Last year I wrote about deciding to query this cool agent dude I followed on Twitter, and how that cool agent dude is now my agent. However, my first interaction with Eric Smith happened during the Reddit AMA he did in in Beth Revis’ YA Writers subreddit in January 2017. At the time, I was starting to buy into the whole “plus-size characters are a hard sell” line I was getting from other agents.
I was flirting with the idea of self-publishing MAMMOTH. The only thing keeping me from doing so was that I hadn’t yet come up with a cover design I liked. (More on that in a future entry!)
Eric was on my radar because I knew several of his clients (Rebecca Enzor and I ran in the same toy collecting circles well over a decade ago, and I knew Rebecca Phillips from the ABNA), and I figured, hey, might as well get one more opinion.
I didn’t even have a Reddit account at the time, so I made one.
Here’s my question and Eric’s response:
The TL:DR version is that I asked if fat characters are really such a tough sell, and Eric said nope. “If you’re getting that kind of feedback from agents, they simply aren’t the right agent for you.”
“Don’t give up.”
DON’T GIVE UP.
If you’re a writer in the querying trenches, go back and read that last bit again.
DON’T GIVE UP.
Eric shared a ton of great info in that AMA (seriously, go read the whole thing if you haven’t already), but those three words are the most important part. You might be one email (or tweet or Reddit post) away from the right connection, and you don’t want to miss that. I’m glad I didn’t. Turner Publishing is releasing MAMMOTH this fall.
Don’t give up.
Jill Baguchinsky 