by Blythe Daniel @BlytheDaniel

You’ve just come home from the conference. You have a stack of business cards. You scribbled notes in your notebook or phone. And now the real work begins.

Revising your proposal. Writing the proposal that you didn’t have time to write before the conference. Reworking your chapters. Polishing your pitch.

You don’t want an agent or editor to forget you so you rush to try to get all the changes made and back to the agent or editor before you think your conversation will fade from their memory.

This is the right course you’re supposed to take, right?

No, not every time. Honestly, it’s better for you to take the time to come home, spend some weeks considering the agent or editor’s feedback, doing the hard work of rewriting, researching, and revamping before submitting. You only have a first time to make a first impression. Wink.

In the swivel and swag of conferences where you talk with more people in a week than you maybe do in a month at home, now is the time to come back and take stock of what you learned at the conference. What did others tell you that you needed to work on? Did you map out what your first, second, and third steps are?

Many times writers get so excited for any positive feedback that they fail to make a plan of how to implement what others share with them. You are considering the counsel that professionals have given you, aren’t you?

Plans fail for lack of counsel,
    but with many advisers they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22 (NIV)

You need to listen to your advisers. My suggestion would be to spend a good couple of months marinating on what you did right, what you would change, what others shared with you. Look for a theme in the comments from several individuals you talked with about your project(s), and concentrate your time on making your proposal and sample writing the best it can be.

Speaking for myself as an agent and I believe others will agree with me, we would rather see your polished, complete work once you’ve had time to work on it and really present us the very best you have cultivated over time. We won’t forget you – and believe me, if we see your proposal in this shape, we really won’t forget you moving forward. Consider at least 4-8 weeks before you submit to an agent or editor unless you are directed otherwise for specific reasons.

So many times a writer thinks they must “strike while the iron is hot” if a publishing representative seems to like what they have done. There are exceptions, but for the most part, too many times writers think: “I’ve got to get this done” and hurry through the process and then wonder why an agent or editor isn’t interested in what they see once a writer gets home from a conference and sends it out the next week (or day, honestly).

Slow down. Publishing is an overall very sllooooow process. It’s better to learn this now. So if you need to set an alert on your phone or your computer that sets the time far in advance so that you don’t push too hard too fast, do it. It’s better to take your time than to rush. I think of it this way. It’s better to wish you would hear faster from an editor or agent than to wish you hadn’t moved so fast and rushed it to them.

Let the breeze settle in this summer and breathe air into your writing. Take your time and then when you have had a chance to take some breaths through the rewrites, then you can reach out to an agent or editor. You’ll be glad you did. And it’ll help you pace yourself for the process that is a long journey to the finish line to publication but so worth the work.

Blythe Daniel is a literary agent and marketer and has been in publishing for over 20 years. She has written for Proverbs 31 Ministries, Focus on the Family, Ann Voskamp, and Christian Retailing. She and her mother Dr. Helen McIntosh are the authors of Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters (Harvest House Publishers).

www.theblythedanielagency.com; www.ourmendedhearts.com