It's Your Call

You're tired of rejection letters, then a reply comes in saying give me more, you comply. The agents\ loves it, but wants a few changes. Five revisions later, you send it in. You think, 'I don't recognize my book anymore and it is not what I intended to get across'. The agent replies that it is just what they wanted. An auction can get mid six figures and will establish your brand. You don't really care for your book anymore and know you can't knock that kind of work out again. The agent is waiting on your call to go ahead.

What do you do?

Why bother with it--if you don't like it, why have your name on it?

I'd say, "Forget it."

That was one thing that concerned me while I was writing my one and only. What would be chopped from it?

It went word for word.

Me? I would kiss their butt and do what they wanted. It is not like I think I wrote the "Bible" and no one wanted to read it. I just write little stories that no one wants to read.

Love,
Betty

Ah Betty, I think I'd be there kissing right along with you. I am writing stories to scare and entertain, so perhaps my outlook is different from someone whose book has a message or something similar. My agent really knows her stuff so if she told me to change something I would because I am new to this whole experience and she has 30+ years in it. I want to be successful so I would heed her advice in order to set myself on that path.

Some may call that giving in I am sure, but I want a career as a novelist. In my current career I have to do what my boss directs me to in order to be successful. Sure, I am given a task and can go about it the way I see fit and if my boss needs some tweaks I will comply because that is my job. I approach my writing the same way, only my agent is not my boss, she's my guide. And if she tells me to change something and it will sell buckets, I will do it because I trust her and I want to be successful. My goal is to write full time some day, so I will do whatever it takes to be successful and land my dream job!

I also realize that fiction versus non-fiction is a different animal altogether, so your mileage may vary from my personal view.

I would like help in any form, even a collaborator would be nice.

I wrote a manual with two other people. Not a one of us would let anything in there we did not agree with. It took us two years and a lot of additions and subtractions before we got it right.

I am very ethical, and I would not let anything go out with my name on it that I did not ultimately agree with. However, if someone told me a chapter should be eliminated, or something needed to be shortened or lengthened, I'd go along with it.

But if I didn't recognize it, or care about it, this would not be a good thing for either the agent or publisher or me.

Carol

I would give a lot just to have the problem!

Ann

If you want your book to be published by this particular publisher, then you must comply with their wishes.
If you are writing something where you have strong convictions about what you wrote, and that was the purpose of writing the book, then having that portion cut-out (censored) would cause me to argue the point, and if that failed, cancel the deal.

I agree with Marie and all those who say take the money and run.

I do not agree that no one wants to read Betty's beautiful stories about the little creatures of the world. They are wonderful; keep writing them.

I think they are more than "little" stories. Fables can be important ways of showing us how humans ought to behave. Betty's stories always do that.

Ann

Take the money. Like any sane person.

Pull up your pants later.

I have a really hard time seeing this as a quandry for anybody.

Lin,
You always make me laugh!

Thanks!