Ghosted!

Everyone knows how it feels to be ghosted. If someone drops you in perpetuity, then you’re lower than the slugs crawling on Earth. You’re a nobody. You don’t exist.

Here’s the story of my own ghosting. In 2019, I went to the Writers’ Digest Conference in New York City, clutching to my bosom my latest novel at the time, The Lincoln Affair. This wasn’t my first writers’ conference—I’d certainly put in my time over the years. But it was my first time at a Pitch Slam, that incredibly masochistic ritual of scurrying around a giant hall, speed-dating as many agents as was possible within a single hour.

Three minutes max per agent.

Even though I was a virgin pitch-slammer, I had done my homework. I showed up more than an hour before pitch-time, and parked myself in front of the portal, first in line. While waiting, I polished my pitch to a shine, then commiserated with other writers, who were similarly hyped-up to hell.

When the portal opened, I made a beeline for my number-one choice, an agent who I knew would be mobbed. The agents were seated in a circular arrangement, alphabetically, against the wall. I had memorized a list of my “good” agents, and then another list of possible agents, all of whom represented some form of suspense or crime fiction.

The first agent cut me off in mid-pitch. “Sorry, not for me.”

Okay, I sprinted to my second agent, a bald hot-shot, who listened wordlessly, then said, “This story is exactly the reason women shouldn’t write about Abraham Lincoln.” I confess this took the air out of me, and I did something I promised myself I wouldn’t do: I wasted time. I said, “Why?”

My book has a male protagonist, a forger of Lincoln documents, a fifty-year-old British expat, who steals an original Lincoln letter from an older woman who he then falls in love with.

The hot shot looked at my skinny frame and said, “Lincoln writers need muscle.”

After this miserable start, things could only look up. My strategy told me not to wait in any line longer than three, which turned out to be successful. I got to pitch to eight different agents, six of whom asked for my manuscript! None of them were men. Just saying.

What a great conference! I loved my fellow writers. We discussed our experiences at dinner. Lots and lots of agents had requested lots and lots of manuscripts. We were all heady.

Later, with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head, I submitted my manuscript to the six agents who had requested it.

Two agents rejected me very kindly within three weeks. And then I heard nothing for another two months. I sent polite emails to the remaining four agents, asking for updates. One replied immediately, apologizing, saying she was snowed. She got back to me within three weeks with a form rejection, which was fine. I recognize that the life of a literary agent is tough. They slog and toil like we do, often for little reward.

The remaining three agents ghosted me! They didn’t reply to my update query, nor were they ever heard or seen from again. I moved on.

It’s not the rejection that steams me up, it’s the breaking of an unwritten contract between agent and author during a conference pitch slam: I, the writer, am handing over to you my precious baby; you, the agent, will let me know whether you reject it, or would like to talk further about representation.  I paid a small fortune to attend that conference in New York City. The Pitch Slam was an extra couple of hundred dollars, and I think there was a session added to talk strategy about pitching. As far as the agents were concerned, the space in the pitching ballroom wasn’t infinite, which meant that just a privileged few could participate. Your hallowed presence at the conference was used as a lure for writers, enticing us to fork over those dollars. Surely, the expectation from the conference organizers was that you would do right by those writers?

At least a year after the conference, I expressed these thoughts in an email to organizers of the next Writers Digest Conference. And wouldn’t you know it, they ghosted me too!

Okay, now I’ll get back on my belly and crawl into my cave.