Update on my search for an agent.

My status as a writer at the moment is “Author in Waiting”. I have written my novel Pardon My Camino, (about a middle-aged couple walking the Camino de Santiago in an attempt to sort out their lives,) and now I am looking to publish. To this fervently desired end, I have sent out my baby to an agent.

An agent? How come? At some point in my publishing research, I felt that my brilliant oeuvre needed that kind of attention. If I had gone this far, I must do the very best for it. And I felt that the book could have an audience beyond Canada and an agent could help that happen.

So then the dive into what is an agent? What do they do? How they do it? What do they eat for breakfast? And how to get one!

The Writer’s Digest Guide helped me with lists of agents along with details of what they are looking for, and how to submit. By the time I had sorted out ones that handled my kind of novel, would have an interest in my part of the world and were open to submissions at this time, I had a half dozen possibilities. 

It was time to refine the query letter and prepare a synopsis (I told of my travails over that in a previous blog). I decided on one agent out of my list that seemed the best fit, took a deep breath and sent in all off. And now I wait.

I knew about the waiting. I had read The Forest for the Trees – An Editor’s Advice to Writers, a book by Betsy Lerner. I rediscovered this book in my stack – a bookshelf version of ‘shop from your closet’. The first half of this book entitled ‘Writing’ had been very encouraging and useful for me when I was actually writing. But I had not read the second half which is called ‘Publishing’ and had forgotten all about it.

 Ms. Lerner is a poet, an editor and a literary agent. She has been around the publishing world for a few decades or so and included with her advice is some great gossip. I do not know of all those people but she conveys the culture and atmosphere of certain agencies with such humorous insight that I feel I get them anyway.

At the how-to practical level, she gives her readers solid and respectful advice. Her advice comes down to being professional, do a great query letter, find a suitable match in an agent, and send the agent what they ask for. And NOT what they don’t want: No gimmicks, scented paper, strange gifts and no harassing phone calls! So I wait!