I have always found this to be true. When something drags on and on, it loses energy and momentum.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that any sale should be slapdash or hasty. But when everything aligns and everyone has reasonable expectations, things tend to fall into place. That means that the agent needs to know the market and what the book is likely to fetch, and the publisher needs to be aware of the potential the book really has. There are times when they need to look up from their P&L statements for a moment and just consider how much fuel this book has. That’s not a thing that can really be calculated, but they try. It’s just that sometimes they calculate themselves right out of a book they could have published successfully.
Life isn’t always going to be that easy to always deliver a quick sale, but sometimes it is. I love those times.
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