My Week as a Literary Agent. Ish.

From Audiobook Casting to Rejection Epiphany, and the Surprise Healing In Between

Launching my book had prodded me up a new, near-vertical learning curve daily for a year. Tackling yet another thing foreign to me—the audiobook—roused about as much enthusiasm as packing for Everest while mid-limp down Kilimanjaro.

My hope was to someday sell the rights (which I retained separately) to an audiobook publisher, bringing money in on this baby for a change while handing the work and worry to someone else. Then I remembered a) my cortisol spikes letting someone else fold the towels and b) I’m unagented, which meant shopping the book again. Given how that went the first time, it was Everest all day long.

Wearily, I put the book up for auditions, hoping for ten or twenty to choose from. I was open to all possibilities (female narrator, male, one of each, multi-cast), and prepared to wait however long it took for the right one to come in. A month, two? Six? What did I know?

(Nothing. Per usual, I knew nothing.)

I stepped away for two days for a speaking engagement. Meanwhile, a too-familiar discomfort was building. What if people were reading the script and laughing? What if nobody auditioned? What if the book’s many perspectives, the chapters named after flowers accompanied by their Latin names plus a carefully chosen illustration for each, didn’t translate well to audio AT ALL?

Bruises I thought long gone were tender anew. The insecurities, the naked vulnerability I’d felt querying the book were back for a rousing encore. What if I get clobbered all over again?

Back at my desk, I’m about ready to take down the post. Save this particular climb for some other time. Except I’ve received 138 auditions, plus a hundred more email inquiries. Did I receive their audition? Would I like a second one? Am I still considering? They’re at a funeral right now, but can they audition next Tuesday? By the time I’ve read three, five more have pinged in.

In a purely administrative capacity, I’m having trouble breathing.

I’m one of those file-or-delete types, leaving only messages pending further action in my inbox. My work exchanges largely take place with made-up people in my head. A mere two days of not being on top of this, and there’s no getting in front of it.

Then, like Wile E. Coyote’s anvil, it hits from a new angle.

I’m the one who’s going to have to do the rejecting.

Why this never dawned on me before, I have no idea. (Though I consider myself, on a macro level, to be reasonably intelligent, I’m often, on a micro level, an idiot.)

Overwhelm pooling in my stomach, I click on the first audition. I have no idea what to expect; the last audiobook I listened to was on CD, in a post-surgical haze, eighteen years ago. Suddenly I’m on the floor beside my desk ugly-sobbing. I know these sentences like the Hail Mary, still hear them in my sleep, but this is the first time I’ve heard them spoken aloud—by a seasoned actor with decades of live theatre, film and tv experience, no less. I’ll never forget it.

DONE! HIRED!  That was easy.

But the next audition is also incredible. So is the fifth, the ninth, number fourteen…all for totally different reasons.

Full-blown panic now. I’m going to have to reject performances that are, I BS-you-not, brilliant. Fellow creatives who took time and care with my words, offering layered takes on these characters who mean so much to me—all with only a few paragraphs to go on.

I know too well how much courage it takes to be that vulnerable. How long the aftershocks linger. And I have to tell almost all of them no?

It’s the same table, only I’m on the other side, inflicting on others what I’d found so painful myself. But once I’ve finished flipping out and get down to business, working through the auditions is like reliving those querying years through the collective eyes of the (many, many) agents who said no (or more often, nothing at all), and this perspective is like a miracle balm.

Several auditions I’m able to eliminate straightaway. Either they don’t match the stated criteria (a thick southern drawl for characters born and raised in Toronto, for example) or—wince—the performance/professionalism/equipment just isn’t there yet.

Several more are solid auditions. People with awesome voices, clear passion for what they do and obvious talent, and they fall within the selection criteria.

But they’re not right for my book.

Meaning, they’d be perfect on a thriller, mystery, YA, the evening news—just not these characters in this story. And how could they know that? I’m factoring in scenes, characters, and overarching story elements not in the audition script. It’s not a question of whether they’re good, because they truly are. It’s whether what they’re offering matches what I need in this moment. They had to take a shot. I’m grateful they did; it’s only in hearing them that I start figuring all this out, and it feels like a private honour that they shared their gifts with me.

Then, God help me, the shortlist. Voices that come eerily close to the inflections, tones and cadences I realize now have been forming like riverbeds in my head after years spent with those characters. The performances are exquisite, the people behind them delightful. I can’t go wrong with any of them. I want to hire all of them (then meet them for coffee).

But I can’t take them all.

I’m reminded of wedding dress shopping. So many options. Some not my taste, others unflattering on me, several that make my heart flutter. In the end, you can’t take them all. All you can do is choose the one that’s most you.

In the end, I choose two voices (a male and a female) that come closest to the inarticulable ones in my head and do the best overall job of encapsulating the many other elements and variables nobody but me can see.

It takes eight days of doing little else, but I reply to every person who auditioned. A lot of other stuff piles up, balls get dropped, I pray they don’t hate me, I cannot wait for this part to be over. But I refuse on principle to ghost as I’d been ghosted.

This part of the process, too, ends up being a cleansing of sorts–not least of all because nearly everyone replies. They thank me for being a live voice amid the dark void, for being the encouragement that put them back in their studio that morning when they’d been on the brink of quitting. They wish me luck, offer kind words about the book, share their industry insights, resources and contacts as I figure out next steps. I’ve never felt so “among my people” outside of writing people. It’s one of the brightest spots on this journey to date.

Several ask for feedback. What did they do wrong, what could they have done differently to change my mind, how can they improve next time? Again, I relate hard. I was once desperate for such info, sending my work out time and again, hearing nothing but crickets. Second-guessing in circles as to what might need changing. So I’d love to be of help here. But I see now it’s impossible—irresponsible—to try. All I can offer is my own spitballed opinion, which doesn’t matter AT ALL beyond the context of this book but could alter their approach to future auditions if it’s all they have to go on.

Of course, the quality has to be there. The basic submission parameters must be met. But the ones doing the asking already have those covered. Beyond that, there’s no “wrong,” just me trying to close in on two voices that best approximate all nine characters as they sound in my head, across all their scenes, through all stages of their transformation and shifting relationships with each other.

In other words, what do I know? 

Thanks to this experience, here’s what I do know:

• Writers, voice actors, anyone pitching creative work—heck, anyone brave enough to expose their heart in any context—are peeking through fence slats. They can only see a fraction of what the other party is going on. There’s the submission requirements, plus everything which can’t be articulated because they often don’t know themselves until they see it.
• An agent receiving hundreds or more queries per week—every. week.—while dealing with the rest of their life cannot possibly stay ahead of that wave. For the record, I still think there’s room for improvement here, but that’s for another post. In the meantime, when you’re drowning in that silence, picture those 238 notifications pinging into my inbox, me hyperventilating, and know it’s nothing compared to what they’re getting.
• If you’re going to overanalyze any aspect of this process, let it be the work itself. “It’s a numbers game” is only true if the work is really, objectively the strongest it can be. Focus your time and energy on that above all else (it’s the only part you actually control), then take your shot. Then do your best not to sweat it because whatever happens next has nothing to do with you.
• Whoever is deciding wants to make the right choice even more than you want to be that choice. Don’t get caught up in the weedy minutia. If you’re anywhere close, no small error or glitch is going to disqualify you. Nobody’s jamming the glass slipper on a stepsister because Cinderella’s hair wasn’t perfect that day.

If all else fails, picture me drowning in those auditions, deeply grateful for all and in jaw-slacked awe of many.

I just couldn’t take them all.

THE BLUE IRIS Audiobook is now available on Audible, Amazon and Apple Books. The narrators did a spectacular job–please show them some love and leave a review! View Trailer.

This essay is part of The Launch Diaries, a series of reflections, lessons, real talk and confessions specific to the debut author’s journey. Free on Substack. For writers, creatives, or anyone curious.