So you think you want an agent . . . by Deborah Batterman

There you are – you’ve put the finishing touches on the final draft of your novel, and you’re ready to release it to the world. You smile. You type those sweet words – 'The End.'  Wasn’t it just the other day that you read about another self-publishing success, what with the e-book boom making the DIY mindset ever more alluring, and you quietly whispered to yourself, why not me? As if writing the book weren’t enough, all  you need is confidence and courage, coupled with a little chutzpah, to assure your place in the world of letters.   Educate yourself about marketing/distribution/promotion. Get out of that demoralizing legacy publishing dream/rut.  Take charge of the means of production and distribution and you’re that much closer to taking charge of your destiny.

Call me crazy —

But with all the possibility, why the hesitation? Already you’re beginning to quip about that sinewy road from finished manuscript to bound book; maybe you should have written, 'The Beginning' on that final page. Better yet, with the publishing industry in such flux, why does the role of an agent strike you as stronger than ever?

It’s a personal thing, really. For every writer insistent on going it alone, there’s another craving someone to go to bat for her. Someone who knows a little more about the ins and outs of publishing. Someone with access to editors. Someone to act as a buffer against rejection. This is not the voice of nostalgia, with its longing for a publishing environment that no longer exists – a world in which writers write, agents pitch their work, editors help sharpen it, and publicists get the word out.  It’s more the voice sobered by today’s publishing realities:  true as it may be that a really good novelist with an original voice will eventually get noticed, in a field grown so large the odds are greatly increased.  Creative energies spent on honing one’s craft are diverted to strategizing ways of getting someone to pay attention.

Call me a gambler—

So how could I resist an opportunity to play ‘Query Roulette,’ an event put together by the Women’s National Book Association?

It was a dizzying night, indeed. Weeks earlier I had registered, looked at the roster of participating agents (eleven in all), singled out five I would meet with. This was no pitch party, more a chance to sit with each of them for ten minutes while they read my query and gave suggestions for fine-tuning.  A friend of mine said it sounded a little like speed dating.

I was well prepared, down to the beautifully designed 5 x 8 card highlighting my accomplishments (doesn’t placing in a recent national fiction contest count for something?) and ten-page excerpt at the ready. They read and red-penciled, I watched, we talked.  One agent thought my letter was really really good; she even liked the typeface.  Two agents were consistent in finding the beginning of my query strong but wanting less thematic undercurrent/more plot denouement in my next paragraph. One asked what I do when I’m not writing (put that in the letter, she said). The other gave me a sobering truth about e-mail queries.  Typically I include sample pages with e-mail queries. So I asked, point blank: Are you telling me that, if my query doesn’t completely grab you, you might not even peek at the pages?  Her answer was as direct as could be:  I get so many  queries.  Maybe once in a blue moon she’ll be curious enough about a not-so-sparkling query to look at the pages.

The agent who turned out to interest me most actually asked substantive questions about the novel and was interested enough to take away the excerpt I showed her. Another agent thought she was giving good advice by suggesting I might rethink the period in which the novel is set. I suspect she was tired of reading queries by the time I saw her (who wouldn’t be?).  She did perk up when I told her the novel ends on the day before 9/11.

Call me hopeful—

Technology may run our lives, down to how we’re forced to present ourselves, but nothing beats face-to-face contact – even ten minutes’ worth – to strut your stuff to someone you think it may interest. If the aftermath left me feeling a tad spent from days of preparation, all in the interest of appearing my shining best and making the most of an opportunity, my wondrous group of online writer/friends helped me see the positive for what it was.

The bottom line:  finding the right agent is a very subjective process;  even if it suggests a touch of tunnel vision, agents, like the rest of us, have particular tastes, and are looking for what they believe they can sell. Feedback as specific as the kind I got bears considering; it’s my choice how to apply it. At the very least, I feel encouraged enough to submit my reworked query with sample pages to the agents who seemed genuinely open to my work.

In a word, maybe a lifetime devoted to writing really does give sustenance to that elusive thing called timing -- a line, btw, lifted right from my query.