty detailed with my pros and cons for each agent, but the names are becoming meaningless.
Unlike writing, this is so not fun.
Enough whine. Time for chocolate.