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Your agent is waiting!

Last year I finished a novel. Just like about 200,000 other writers. And this year about 200,000 more will finish novels. So I’m not bragging, not when it comes to the actual production of a manuscript. To put this another way, there’s nothing novel about my novel.

I got right to work securing an agent. There is no time to lose. Novels begin to age the moment the ink is dry. Brands lose popularity. Presidents get elected. The markets go up or down, crises come and go, and what seems essential, even obvious today fades into insignificance tomorrow. For instance, one of my characters meets Trump while visiting friends at Mar-a-Lago. That’s gonna look a little dated if he sells the place for back taxes, or whatever they’re after him for these days.

So the novel has to be sold, and sold fast. The first place you go is an agent, and the first thing you run into is a bewildering array of submission instructions. They just can’t get their story straight. Some list only the email for the “query”. Nothing else. This is actually perfect. Just Google “novel query”. You’ll get a hundred sites, all with the same advice. Punchy intro, book synopsis, market position, bio, and brief (up to thirty page) sample.

Done.

But other agents have, shall we say, other ideas. Let’s start with the craziest. A few want the entire novel. The whole shebang, docx, double-spaced, etc. I don’t know if this is meant to make the writer feel special. Or see if a novel really exists. I don’t know why anyone needs the whole thing. Because one page will tell an astute reader, and some not so astute, everything they need to know. I’m not joking. I’m in libraries and bookstores all the time. I like to look at and feel the new releases. The other day I picked up a novel and opened to the middle.

“What are you doing?” a clerk asked me.

It was a friendly question. He was really curious. He had probably been watching as I took up book after book, giving maybe a minute to each. “Reading,” I said.

“You read from the middle?”

“Sometimes.”

They get all kinds in book stores. Another nut, the clerk probably thought, and wandered off with an armload of magazines.

Actually I lied to him. I don’t sometimes read from the middle. I always read from the middle. Anyone can start a novel well. I want to see what they can do after settling into a jog. Unfortunately, I’m rarely pleased. Newspaper narration. Pointless dialog. Shifting perspectives. Profanity. And what some joker once called A Fine Grasp of the Obvious.

I can tell all this in a page or so. I ignore flap copy. I don’t care how “exciting” the novel is. You use an effenheimer for no good reason, and I’m out of here. I don’t need to keep going to find out how well the author can write. If he’s using gratuitous profanity, I know damn well.

Oops. It’s rubbing off.

But back to agents. Very few want the whole novel. But a couple I found want a multi-page, detailed synopsis, with plot turns and, I quote, all surprises. In addition, these agents want the info sent through their own proprietary portal. Fill completely, they demand. Failure to follow exact instructions will result in deletion. The hectoring tone itself is suspicious. In one instance, the agent didn’t want any sample at all (!) Just a very detailed synopsis. Very detailed.

I’m not sending a synopsis of anything. And I’m not sending the whole book either. But yes, I will follow directions exactly, and send the standard letter with my marketing ideas, bio, and thirty page sample.

But truly, the agent doesn’t need thirty pages, or twenty, or ten. They don’t even need a cover letter, or bio for that matter. What they need is lightning in a bottle, and one page from any novel is enough. If they can’t grade an author by that one page, they don’t belong in the business.

But that’s another story. Hey, if you fancy yourself a writer, there’s always another story.