The book industry is an interesting machine, one constructed with numerous gears, wheels, and gadgets that sometimes mesh with one another, sometimes not. It is an industry of agents and editors, of production art departments and freelance designers, of book distributors and booksellers, of publicists and marketers. All of these people touch an author's book at least once, which makes one realize how many people it takes to bring just one book to life. It is a machine that requires many talents from many different people.

And molasses permeates the inner workings of that machine, slowing it in the manner only the coldest winter molasses knows.

This is not much of a criticism, believe it or not. All industries work in their own way and the book industry has its own pecularities. Certainly the people that make up the industry have the best intentions; they want writers to succeed just as much as they want their own gears in that business to succeed.

This is more of a warning to writers who are trying to break into the business, writers who want their manuscript published.

After you send in your query letter with chapters or the entire manuscript, be prepared to wait. A long time, possibly.

It's not that editors and agents don't want to help. Helping is the exact reason why they became editors and agents. They love writing, they love the process of editing and publishing, and they work hard to help good writers published good books. But they are also inundated with numerous submissions daily, have a menagerie of different job responsibilities that must be seen to, and are often overworked, overstressed, and underpaid. All of that combined means sometimes a writer will have to wait from eight months to eighteen months in some cases before they get an answer. It doesn't sound good to send the manuscript in, now does it?

Well, it is worth it. A writer must be patient. They must make their manuscript the best it can be and send it out into the void, a black hole that might swallow the manuscript whole or take months and months before sending it back with a decision. Why? Because these people who work in the industry are professionals, and they have a wealth of knowledge, experience, wisdom, and advice on how a writer should proceed with their career.

The adage "All good things come to those who wait" is true. It really is. My manuscript has been in two people's hands so far—an agent and an editor in chief. Both are extremely busy. But both also can make a career. So although time may pass with no word returned, just remember the goal at hand.

Remember the goal is to publish the best book possible and get that book into many readers' hands. That requires the industry—the people who work to help writers—and although it may act slow it can become a quick reality very fast.

And what then? You won't have enough time to get all the work done; to get all the editing and proofing and marketing and publicity and touring and signing. You'll wish you had time, but still remember a time when you were yearning for the quick pace.

It all comes at its own time. But don't let the beginning slowness of the process disquiet you to it. Be patient, be tough, and let come what may. Even if it may be molasses for a while.