This advice is invaluable, even for ‘foot-draggers’ like me. Visualizing myself negotiating a contract for my book really helps me to see myself WRITING my book. I just hope I remember some of this when the time comes.

Thank you so much for this “Taking Back the Past” dialogue. Lot of gems to mull over and store.

I just started a blog for aspiring/unpublished authors but you gave me a great idea. I think I’m going to invite published authors periodically to stop by and recount their first publishing experience. If nothing else– and I’m sure there will be lots–we’ll reaffirm what we know already, that the journey is different for everyone and that’s okay.

Patricia W.

The reality is that many new authors sign with the first person who expresses interest, without going through this interview process. Good agents want you to go through this process. It only makes sense.

Sometimes you’re left with only one interested person, and then you take what you can get. The relationship may last forever or it may only last for a book or two. Just try to be honest and open with the agent. Don’t run at the first sign of trouble, but then don’t be blind to the truth either.

All you can do is make the best decision you can with the data you have. You work the relationship as long as it works for both of you and when it stops working, you move on. That’s why author-agent agreements have explicit language that describes how to dissolve the relationship.

Help?

I didn’t mention the Author’s Guild (http://www.authorsguild.org) in my original post and I should have. It’s a great group, unlike any other writers group. But I wouldn’t join until after I sold a book. Not sure why I say that, but I do.

Anyway, if you don’t have a contract, attorneys at the Authors’ Guild will review your contract for you and give you a detailed analysis that includes recommendations/suggestions for changes. Basically, they tell you how consistent your contract is with contracts given by that publisher to other authors. Very helpful information.

You ladies are so right about the $5000. It’s all relative. And remember I said that’s the average or most common amount. My first few advances were significantly less than $5000.

Yes, Geigh, get those books out. NOW!

Sigrun, I hope your hands are feeling better.

Rhonda, good agents are hard to find but well-worth looking for. You have to do your research to make sure you’re getting someone who’s right for you.

I’m trying to figure out how to better manage my time so that I can pull those books out of the drawer (yes I long-write them; probably wouldn’t do that now) blow off the dust and get back to it!

Blessings,

Rhonda