Why the NFL Draft Is Like Querying Your Novel

Why the NFL Draft Is Like Querying Your Novel

What do the NFL Draft and querying your novel have in common? More than you might think. (For those not familiar with American football, NFL stands for the National Football League, the professional association for football in the US, and the annual Draft is the way new players are chosen for the teams each year). 

Full disclosure: I don’t watch football and, if pressed, I might be able to name a few teams, and I don’t know any players, save one. But I’ll get to him later.

I do know that each year there is a Draft for football players, in which teams have the opportunity to pick new players for the next season. It’s a nail-biting experience for the hopefuls waiting for their name to be called by their dream team. That’s something we writers can all relate to as we wait for word from agents and publishers—a call or an email that says “we want you on our team.” For many, if not most writers, both the wait and the answer can be a soul-crushing experience, especially when you’ve been repeatedly passed over. 

Like any professional football player hopeful, you’ve done your best, you’ve practiced, you’ve been coached (or at least critiqued), you’ve honed your skills, you’ve put everything you have into it. And then it’s up to the powers that be to call out your name. 

 As the rejections pile up for your work, it’s easy to believe that those rejections are an accurate reflection of your talent, of your skill, of your ability to get to the end zone—a publishing deal. Or being rejected by 100 agents and accepted by one, has you questioning if you even want to join a team that would want you as a member. But, that’s not the way publishing works.  You’ve probably seen the stories of uber successful authors, who first experienced a ton of rejections before finding the one agent who gave them a chance—Stephen King, James Patterson, Louis L’Amour, Stephanie Meyer, JK Rowling, Joseph Heller, to name a few—received somewhere between 12 and 200 rejections before being invited to join the team. I’m certain there are agents who said no to these authors in the beginning and spent years consumed with regret—if it didn’t prompt them to throw in the towel altogether. 

But, back to my point about the NFL draft. 

There are several rounds of the Draft, in which fledgling football players wait anxiously to see if their luck is about to change, as well as players who are looking for a second chance. The rules for the draft are complicated, but I turned to Google and it basically comes down to the teams that played the worst and lost the most games during the season, get to jump ahead of the winners, and be first to choose players for their team for the next season. Okay, so it doesn’t exactly work that way in publishing. If you’re published and doing well, you typically are much higher up in the pecking order.

What caught my attention recently was when Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, announced his retirement after 22 years and 7 Super Bowl wins. I learned in all the news coverage that, Mr. Brady, who sportscasters have dubbed the greatest quarterback of all time, was nowhere near being the number one pick when he was up for grabs in the Draft 22 years ago. In fact, he was the 199th pick in the 6th round of the draft (out of 7 rounds total).

That means the teams with the worst playing records, who could have benefited the most from his talents, passed him over repeatedly with each round, as they chose other players. He was finally picked to be the back-up for the starting quarterback of the New England Patriots. And the rest, as they say, is history. I can’t help but wonder how many coaches and team owners who repeatedly passed him over, like agents who passed over uber successful writers, have spent years eating themselves with regret.

Okay, so we can’t all be the Tom Bradys of the publishing world, but never forget that  the people making those fateful choices in the NFL Draft were blind to true talent.  Agents and publishers can be just as blind. 

It’s our job as writers to open their eyes and prove them wrong. 

And never give up.

P.S. In another unexpected similarity between publishing and Tom Brady’s rejections and his calling it quits—since I first wrote this, he’s decided not to retire after all. He evidently had thought he’d had enough, but then bounced back and will be back in the game. How many times have we writers decided we’ve had enough, taken a break and then decided we weren’t done yet?

Oh, and in case you’re interested, the NFL Draft for 2022, takes place in April. The Writers Draft takes place year round.

 

 

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Category: How To and Tips