Hello everyone, my questions to you today is! When searching for an agent or publisher how hard do you find it? Because I’m writing Erotic I find my options are very limited and this is so frustrating that I find myself screaming at the screen a lot! And when I do find one I find I have to be so perfect (That I still make mistakes) when I send off an MS. What do you all do when you find yourself facing a brick wall?
Many thanks...
For Erotica don't forget there are also many Epublishers out there who have been in the game long before 50 shades appeared. Samhain, Loose Id, Ellora's Cave, and Total Ebound (who are British) are some of the big names - get thee to Amazon and research.
But as for subbing, don't stress about it. As long as you are trying to follow the guidelines you'll be fine. So: Courier instead of Times New Roman = fine. 10.5K words instead of 10K = fine. Green ink, glitter, gifts, wingdings, font size 6 etc = not fine.
The bottom line is always, ALWAYS, a good book. A typo is not the difference between a good book and a bad one.
Damien, I appreciate your frustration, but you are wrong. Debut writers are signed every day, plenty of them come from the slush pile and have no pub credits to their name. 90% of the slush pile is just not good enough to be published. 80% of the remainder is not worth publishing. Try not to let your disgruntlement stop you from recognising why your MS wasn't picked up (which can sometimes be nothing to do with the MS: maybe the agent just took on a similar project, or maybe the market is saturated, or maybe nobody has twigged that particular market is there) or from continuing to write, and continuing to improve. We've all got MSS in our drawers which are simply not very good. We're all allowed to have another go. :)
Keep screaming and keep going until you can go no more. Agents and publishers are like brick walls. They only want you when you have made it......
I can scream no more :(
It is extremely frustrating trying to get an agent/publisher to look at your work. Even when you send an MS out, it often comes back with the old... "We cannot take on any new clients at present..." All you can do is keep trying.
As for your chosen genre, of course, it is a limited market, though with the unexpected success of 50 shades of Grey, now is the time to get your work out there.