As part of my 'research module' for my MA, I'm busy looking at agents, trawling through their websites, trying to identify the kind of writer's they favour - so far I've recognised only one, which is a bit disheartening.
What's scary (aside from the competition, and the whole change in the publishing industry which is throwing it into chaos) is the amount of self promotion they expect. The confidence this requires is terrifying, since it seems it's not really good enough just to have produced a cracking good read, you also need to be able to talk about it without hesitation, deviation or repetition, to know the market, to look good (presumably that helps, anyway) and to, as my mother would put it, 'show off'. Heaven forbid I find myself doing that!
Having been here before, albeit prematurely with both my first and second book, I am rather dreading the pile of rejections, though I've learnt so much about the business doing the MA that hopefully I won't fall into the same trap. I suppose I could get my name in The Guinness Book of World Records for the most amount of rejection letters.
Still, one has to try and keep smiling. Don't send your manuscript out prematurely, otherwise you need to keep changing your name/address/ or title of your book to resubmit it!
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