No Agent, No Connections?...
Someone has given us at Writer's Digest Books the following challenge:
"Identify an author who has had two novels published on his or her own without connections or agent or publications besides his or her two novels."
Do you or any of your writer friends qualify? E-mail me at alice.pope@fwpubs.com or leave a comment.
Friday, March 16, 2007
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4 comments:
Oh, I've got one. Actually, I've got several since I work primarily with unagented authors. However the person I'm thinking of is named Lila Guzman. Her first 2 novels (different presses) were discovered in their houses slush pile. Her Lorenzo series has gotten great reviews and won a few awards, and now she has a biography series out. And to this day, she still does not have an agent.
My first two novels (MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS and STANFORD WONG FLUNKS BIG-TIME) were unagented.
I was pulled out of the slush pile by Arthur Levine.
This isn't all that uncommon in my experience. I'm not sure what qualifies as "without connections," but I've acquired a lot of unagented manuscripts, including multibook deals. Before I got here, Laurie Faria Stolarz's Blue is for Nightmares came from the slush pile, and she didn't have an agent for the first few books in that series. Blue has sold well over 100k. I bought two novels from Carrie Jones before she got an agent. She sent the coldest of cold queries.
I should also say, in my experience, most authors who can successfully publish (or even sell)two novels can get an agent.
Deborah Wiles, who gave wonderful talks at a past SCBWI/Carolina conference, author of LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER and EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS, is an inspiring example of slush pile success.
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