Over the past few weeks I have been preparing for meeting a literary agent but realistically, what can I possibly hope to achieve in a ten-minute meeting with a total stranger who just happens to be highly influential in the elite world into which I am endeavouring to find a foothold?
In speed dating terms (Google AI tells me) ten minutes is two to four minutes longer than the time you’re allotted to decide if you want to see someone again. But there’s a high element of attraction to the cover at play in speed dating whereas in the publishing world it’s all about what lies between the covers, a much trickier judgement.
Where I am meeting a literary agent
In just under two weeks’ time, Jack and I will be heading to the London Festival of Writing. Organised and staged by Jericho Writers, the online writers’ support group which offers courses led by experts, tuition, editing services and live events, we’ll be heading to the capital on Friday for two days of intense seminars and networking, including two ten-minute sessions with literary agents.
In preparation for the one-to-ones, we have each already supplied our booked agents with query letters, synopses and the first 5000 words of our respective work-in-progress (w.i.p) along with any specific question we would like them to address. Now we have to think how we’re going to get the most from the meetings.
It has already been made clear that these sessions are not to be viewed as interviews with an eye to winning representation. Rather they are time with an expert who can help steer us in the right direction to progress our w.i.p to a stage where it might be ready to submit to agents in the future. Or at least, that’s the hope.
What I dream will happen
I can tell myself over and over that this is not a pitch to an agent, merely an opportunity to get some invaluable personal feedback on my draft novel but I cannot stop my imagination from running away with itself.
I fantasize that even as I type, having received the first two chapters, wheels are being put in motion to ask for my full manuscript and a bidding war looms in which my book will be sold to the highest bidder and become an overnight best seller bringing me riches, prestige and a six-figure contract.
Sigh.
What I fear might happen
For each agent I am booked with, I have supplied a specific question. This was not an obligatory element in the submission and with hindsight, I wonder if it would have been better to have not asked anything. My fear is that ‘the question’ will consume the entire ten minutes and I’ll come away with the answer to one question and hugely disappointed that I didn’t get more from the session.
If I start the session by saying the question is not really that important and I hope to get more varied feedback, I fear I might come across as being indecisive. And what if they then ask me what it is I do want to know and why I didn’t ask that question in the first place? And meanwhile the clock is ticking down.
I think what I really need to do is stop overthinking it and hope they understand that for an aspiring author, meeting a literary agent is a really big thing and there are bound to be nerves.
What I hope will happen
I hope to get advice on how best to proceed from here. I need to know if my characters are developed enough, if my descriptions of places feel real and give a sense of being there; and if my writing is successfully conveying the historical period in which it’s set. I would love to know if the agent feels my book could be marketable; if the story is strong enough, and if my writing is good enough.
But I guess most of all, I would like to come away from the meeting knowing that literary agents are just ordinary people doing a job. And like every other job, how well you do in it, relies in no small measure on how well you get on with the people you work with. I hope I get on well with them both.
