From Submission To Acquisition: What Happens After You Get A Literary Agent
So, you’ve landed a literary agent.
Now what?
Signing with a literary agent is a major milestone, something that most writers will never, ever achieve. If you sign with an agent, that most likely means that you’ve got that right combination of technical prowess, creative spark, structural know-how, and marketability. You’re in a place that sometimes takes decades to achieve, and it’s a very significant milestone in your career.
At the same time, it’s really just the beginning. The problem is that there are many public discussions about agent querying. Whole websites are built around that, and conferences sell plenty of admissions just to entice writers with in-person pitching of agents. But once you sign, there’s not that much information out there. You really have to dig around for it, so there’s very little that can prepare you for the terror of Submission Hell.
What is Submission Hell? Simply put, it’s the process where your agent submits your manuscript to editors. It’s kind of like querying by proxy and you have no control — and no one really talks about it, making it a unique kind of hell that only writers at this stage understand. Once you hit Send with your ready-to-go manuscript, it is literally out of your hands.
