As I sit and wait for the green light on my printer to blink on I wonder, “What kind of screwed up thinking has brought me back here?”
Why am I wasting my time and Inkjet refill printing out the first five pages of my new novel and the two sentences that are supposed to sum up my 85,000 words of gut-wrenching creativity when I know my odds of finding an agent at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference are 1 in 6,000?
That thought immediately bleeds into dread that this cesspool of negativity might be making things worse. Quick, I try to remember a jaunty affirmation of positivity like the ones happy people sing on Sundays in New Age churches throughout the land. None come to mind.
When I think of my own ordeal to find representation two years ago, those 1 in 6,000 odds sound suspiciously rosy. Back then, selling myself to an agent felt like living through the protracted ups and downs of the Arab-Israeli conflict, with nothing to show but a quivering olive branch at the end of a dark tunnel. Was it any wonder I gave up on the idea after a mid-sized publisher contracted my second novel without one?
I was happy, deliriously so, that someone would think enough of my writing to spend their own time and money putting it in print. I was going to be joyously agent-less for the rest of my writing career.
But the shine is off that.
One year later, I realize my audience hasn’t grown and I’m making just 7 percent of what I did on my self-published book. Yes, that’s the digit 7. It’s not a typo. I figure my publisher has broken even by now, and every dollar going forward, all 10 or 20 of them, will be profit. It’s a numbers game for small publishers with thousands of writers on their books. They make 20 dollars from me but thousands from another writer who might be putting out female erotica. Jaded? I suppose I am.
When I get like this I think of Montreal writer Yann Martel and his story about visiting his neighbourhood bookstore and almost dropping to his knees with despair that not a single one of his books had sold. He was just months away from writing Life of Pi.
Real writers know the quickest way to challenge yourself and constantly improve is through an agent. I tip my hat to those who write strictly for their own pleasure, but I’m not going to say I wish I could, too—because I don’t. I want my books to be in hundreds and thousands of stores instead of my local Indigo. Not necessarily to make money but to keep improving so I can leave this world some writing that will mean something to someone in their loneliest hours.
I guess I’m back to wanting an agent who can help me do that. When I drive my rusty hatchback to the Surrey conference this month I’ll have my novel pitch ready for agents. I’ll be the one on the freeway singing the old-time hymn “We Shall Overcome.”
Just in case there is a God.