The Book Is About Persistence. So Was This.
Yesterday, after four months of querying, I received an offer of representation for The Mess That Made Them, a narrative nonfiction book about artists, outliers, and cultural figures who created something lasting not because they were chosen, but because they kept going when everything told them to stop.
I started sending queries in January. Here's what it took to get to this point:
208 queries
10 full manuscript requests
1 partial
25 proposals
2 phone calls
78 rejections
I’m sharing this not because I think these numbers are impressive, but because I remember reading other writers' posts like this when I was discouraged and wondering if it ever gets better. I needed to see that persistence was not just a theme, it was the path.
I give agents a hard time sometimes (guilty), but the truth is, two of the rejections I received earlier in the process came with notes that fundamentally changed the manuscript. They helped me turn what I now recognize was an encyclopedia draft into an actual book. The version that’s getting offers wouldn’t exist without their push, even though they passed. I owe them more than I expected.
And if I’m being honest, six months ago, I knew I could write this book, but I wasn’t sure it would be any good.
Getting an offer today, and having three other agents request time to consider offering as well, is already beyond anything I imagined. Maybe it’s silly, but I want to celebrate this moment. Not with fanfare. Just with honesty.
Because I didn’t get here by being the best writer in the room. I got here by not giving up.
Or to put it another way:
Wrote a nonfiction book about persistence.
Persisted to find an agent who believed in it.
Was relieved to discover the book was, in fact, nonfiction.
The numbers matter less than what they represent: every rejection was a chance to refine the project. Every full request was a vote of interest in something that once lived only in my head. Every draft brought it closer to what it needed to be.
Starting around 1990, my parents tried, repeatedly, to get me to see myself as someone who could have a career as a writer. They saw something I couldn’t. Neither of them lived to see this day. But I know without question that they would’ve been proud.
So if you’re querying, revising, hesitating, or hanging on by a thread, here’s what I can tell you: persistence isn’t just a virtue. It’s a strategy. The whole book is about that. Turns out, the process of trying to publish it is too.
Thanks for being part of it.
—Ryan
Between Projects, Between Outcomes, Between Everything
You ever hit that strange nowhere space where you are technically busy, querying, submitting, planning, but every part of you feels like it is just waiting?
That is where I am.
I have a Zoom call with a literary agency in an hour. It is the kind of call I would have celebrated not long ago. I should be excited. I am excited. But I also know it might be another maybe. Another almost. Another stretch of silence that feels like possibility until it doesn't.
While I wait, I have started to think about the next book. Not casually. Not in a someday way. I am starting to wonder whether it is time to begin again for real. Whether there is something inside me urgent enough to shape a new project around.
This space between endings and beginnings is not empty. It only feels that way. It is full of nerves and drafts and unanswered emails. It is the hallway between the room where something happened and the room where something might.
I used to think success would feel like a door swinging open. It turns out it feels more like knocking with one hand while revising with the other.
So that is where I am.
Not stuck.
Not soaring.
Just suspended.
And honestly, I think that is where most of us live. Somewhere between what we have done and what we still believe could matter.
I Caved. There’s a Website Now.
Listen, I know no one was out there refreshing their browser, thinking, What I really need today is an author website from that guy who writes about Caravaggio murdering people and artists getting repackaged for sale. But I made one anyway. Because the day is coming. And when it does, now there’s a place for people to find an ephemeral representation of who I was willing to tell them I was.
Is it polished? Sure. Is it a living document that will probably change weekly as I second-guess every choice? Also yes.
There’s a book page for The Mess That Made Them. There’s a bio where I try to sound like a person. There are links to essays, updates, and projects in motion. And eventually, there will probably be a newsletter, because I hear that’s what people do when they have something to say and a deep-seated fear of social media algorithms.
So if you're curious, or just want to see how a website looks when built by someone with equal parts sincerity and caffeine, it's up. I’m findable now. Sort of. Let’s call it a soft launch.
http://www.ryantpozzi.com/
Thanks for being here. Thanks for caring. Or for pretending to. Honestly, I’ll take either.