I´m so excited!

[Richie Rich]

No' date=' my friend, but the thriller is playing in Miami as this is my favorite town![/quote']Nice. I'll hold out hope for a character named Richie, then .

[Christine]

Someone of this forum is in the story: It´s Maria714. She knows about that!

[Richie Rich]

Someone of this forum is in the story: It´s Maria714. She knows about that!

Well' date=' then I'm very jealous of her !Christine - have you seen this - from Slate.com?http://www.slate.com/id/2260395/About - a female writer and her struggles to get a book published. The German language gets a brief mention, but then here's the kicker.The name of her book?It's "Stiltsville". I almost thought the article was about you. Weird, huh?Oh, and good luck too (from a fellow writer).

[Christine]

Thanks, Richie, that´s an very interestig article. I agree with the author in many parts. It´s disappointing to get rejections all the time, above all they never tell you a logical reason why they turn your offer down.But never in my life, I thought about stopping to write. I couldn´t. There were always so many stories spinning around in my mind and I had to write them down.Sometimes, you´re unhappy when writing because you KNOW what the answers of the publishing houses will be, but in other moments you´re sure that it´ll work this time.If you want to work as an author, you have to be very patient. You need a lot of luck and you need to be at the right time at the right place.For me, it had taken more than 10 years, even though I found an agent who wants to help me publishing the thriller a short time after it was finished.In my appication I had sent to the agent I had written: This story is so new that the blood had not even time to dry.And that´s the true!

[cageyJG]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-LbvFckptY

/Sorry, it had to be done. I have OCD with this kind of stuff

[Christine]

I´d chosen this title for the thread because of this song from the Pointer sister which is also played in an MV ep. I really like this song!

[Christine]

´Ths morning, I spoke with my agent on the phone. In fact, it seemed as if her server had been the most shocked one because he denied sending the manuscript back to me.But now it is done!The agent is very enthusiatic about the thriller. She´s convinced that it won´t be hard to find a publishing house who wants to publish the thriller.First, they wanted to give the thriller another name, but now they decided that the name I had invented is absolute suitable.She said it indicated to he summer, sun the beach, and the ocean... and then the shock is following.The name of the thriller will be: "...and it was summer"Maybe it´ll be available in English one day! That would be really great!

[Marilyn]

A thrilling title I would say! I'm really happy for you this is working out so well...

[cheetah]

I've just bumped onto this thread... congratulations, Christine! :blumen: This is really cool, I hope we shall see your book on bookstores shelves soon.

[Christine]

At this time, I´m waiting for my agent to contact me again. On the phone, she had told me that she had sent the manuscript to 8 different publishing houses at the same time. In her opinion, it´s a good sign that not one of them had reacted until now. Normally, the editors are very fast with sending manuscripts back to agencies if they dislike them.Somewhere in September, there´s the famous book fair in Leipzig where she also wants to take the manuscript to. She´s absolutely sure to find a publishing house soon. Of course, it´ll first be released in German, but if one of her preferred publishing houses will take it, it could also be published in English one day.I hope so!

[miamijimf]

Sounds good Christine, congratulations.

[Mr. Calderon]

congratulations pal!Needing a graphic designer to create the logo, PM! lol

[Christine]

Would be great to create the logo with another Vice - fan, but unfortunately I assume that the publishing houses have their own graphic desinger!:cry:

[Brenda]

Congratulations Christine! Let us know when your book is published, I'd very much like to read it and I suppose so would other Vicers here!

[Christine]

Yesterday, I was very irritated! In January, I´d sent a fantasy manuscript for children to a publishing house in Stuttgart after I´d asked the editor if she was interested in it.Thereafter, I heard nothing from them.When I found my agent in June and talked to her, I learned that she worked very close with this publishing house. She promised to call the editor to ask for the manuscript.Later, she wrote a mail to tell me that the editor had promised to take care for the manuscript.As nothing happened, my agent asked me to call the editor myself. That´s what I´d done about 8 - 10 days ago. She told me that the manuscript had arrived according to the rules, but that she couldn´t find it. She promised to search for it and to send me mail then.Her mail arrived yesterday. She told me that she couldn´t find it, but she promised to read it over the weekend if I send her the manuscript by mail until Friday.That´s what I will do and I really hope that she likes it!

[Christine]

Today, I want to tell you about the end of the "Berlin - agent story".I was very annoyed because of her. At the beginning of October, she´d told me that one of the publishing houses she´d sent the manuscript to apparently was very interested. With the same call she promised to send me a special and very important list where I should enter the answers of the publishing houses.Nothing happend!I reached her again sometime in November. Again, she praised the manuscript to the skies and claimed that the publishing house she´d been talking about in October still was very interested. Of course, she hadn´t gotten an answer from them because all the publishing houses were very busy for months after the book fair in Frankfurt in October, but she gave me the names of four publishing houses she´d sent the manuscript to.Again, she promised to send the list. Immediately!Nothing happend!This repeated on January 10th. After this, I had enough and contacted the four publishing houses whose names I knew myself.The one she´d claimed to be "very interested" had turned the manuscript down on September 29th. So, the agent had known about that when she´d told me about the interest of this publishing house in October.Another one had turned it down on November 15th.When I told her on the phone what I´d found out she was steamed. She claimed that it was a breach of trust that I´d contacted the publishing houses myself and she also claimed not to know anything about the refusal from November.The day before yesterday, she told me that she would cancel our contract, and this morning, I found the cancellation in my email account.In fact, I´m not really sad about that. She was unreliable and had lied to me. I can´t stand both of these things. Now, I´m going to look for another agent.By the way: An almost funny thing is that the publishing houses had turned the manuscript down because the story is playing in Miami. In their opinion, a German author should use only a German set.On the other hand, the same publishing houses buy the rights on foreign books for a lot of money and all these books are set in foreign cities.

[CrockettandTubbs]

Today' date=' I want to tell you about the end of the "Berlin - agent story".I was very annoyed because of her. At the beginning of October, she´d told me that one of the publishing houses she´d sent the manuscript to apparently was very interested. With the same call she promised to send me a special and very important list where I should enter the answers of the publishing houses.Nothing happend!I reached her again sometime in November. Again, she praised the manuscript to the skies and claimed that the publishing house she´d been talking about in October still was very interested. Of course, she hadn´t gotten an answer from them because all the publishing houses were very busy for months after the book fair in Frankfurt in October, but she gave me the names of four publishing houses she´d sent the manuscript to.Again, she promised to send the list. Immediately!Nothing happend!This repeated on January 10th. After this, I had enough and contacted the four publishing houses whose names I knew myself.The one she´d claimed to be "very interested" had turned the manuscript down on September 29th. So, the agent had known about that when she´d told me about the interest of this publishing house in October.Another one had turned it down on November 15th.When I told her on the phone what I´d found out she was steamed. She claimed that it was a breach of trust that I´d contacted the publishing houses myself and she also claimed not to know anything about the refusal from November.The day before yesterday, she told me that she would cancel our contract, and this morning, I found the cancellation in my email account.In fact, I´m not really sad about that. She was unreliable and had lied to me. I can´t stand both of these things. Now, I´m going to look for another agent.By the way: An almost funny thing is that the publishing houses had turned the manuscript down because the story is playing in Miami. In their opinion, a German author should use only a German set.On the other hand, the same publishing houses buy the rights on foreign books for a lot of money and all these books are set in foreign cities.[/quote']I was thinking about this in bed this morning, and it really annoys me still. I'm still FUMING. Especially when you read these thread through and see how excited you were! I hope that it means you get a better agent this time Christine, someone who really cares for the book and does their job!

[Christine]

Yes, I, of course, was excited when I started the thread. On the agency´s homepage it all sounded as if the agent is very experienced. I was happy that the first agent I´d contacted had wanted me and my manuscript.The best will be to account this story in the "experience file". I´ve learned something, but fortunately, I´d taken care for that I hadn´t to pay anything in advance.

[LNGLK]

ChristineHow sad...

[cheetah]

Sad indeed.By the way, Christine, why do you need an agent at all? Maybe you could just send your manuscript to different publishing houses yourself? Or is there some very complicated procefure that needs an agent?

[Christine]

Of course, one could send his manuscript to publishing houses himself, but they wouldn´t pay that much attention on it. In a simple way one could say, they´ve got two piles in the office: On the first pile they store all the unsolicited manuscripts and on the other one there are the requested manuscripts. An agent has more possibilities to talk honestly with the editors.I´ve sent my fantasy manuscripts for children to publishing houses myself and I never received a honest answer. One would never send a fantasy manuscript for children to a publishing house that only publishes Christian books, for example. Nevertheless, they always answer hat thy feel sorry, but your book don´t suits to their program.With an agent, it´s different. They are more honest, then. Besides that, most of the agents have been working in publishing houses before they set up on their own. So, they know a lot of editors and can talk to them about your book in person.

[cheetah]

Oh, I see... you need someone to push your manuscript, not to let it be shelved forever.

[Christine]

You say it, cheetah! I´m convinced that it is good and the friends who´d read it in advance agree.

[jongarci]

Don't give up! If you keep trying, you will eventually succeed!J.

[Marilyn]

I find it nasty to give someone hope while knowing it is for nothing. I'm so sorry for you Christine!