Book Update

If you’ve been following my progress, you know I’ve been working on rewriting my book proposal after having a former acquiring editor read and critique it. This past Monday evening, I finished the rewrite! I closed my laptop that night with a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Although I don’t remember my dreams from Monday night, I’m sure they were filled with the excitement of beginning to shop my book to agents. I know I went to sleep with those thoughts on my mind. Perhaps by the end of the week, I’d have sent my first query letter to an agent! And then I woke up on Tuesday.

Tuesday I sat down to put together my list of agents to query and that’s when the excitement began to fade. By the end of the day, my former excitement dissolved into full-blown discouragement. As I read through the submission guidelines of agent after agent, I realized the submission part of the process, just like every other part of writing and publishing a book, would not happen easily. Each agency has its own format for a book proposal. What is submitted must align with their requirements. While in the back of my mind I knew this to be true, I hadn’t allowed myself to think that far ahead. My focus was on getting the rewriting done. But now, here I am. What I realized on Tuesday was that I will be rewriting my proposal (again) for each agent. In this moment, that thought feels overwhelming. So far, I have about a dozen agencies on my list. And every single one of them wants something different!

It may not seem like a big deal to rearrange my proposal to suit the requirements of individual agencies, but trust me, it’s going to take more than a little rearranging. I can see already that I’m going to have to expand and expound some parts for some and other parts for others. Some want sections of the proposal to be included in the query letter itself. Some want the demographics of each category in my target audience list. Some want this and some want that. Some want things I have yet to write!

So yesterday was Wednesday, and my euphoria from Monday night had evaporated completely. Just thinking about more rewriting to get the submissions process started had me curled up on the couch,  shades drawn, blanket tucked under my chin. I surrender! Two hours later I woke up. Maybe what I needed was to recharge instead of rewrite. I woke up with a new resolve. One submission at a time. I can do this.

But . . . whoever rules the publishing world should come up with a standard book proposal format and require every agency and every publisher to use the same standard format. If I ruled the publishing world, it would happen.