Content Warning: I swear and I whine and I may annoy you.
I’m not entirely sure if going with an agent is right for me. I mean, obviously it’s ideal. I have never met an author who did not want to be represented by an agent to secure them better deals and better marketing, but in my genre it gets complicated.
I write M/M fiction with strong erotic elements. Explicit sexual content. The pool of available agents shrinks considerably when you got cock-slapping going on in your literature for some weird reason. What is already a stressful, difficult search gets amplified tenfold. There’s less information available for the literary agents in this genre, which complicates the research process, and factor in the general nervousness that comes with submitting dirty shit to professionals.
I don’t deal with a lot of shame with my writing. I don’t blush (anymore) when I write naughty scenes. I don’t get nervous about who’s going to see it when I post erotica online, or when I published my first book. But I got all squirrelly when I had a professional editor go over my sex scenes during my first publishing experience. I’ve always had a weird submissive, neurotic relationship with authority and being exposed in such an unconventional, taboo way with professionals high-key triggers it for me.
Submitting query letters to agents is definitely going to be interesting… God damn.
You know, sometimes I wish there was an enormous basket full of mentors you could just pluck someone in your genre out of and they’d answer all your desperate fledgling author questions and tell you what to do. I’d like that. Can we make that a thing?
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Sam Clover is an author of M/M speculative fiction. Though she dabbles in a variety of genres, dark themes always find ways to permeate her work. She is a prairie girl from east of the Canadian Rockies, and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community. Her debut book “Cold Snap” was released by Ninestar Press in December of 2020.
Sam Clover 