GETTING AN AGENT AND KEEPING ONE by Jackie Lee Miles

I tend do to things backwards. First I got my book sold, then, I got an agent. I was at this conference and met the president of Cumberland House Publishing, who sent word that they wanted to publish my debut novel. Soon after, I received in the mail a document requesting my notarized signature. Cool! Then I realized I knew nothing about the ins and outs of a publisher’s contract and immediately got out my copy of Guide to Literary Agents.

I stumbled across an agency that listed James Patterson as one of their clients. I was clueless to the fact that they no longer represented him. In truth it was his earlier books that they’d sold. Even so, had I known I would have been duly impressed. They also listed the words NO SOLICITATION. Now why would they include themselves in Guide to Literary Agents if they didn’t want to have inquiries? My thoughts exactly.

I promptly called them up. A very pleasant voice greeted me on the phone. I explained that I was a newbody-nobody, but had sold my book and needed representation. Did they have an agent there that might be interested in me? She told me to hold on and eventually connected with me one of their agents who said she would not represent me, even though I had sold my novel, unless she truly liked it. That sounded reasonable. I asked her if I could send it to her. I went on to explain that I needed her answer yesterday. She laughed and said to overnight it and she’d take a look. I did. She called me the next evening and told me that it had probably happened to her before, but she couldn’t remember when, that she’d sat down to read a manuscript and didn’t get up until she’d finished it.

I said, “Does this mean you’ll represent me?” She laughed again (I liked her immensely already), and assured me she would. Her name was Sarah Piel and she was with Arthur Pine Associates, now known as Inkwell Management.

Sarah did a good job for me negotiating my contract and I got busy with my second novel. By the time that I’d finished it Sarah was no long with Arthur Pine. She’d left the industry to birth children and didn’t bother to tell me. Worse, Arthur Pine no longer existed. By now, they’d merged with the two other agencies to form Inkwell Management and no one at Arthur Pine, not even Sarah, had made mention of me to any of the agents there. I would have to start querying.

I got busy and composed what I felt was a strong query letter and started sending it off. Eventually I sent it to twenty-five agents in N.Y. and managed to hear back from twenty-three of them to either send the first three chapters or in many cases the entire manuscript. I was tap-dancing on the clouds. I figured I only had to get an acceptance from one of them and it had to be a numbers game. Surely one of the twenty-three would want me. After all, I was already published and now touring with the Dixie Darlin’s, four nationally published authors with a passion for promotion that had managed to make one-hundred appearances. Piece of cake.

Never slice your cake until someone’s ready to eat it. One by one all twenty-three agencies wrote back, with several saying some pretty nice things. Regardless, they also added the word, BUT, at the end of their last sentence. BUT ~ it didn’t fit into their list, BUT ~ they couldn’t determine where to place it. BUT ~ they had just purchased something similar. You name it ~ there was a BUT at the end of each letter. So much for it being a numbers game.

I was too discouraged to send out another host of queries. The first batch had cost me a small fortune considering they had all asked for hard copies and I’d sent each of them a fresh one. Okay, I admit I reused one manuscript. Why not? When it was returned I noticed it had only six pages with noticeable fingerprints on them along with some coffee stains on page 132 (Did they stay up reading long into the night? If they did, they weren’t impressed. They promptly sent it back.), and decided I could easily re-use this particular manuscript. So I printed out replacement pages for the soiled ones, but immediately noticed the color of the paper didn’t match. I set out to find a ream of paper that would. After three tries I stumbled upon the correct copy paper that I must have originally purchased. The new pages I printed couldn’t be detected from the original pages that I printed. Cool! Then I realized it would have been cheaper just to reprint the entire manuscript.

I was more miserable than ever. I’d wasted all that time and money chasing and buying paper, not to mention the gas I burned up going to those places in the first place. Bummer. To ease my pain, I reminded myself that I would be using this paper for many days ahead as I got busy on my current manuscript.

Soon after, I happened to be in Nashville touring with the Dixie Darlin’s and decided to drop the twenty-three-times-rejected manuscript off for my publisher to read. I hadn’t previously approached him because I was so sure I could secure N.Y. representation. Huh! Well, he loved it and called me to tell me he was bringing it out in hardcover that September. I was overjoyed and promptly threw out all the letters that had the word BUT in them. What did they know?

On to my next novel. When I finished, I queried Rachelle Gardner with WordServe Literary. (She has a great blog! Check it out.) Rants & Ramblings, On Life as a Literary Agent. She called to tell me she loved the novel and would very much like to represent me, if I was willing to do some work on an edit. Was I? I’d climb Mount Everest to do so if it meant representation. We sealed the deal. She would be my agent. And to think I hadn’t even had to send it off to any of those places that sent back letters with the word BUT in them. Cool!

This is exactly how it happened. I have to be honest. My mother’s words are imbedded in my brain: Always tell the truth; you don’t have to keep the facts straight.

Jackie Lee Miles is the author or Roseflower Creek, Cold Rock River, Divorcing Dwayne and the soon to be released All That’s True. (Jan. 2011). Visit the website at http://www.jlmiles.com/. Write the author at jackie@jlmiles.com.

"The Green Room" by Kerry Madden

THE GREEN ROOM

“Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable” Tennessee Williams

(On Snobs and Snobbery)

When I was a freshman at the University of Tennessee I dutifully followed the required courses in my journalism major. I even interned for about a minute at the Daily Beacon, http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/ the college paper, reporting on sports before I was fired for lack of experience. The great irony is that I grew up the daughter of a football coach, which was the reason they hired me in the first place. But I was clueless and couldn’t write about sports with any clarity. I floundered, and a guy named James quietly informed me that it wasn’t working out. I took the hint. At the time, I didn’t know there was any writing other than journalism to study in college, but I was glad to leave the college paper scene. I didn’t want to write about track and field and volleyball and pretend to know what I was doing.

All freshman year, I endured deadly dull econ lectures on a TV in a dorm lobby three days a week, psych 101 with at least 500 students, freshman comp and I can’t remember what else. But in the spring, I took the class I was secretly longing to take: “Introduction to Theatre.”

Growing up in college football, we didn’t go to the theatre, and so I had never heard of a play called A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE by Tennessee Williams. But that spring I saw the movie, fell in love, and decided that I had to play Blanche in this class where scene study was a requirement. I understood Blanche or so thought I did. Life was passing me by fast. At nineteen I felt old. I was shy and had a reputation of being mature and sensible. Yuck. People invited me to do things like sing at guitar mass or join “Campus Crusade,” which mortified me. I didn’t want to attend Bible Study. I wanted theatre and stories.

And so I practiced being Blanche day and night. I rehearsed lines with my computer science roommate who did not find theatre a holy or transformative experience. The day finally came to perform selected scenes from STREETCAR in the classroom. I filled up a Jack Daniels bottle with iced tea and wore my roommate’s filmy white graduation dress that looked very Blanche DuBois. I clung to the girl playing my sister, Stella, seduced the newspaper boy, got dumped by Mitch, tangled with Stanley, and taped paper lanterns to the chalkboard. I loved crying out the line: “Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable!” I mused over unwashed grapes and being tossed overboard at noon into the ocean and finally went crazy all in about thirty minutes in the Humanities Building. It was a hit. I loved being Blanche. My heart busted wide open for her, and I got an A in the class. I knew I belonged in theatre.

But the "Introduction to Theatre" class had been one thing. We were majors from all the different colleges, so everybody got to play. However, there was this other much more select place on campus called “The Green Room” where only a privileged few gained entry. The Green Room was where the real actors congregated, and the fact was many of them were snobs. But I loved this about them. I had watched these brilliant stars in plays, and they had earned their snobbery. They were incandescent in their roles in THE MIKADO, THE THREE SISTERS, AH WILDERNESS! DRACULA, ROMEO & JULIET, CAROUSEL, PIPPIN, SWEENEY TODD, COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN, THE TEMPTATIONS OF MANN, TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, which all meant one thing in my mind. They were too good for me, but I wanted to be one of them more than anything.

The few times I found the courage to grace the green room, I merely walked through as quickly as I could to the other side without quite running. I was afraid to stop, terrified to have a conversation and to be discovered for the fraud that I was, who had taken one theatre class. Then I did something really stupid. I went back to the Daily Beacon and offered to do theatre reviews. At least I knew something about theatre. I had, after all, played Blanche DuBois.

So a student editor told me to review a play called ONLY THE RED BIRD SINGS IN THE SUMMER RAIN. It was a new student play. I had never written a review, and I wrote about the people in the Green Room whom I desperately wanted to be part of…the play wasn’t good, but my review was way worse, and the Daily Beacon ran it anyway.

I remember standing in front of the Clarence Brown Theatre at UT when a boy from the theatre department came up to me and said something like: “You wrote that awful review. I’m warning you that people are really, really upset. To put it lightly, they are furious. They are going to write a response, so be prepared. It is so clear that you don’t have even the basic understanding of what theatre even is, and so if I were you I’d stay out of the green room. You are not welcome.”

I almost fainted. By then I was a sophomore, but I obeyed him. I didn’t go into the green room again that year. A student did write a rebuttal to my review, and she was absolutely right. I didn’t understand how to review a play. Since I knew I wasn’t welcome in theatre at the University of Tennessee, and I also knew I would die if I had to stay in Knoxville for one more second, I applied to become an exchange student at Manchester University in England for my junior year.

I was accepted and I went, and by a miracle a group of Manchester drama students adopted me and told me that journalism was a “grotty trade school occupation” and that if I truly loved theatre and writing, I should become a playwright. It was as if the gods had spoken. I studied theatre all year long. I went to a play a week and took a class in drama criticism and learned how to write reviews. I wrote my first play inspired by my group of theatre friends who got into a rip-roaring fight over HAMLET. In Knoxville, we didn’t fight over subjects like HAMLET. And just like STREETCAR, I had never read HAMLET. So I read the play and wrote down the fight in a one-act play and called it TEA TIME. We put it on at the student lab theatre at Manchester University, and suddenly I was a playwright, who wrote dark comedies.

But in order to graduate, I had to go back to Tennessee my senior year. I was miserable at the thought; however, I immediately changed my major from journalism to theatre and my return to Knoxville came with a hint of a British accent, dyed hair, and petticoats. I was not the loser I was when I left. I’d also been studying in England with drama students for a year and thought, who gives a shit about the Green Room in Tennessee? None of them went to England. I’ve earned it.

So I entered the green room and struck up conversations and began to make friends. I took stagecraft, directing, and theatre history. I was cast as the Kangaroo in PETER PAN and hopped through Never Land. I was a pinhead in THE ELEPHANT MAN and rolled around with other pinheads on stage. I made friends that year in Knoxville who are still some of my dearest friends today. I even stayed and did an MFA in Playwriting, but I couldn’t forget how it used to feel to be on the outside looking in, so when any new student came into the green room, I welcomed them. They were invited to the party.

Today, I go to conferences or book festivals, and it can sometimes feel like a great, cavernous Green Room under the big tent. Many who come are brand new writers working up the courage just to walk into this Green Room, and we’ve all been there, but generosity goes a lot further than playing the weary writer snob. One of my author heroes demonstrated this beautifully recently.

It happened at Kathy Patrick’s book festival in Jefferson, Texas, http://www.beautyandthebook.com/ when Pat Conroy came up to our table of children’s authors where we were signing our books, and he said, “Hey, I got your books. Do me a favor. Sign them to me!” And he had bought all our books. Now Pat Conroy, being PAT CONROY, could deal that snob diva card without question, but instead he was giving us a hand. He said that as a young author nobody bought his books, and he never forgot that feeling of sitting alone at the table.

Like many authors, I have sat alone at many tables behind piles of books. It’s awful, but what can you do? Not show up? Steer clear of the Green Room? For me, that is not the answer. You show up, you say thank you, you behave graciously to everybody, and most important of all you welcome those who are just gathering the courage to say, “I’m a writer too.”

Kerry Madden is the author of six books and an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. www.kerrymadden. She divides her time between Birmingham and Los Angeles. Her husband, Kiffen, and their three kids are her editors and inspirations.

Lit Links

We had a guest blogger scheduled for today but a family emergency prevented him from contributing. So that we don’t have that ever-so-sad blank space, here’s a round-up of some recent great links.

Ever wonder happened to fan mail for J.D. Salinger? One of the people assigned to read his fan-mail reader reflects on the experience.

Here’s a quote from the article: “Every day, a bundle of mail was dropped on my desk by the office secretary, much of which consisted of letters addressed to Salinger. The letters came from Sri Lanka or the Netherlands or Arizona. They included deeply personal admissions—cancer diagnoses, bankruptcy, divorce—and were often written in Salinger's own brash style or, at the very least, incorporated the slang of the period he chronicled. "Dear Jerry, you old bastard," they tended to start.

Laura Miller from Salon.com shares her best advice to writers. Here’s a snippet: The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, atmosphere/setting.
Speaking of writing advice, several illustrious authors offer their own rules for writing fiction. Elmore Leonard says this: Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose". This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use "suddenly" tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

Could it be true? Is the discussion of creative writing more popular than creative writing itself.?

Are you all a twitter about how to use social networks for promotion? Here’s some tips. For instance then author says, “You can’t build meaningful connections with fans by just talking about yourself all the time.” Who knew?

Finally, does James Frey have multi-personalities? Some say he might be John Twelve Hawks.

THE QUEST FOR A LITERARY AGENT

Behind every successful published author stands a good agent. Securing that partnership is the most important hurdle in this wild, wonderful world of publishing. However, it’s no easy feat.

I first began looking for an agent in 1986. I had a novel written but was clueless how to go about the business of getting published. During those early years, I felt I had to achieve the title of “published author” to view myself as a “real writer.” That accomplishment-- that crossing of some line I’d drawn in my mind--would be a validation. Only then would I consider myself on an equal footing with my published author friends.

Back in the day, from time to time we heard stories about fellow writers who landed book deals after their novel was plucked out of the mysterious slush pile by an editor. Yes, it really happened! That kind of good fortune is almost unheard of now. There is an old saying that literary agents are the first line of defense for editors. Today more than ever, agents and editors are deluged with submissions. The best weapon for getting your novel pushed to the top of the stack in an editor’s office is your agent.

Choosing the right agent is critical for the author. It can be a mistake for an author to accept any literary agent who says “yes.” Take your time doing research. Attend conferences where agents are speaking. Find out which agent represents books in your genre. Who are his/her clients? Does she demand a fee for reading your manuscript? You want an agent who believes in your work. If your agent doesn’t fight for your work, you could waste years.

Every relationship between author and agent is unique. But the common denominator is respect: an author’s for her agent’s time and effort, and the agent’s respect for the author’s work. Because in the end, it always boils down to the novel.

Choosing your agent, the right agent for you, is one of the most important business decisions you’ll ever make. There is a mountain of rejection in the world of publishing, and sometimes, getting published is a matter of your idea being at the right place at the right time. So believe in your talent, go to conferences, submit your work, and keep writing. Let me share with you one important thing I learned in the past twenty some years. You are a writer whether you are published or unpublished.



Mary Alice Monroe is a NYT Bestselling author and has written more than a dozen books, including Last Light over Carolina, Time is a River, and The Beach House. Her books have achieved several best seller lists, including SIBA and USA Today. Her latest novel, The Butterfly’s Daughter, will be out in spring 2011. You can follow Monroe on Facebook, Twitter and her weekly blog.

A Band of Writers (or Where Snobbery Turns to Dust)

A most recent Saturday found me doing something I don't actually like doing - shopping. I know, I know - some women and men LOVE TO shop for everything from ratchets to shoes to thingamajigs but I'm not one of them. Color me tired the moment I think of stepping into the mall with a do or die shopping list involving something to wear. On my body. Immediately. And that's what Saturday found me doing. Wandering confusedly through stores filled with too many choices. With lots of sale items and lots and lots of women very serious about bagging a great deal the way some men might want to bag big game. I accidental wandered into the Dillard's LAST DAY SHOE SALE, and was caught in the crush and shoved forward until I was staring at a row of shoes two sizes too large and do you know I ALMOST put a pair on because I caught that IT'S THE LAST DAY OF THE SALE FOREVER AND EVER mentality until I thought STOP THIS. WAIT JUST A SECOND I know -I just need a BREAK to rest from all this pressure. I'm alone. I'm at the mall. I know where to go to calm my rattled nerves.

A few minutes later I stepped across the threshold of Davis Kidd Book Store and my heart rate began to find it's way to a more normal pace. There was the lovely fresh scent of story wafting through the air, the low hum of booksellers recommending their recent reads, of customers in line discussing what their book clubs were reading. Now, this is more like it, I thought, and then pleasantly took my time wandering the aisles, viewing the great tables of recommendations, new releases, local authors, and one of my favorite displays - If you Loved THIS book - try THIS book. I'm on a natural high going, ummm, yes, I loved that book. Ohhh, I loved that book too. Now, here's where if I had already picked up my zippy new Droid phone I would have been uploading great photos of those tables laden high, displayed with a lovers touch, and downright intoxicating with all their book cover flavors but for now you'll just have to close your eyes and imagine what it was like to be in the company of readers, silently moving incognito though the aisles, touching covers and spines with delight.

I'm so happy to be a reader's writer. That is - my love for story, my love for reading, is more than a foundation. It's really my snob repellent and yes, I use it on myself on occasion. If we've ever been snobs (we have) or been touched by snobbery (we have) or just cast out into the outer reaches of not being with one particular clique or another on any given day snobbery (want me to name them?) then having a little snob nob repellent goes a long way. And the Love of Sheer Story in ALL It's glory does just that. I mean do any of our old opinions or anyone else's hold value under the light of our LOVE for the written word? Of great literature that reminds us of what it means to be fully human, of stories that make us laugh and forget our troubles, of kick down the door heroine's that carry us through the night fighting battles and solving mysteries so we feel vicariously brave and strong. Writers are some of the greatest readers of all time, quick to champion another story, to promote a new book, to share a bit of great news. It's who we are in the wonderful great scheme of things. It's why this blog was created. To celebrate story writers, to share how-to's with those struggling and wanting to be published, to give a sense of belonging and community to those of us wild enough to keep at this thing in spite of the lonely miles we cover on the road year in and year out to connect with readers and each other. To give us a place to share funny stories of what has happened on that very road, how we've navigated and orchestrated with or without agents, and our behind the scenes survival stories of our sometimes not so private lives.

The greatest fraternity, sisterhood, organization- whatever you want to call it - that I've ever joined by default has been this jangled, tangled, strange, witty, talented, original band of writers. Those of us who meet on the road, at festivals, at bookstores, and events where we've been somehow finding each other through the written page ever since. And that's what I was thinking as I considered JT Ellison's new release The Cold Room and the great reviews she has received. (Like a proud buddy - sharing her bookmarks at the nail shop where I had drafted her saying - Look here, my friend JT. She works hard she does.) Or the ladies in line behind me where I clutched a copy of The Book Thief in my hand because, yes, it had been highly recommended to me by another writer friend who emailed me TWICE to make certain I would read it. So there I stood in line at Davis Kidd, two ladies behind me talking book clubs. One says- I love to read about characters from Japan and such because it seems so exotic. The cultures are so different. And I turn, never once mentioning that I'm an author, that my books can be found on the shelves of Davis Kidd. It just wasn't that kind of moment. What I did say was - If you like that book you should discover the wonderful warm, Jamie Ford and The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. (An author I met on the road because of that other author champion Pulpwood Queen author, Kathy Patrick) Then I go on about the book what I hope is enough to intrigue them.

I made my purchase and went to lunch alone, opened the first page of The Book Thief and fell into the story, forgetting all about shopping deals and deadlines.

River Jordan is the critically acclaimed author of three novels, The Gin Girl, The Messenger Of Magnolia Street, Saints In Limbo and a collection of essays, The Deep, Down, & Dirty South. Her forth novel, The Miracle of Mercy Land, arrives September 7, 2010. Hew new work of non-fiction Praying for Strangers will be published in 2011. The author lives in Nashville where she produces and hosts River Jordan Live, a literary jam session on the radio. On rare occasion she buys new shoes.

"The Best Book Festival Ever"

Every year I go to the South Carolina Book Festival (SCBF) and every year I don’t think it can get any better – and it does. I have tried to analyze what makes it so special and I have come up with three reasons. The combination of these three makes it the Festival every author wants to attend.

First off are the attendees. On the Saturday events of the SCBF this year all attendance records were shattered. Over thirty seven hundred people passed through the turnstiles and entered the wonderful world of books. The attendees were both young and old, and they were all enthusiastic. I got to meet many of them through panel discussions and also book signings. They were fascinating people who came from a variety of states with a trio of purposes – to meet authors, hear what they had to say, and buy books!

Many of the attendees, I think, were aspiring authors themselves. They wanted to know all about the publishing process. They also were interested in how the authors picked their subjects as well as when they wrote during the day or night. They weren’t annoying in their inquisitiveness, but rather made the authors feel special to be asked such profound and direct questions.

I also discovered that many of the same people come back year after year. That gives us all a sense of familiarity, and makes these “mini-reunions” a plus for the Festival. It is also good to see the authors you haven’t seen in a while.

This leads me to my number two reason – the authors. I love authors. They are gifted people who share their talent with the world. The ones I have gotten to know personally are some of the most special people I have ever encountered. Kathy Wall and her husband Norman have become best friends to me and my wife; Patti Callihan Henry always overwhelms me with the warmth of her personality; Dorothea Benton Frank is one of the funniest people I have ever met; Marjory Wentworth knows everybody under the sun and will introduce you to each and all; and Karen White always has a new story about her life to tell and entertain you.

This year’s keynote speaker was John Hart, author of THE LAST CHILD. I have been a fan of John’s since I read his first novel KING OF LIES. I had been urging the SCBF to get him down from North Carolina for the past few years and this year they did. Getting to meet him in person was a real treat and he was just as nice as he is talented. It is so great when people live up to your expectations.

The third reason I love the SCBF is Paula Watkins, the director of the Festival. Paula, and her staff, are the reason everything works. She is involved in the Festival year round and is always thinking of new ways to make it better. Paula is a teeny thing (maybe five one or two) and is just beautiful inside and out. She always manages to keep her cool no matter what crises arise and that makes us all feel comfortable.

Paula also makes you feel like you are a “special” author. She greets you with warmth and efficiency. I don’t l know what the secret of her success is, but I know that she is the secret of the SCBF’s success.

There are book festivals all over the country and each of them is unique in some way. Still I have to say the SCBF is the very best. It is all about the way it is presented and the way the authors are treated. It s a win/win situation for everyone involved.

Jackie K Cooper

Jackie has attended the South Carolina Book Festival for the past few years and has loved each and every one of them.

Diff'rent Strokes

by Bente Gallagher

Last spring, I spent a weekend in Bowling Green, KY, at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest. (Nice little event, if you’re in the area. This year, it takes place on Saturday, April 17th at the Carroll Knicely Conference Center, which is hooked up to the Western Kentucky University campus . Yes, I’ll be there again. Discussing “Lovely Little Mysteries” with Jane Cleland, Laura Bradford and Beverle Graves Myers. 12 o’clock sharp. In case you’re in the neighborhood...)

Back to last year’s event. I can’t remember the topic of the panel I was on then (it’s a few events ago now) but I do remember at one point talking about how each of us found representation. Whether that was the point of the panel, or whether we were just answering a question from the audience, I’m not sure, but I do remember being there and discussing it.

There were five of us, all writing different aspects of crime fiction, from fluffy super-cozy mysteries (mine) to dark and disturbing psychological thrillers, and everything in between. There were even zombies. Our stories of how we found our agents turned out to be just as different.

Honestly, I thought most of the others would have done the same thing I did: I cold queried agents whose names I found online until one of them bit and offered to represent me. There was nothing magical or ordained about it. It took about four months and about forty queries, which I sent out in batches of five. Basically, I did it the old-fashioned way.

Turned out I was wrong. There was someone who got the editor first, and ended up signing with an agent the editor recommended. There was someone who pitched an agent at a writing conference and ended up getting signed. There was one guy who sat next to an agent on a plane and got to talking with him, and ended up being represented that way.

My favorite, though, was J.T. Ellison’s story: she got herself a membership to Publishers Marketplace ($20 a month; well worth it!). She posted excerpts from her work in progress on her page, she checked the little box that said ‘looking for representation’... and she had her dream-agent approach her, asking to represent her!

That’s nice work if you can get it.

Another friend and sort-of critique partner drove me insane with her dithering last year. She kept polishing her manuscript, kept tinkering with it, kept writing and rewriting her query letter, kept going over it and over it and over it until I wanted to strangle her. Couldn’t she just get the damn thing out there? I mean, it isn’t a matter of life and death, you know? It may feel that way, but it really isn’t.

Anyway, after several months of getting on my last nerve, she finally decided she was ready, and emailed queries to her top ten agents one Monday morning. By Friday, she had six requests for full manuscripts and the next week, there were two offers of representation in her email.

That’s nice work if you can get it, too.

The thing is, there isn’t one right way to find an agent, just like there isn’t one right way to write. You can give five authors the same sentence, or the same premise, and tell them to build a story around it, and you’re gonna get five different stories.

And that’s fine. It would be pretty boring if everyone did everything the same way, wouldn’t it?

Bottom line, I guess, is that if you’re looking for representation, leave no stone unturned. Open yourself up to possibilities. Don’t be too proud to cold query, and don’t forget to do your homework first, even if it drives the people around you crazy. Go to conferences and meet the agents. Talk to the person next to you on the plane. And subscribe to Publishers Marketplace. It’s well worth the price tag. Even if you don’t get an agent out of the deal, you’ll get a whole lot of other helpful information. If you keep at it, sooner or later the stars will align and you’ll be in the right place at the right time: your baby (AKA manuscript) will get in front of the right agent, who’ll agree to be yours. And then that’ll be one hurdle jumped, and you’ll have to worry about the next one: whether your agent can find an editor who loves your book as much as the two of you do.

No, there are no guarantees that having an agent will get your book published. It helps, but it’s not a certainly. But no one ever told you getting published would be easy, did they? Or if they did, you have my permission to kick them where it hurts most.

Before I sign off, let me make a pitch for my new book, PLASTER AND POISON, third in the Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation mysteries from Berkley Prime Crime. It’ll be officially released tomorrow, and available in a store near you. If you’re in the Nashville area, stop by one of my signings: I’ll be at the lovely Mysteries & More in Lennox Village on Saturday, March 6th, from 2 to 4 PM, and later that evening, I’ll be at Sherlock’s Books on Fifth Avenue in downtown Nashville for the Art Crawl from 6 to 9 PM. With—as it happens—the brilliant J.T. Ellison, who’s signing THE COLD ROOM, fourth book in the Taylor Jackson series.

Be there, or be square!