{"id":115,"date":"2009-01-10T09:56:07","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T16:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matthewkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=115"},"modified":"2009-01-10T09:56:07","modified_gmt":"2009-01-10T16:56:07","slug":"the-wait-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/?p=115","title":{"rendered":"The wait is over…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because I heard back from my agent, Stephen Fraser.<\/p>\n

Before I go into his response to my manuscript, I should say that although I referred to him as “my” agent in the last post, we hadn’t yet signed a contract.\u00a0 Prior to today, we had a gentlemen’s agreement.\u00a0 He anticipated representing me, and I anticipated his representation, but since I didn’t yet have a completed work to represent, there hadn’t been a contract.<\/p>\n

But today he offered to sign me to his agency.\u00a0 I cannot tell you how excited I am by this news.\u00a0 I’m excited because in the cutthroat world of publishing, having an agent gives a writer a significant advantage.\u00a0 Not only does it help tremendously in finding a home for your book, but an agent works to get a writer the best possible deal.\u00a0 And an agent can help to guide a career.\u00a0 It’s a long-term professional relationship.<\/p>\n

Some have asked me how I landed an agent, so I’ll give a brief explanation of how it went down.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I attended the BYU Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 It’s a week-long conference with presentations, break-out sessions, and intensive workshops.\u00a0 It was a great experience, and I highly recommend it.\u00a0 There are editors and agents there, but attendees are given a strict injunction against any pitching or passing of manuscripts.\u00a0 But that rule, I found out, does not hold for instructors.<\/p>\n

I was incredibly lucky in having Martine Leavitt teach my workshop.\u00a0 I learned so much from her.\u00a0 If you haven’t read any of her work, you must.\u00a0 Keturah and Lord Death<\/a><\/span> is an absolutely gorgeous book.\u00a0 Anyway, without my knowing it, she passed the portion of the manuscript I’d submitted to the workshop along to Stephen Fraser, the agent at the conference.\u00a0 I can’t say thank you to her enough for that.<\/p>\n

So Stephen and I sat down and talked.\u00a0 He asked to see the complete manuscript, which I finished and sent his way.\u00a0 That book, my first book, wasn’t ready (and still isn’t).\u00a0 But Stephen was very supportive and patient, and asked me to send him whatever I wrote next.\u00a0 Which I did.<\/p>\n

So my second book is on its way.\u00a0 It needs some revision before we send it to any publishing houses, but I was fully expecting that.\u00a0 I need to pick up the pace in some places, and streamline the narrative.\u00a0 I’ll keep you posted on its progress.\u00a0 That’s one of the things this blog is for, after all.\u00a0 But in the meantime, I have an agent.\u00a0 It feels really good to say that.<\/p>\n

And to follow up my last post with another song, I present “Absolute Beginners” by The Jam.\u00a0 The mood of the song fits how I’m feeling, and so does the line, “You need the strength to go and get what you want.”<\/p>\n[audio:the_jam_absolute_beginners.mp3|titles=Absolute Beginners|artists=The Jam]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because I heard back from my agent, Stephen Fraser.
\nBefore I go into his response to my manuscript, I should say that although I referred to him as “my” agent in the last post, we hadn’t yet signed a contract.\u00a0 Prior to today, we had a gentlemen’s agreement.\u00a0 He anticipated representing me, and I anticipated his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mtjQ-1R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matthewjkirby.com\/kirbside\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}