In the world of publishing, a writer traditional must start with finding an agent. While I forged through lists of agents, looking for just the right genre, wishlist, and apparently country (yes, I was rejected by an agent because I lived in the US and she was in the UK), I failed to realize that I was in fact the baby bear, while my agent was goldilocks.
In my first round of cold queries, I sent out thirty-one queries and received a resounding no from all that answered (spoiler alert, most did not). After all my research, studying, and waiting, I was left with only questions: what did I do wrong, why did they pass ...??? No goldilocks willing to lay in my bed.
Then I heard about this little thing called Pitmad on Twitter. Only days till the online event, I furiously worked at developing a "pitch". Needless to say, my first ever was a complete disaster as I had no followers and a pitch that made no sense. But, another opportunity was presented to me and that was a writing community that I never knew existed. Through Twitter, I had connected with a brilliant editor, Bethanny, who assisted me with creating the perfect pitch for my story. I had increased my following ten-fold through the various writing groups. So months later, when the next event took place, I was ready.
That day I watched as agent after agent went around to all the pitches taking a taste, and deciding that my pitch was "just right". Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of success. I was going to get an agent, I just knew it. Because this time the agent had picked me, instead of me just waiting for someone to find me in the woods of queries.
But alas, my goldilocks agent was not found.
In fact, I never found my agent. Instead during my second Pitmad event, I found my publisher. A full year and a half after trying to get an agent, over sixty queriers rejected, seven full requests sent, I finally found a place for my story amongst all the others.
