No shoes, no news

Visitors to the paradise on earth that is the Maldives will recognise the title above. Sadly, I'm not currently diving with manta rays, but it did seem an appropriate phrase for my state at the moment; I twisted my ankle this weekend and so am confined to my fake Uggs for the next week or so. Definitely no shoes.

And the no news part?

Ok, time to break my silence about this agent thing. And a bit more.

So there was an agent who was interested in my children's book. She emailed me, said she'd like to meet to discuss ways of developing my ideas. Hurrah! I couldn't meet her immediately because I was out of town, so put her off for a week. Then when I returned, she couldn't meet me for a couple of weeks because she was out of the country. Fine, no harm done. Then she gets back to the UK and asks if there have been any developments with anyone else (she knows that a couple of other interested parties have the manuscript). Nothing significant, I say, and does she want to make a date to meet now?

Silence.

For over a week now.

The sensible part of me says that she's been away so has no doubt a lot to catch up on. So I'm probably at the bottom of her list - that's understandable. However, there's another part of me that thinks maybe she's just not that keen. I need someone to be keen. I'll consider all manner of changes, I'll rewrite like a madwoman, but GOD I need someone to be keen. Enthusiasm is so important, don't you think?

Here's something else to thicken the plot:

I've been keeping a little secret from you all in bloggerland. I had some interest from a publisher - a big publisher - back in October. I didn't want to blog about it at the time because it seemed so huge and exciting that I thought I might jinx it. Basically, an editor rang me up and told me how much they liked my book. The stuff of dreams, seriously. This was followed by a couple of brief but friendly emails and the promise to be in touch shortly. I hadn't heard anything by early December, so I gently enquired to see what was going on. I got another friendly reply - the editor said they were so sorry to keep me hanging and were discussing my book with collegues and that they hoped to be in touch shortly. They asked if I'd had any interest from other publishers? Nothing significant, I replied.

Silence.

For 2 months.

So the sensible part of me knows that things move slowly on Planet Publisher. I've read oh so many tales of editors sitting on a book - for 6 months, a year, whatever - then suddenly leaping into action. The other part of me is thinking it's all over.

Life has been incredibly frantic the last 4 months, so I haven't exactly had enough time to pimp my wares to my best advantage. What both agent and publisher have in common is that it seems that they're not going to bite until someone else does. (Should I have told a few porky pies about how in demand the book is? Not my style.) What we all have in common is that we are all going to be in the same room next week at the launch of the anthology that my story is featured in. I know.

How do I handle this? Do I prompt them both before the event and give them a chance to put me out of my misery in private?

Or do I wait til the big night and let them dump me over Champagne and nibbles?