The Literary Agent That Got Away (Because I Let Him Go) — A Cautionary Tale
I used to teach for the Transition Assistance Program, a four-day course that helps active duty military people move smoothly to civilian life — job search, budgeting, how to decide what to wear, day after freaking day when you don’t have a uniform anymore — all sorts of useful stuff.
It was fun, and important, and stressful (what’s more nerve-wracking than teaching someone how to keep a roof over their heads?). So to lighten the mood when things got angst-y, I regaled the workshop participants with stories of the gaffs I made in my own transition from military to civilian life. Oh, how they brayed with mirth — the big hair! the high heels! their savvy transition counselor as the potty-mouthed newcomer to a civilian office environment!
It was heady stuff. My hope was that they would learn from my mistakes, and also learn to loosen up. To not be paralyzed in the face of the mistakes that they, too, would make as they reintegrated themselves into polite society.
Soldiers are famously brave, and it takes a brave person to go from an environment where they feel powerful — where they know how everything works, and they have responsibilities, and a proven track record — to a place that’s pretty alien, where they are starting over from scratch. I needed them to be brave.
So I told them about a time I was a complete idiot.
I, their intrepid transition counselor, had written a novel. I researched and wrote a list of possible literary agents and made several honking big copies of the manuscript (this was in the olden days, when writers sent actual stacks of paper to agents and publishers). I then donned my black leather, Samuel L. Jackson Shaft jacket, boarded a plane for Germany and walked straight into the Agent Center at the Frankfurt Book Fair like I owned the joint.
Lesson #1 (and this is the only lesson) — NEVER NEVER NEVER DO THIS. Querying writers have all heard the horror stories. The horror stories are based on me. Don’t do it.
The Frankfurt Book Fair is a rights fair — people are there to sell international rights to publications, not to talk to writers who’ve left sweaty palm prints on their manuscripts. You are, to put it mildly, not making a very good first impression if you pull stunts like this.
But here’s the thing — while I was sitting at the bar in the Agent Center, minding my own beeswax and drinking coffee to fortify my nerves and trying to figure out where the agents on my list might be, a nice man in a pin-striped suit introduced himself. He was an agent (not one on my list). He asked me about myself, and seemed interested that I was an Army veteran, living and writing in Turkey. He was surprised I’d come to Frankfurt, since this was only one month after the 9/11 attacks. He asked me to give him the first chapter of my book, and said that he would read it.
After I got home from Germany I looked him up of course. He was and still is a very prominent and successful literary agent. He represents a very, VERY famous author. Think of a mega-author, one whose books have sold zillions of copies and been made into movies, and that’s probably this guy’s client. This guy who seemed amused that I’d slithered past the potted palms at the entrance of the Agent Center, and who was now saying nice things about the chapter of my book he’d read.
Because he called me.
But when I looked at his agency’s website, I’d seen that most of the books he represented were commercial fiction — bodice rippers and thrillers — which are lots of fun to read but not what I write. If he told me that my story needed some spies and car chases and sex scenes, I wouldn’t know how to do that. I wouldn’t want to do that. And so, when he suggested that we work together, I turned him down.
He didn’t take it very well — and why should he have? He was and is a king-maker. He could have made me a star. He said,
“I shall watch your career with interest.” Meaning, of course, that I wasn’t going to have much of one without him.
I often think about where I would be as a writer if I’d decided to say yes. I’ve beaten myself up plenty, looking at the situation from outside of it and concluding that I choked. I mean, I did choke, didn’t I? I had a mega-agent offer to represent me, and I said no. I am clearly one of those people more fearful of success than failure.
Or am I? I really wasn’t ready, in any sense of the word. I told him — and this wasn’t just some polite thing that I said — that I didn’t know how to turn my story into something he could sell. I think, honestly, that he would have tried to help me, and I wouldn’t have been able to write my novel differently, and that we would have parted ways sooner or later. This is probably what would have happened.
Or maybe I’d have risen to the challenge, and developed the writing wings I needed as I ascended. I won’t ever know.
What I do know is that I’m writing again, and fully intending to be successful on my own terms. It’s infinitely harder to find an agent now than it was back then, but I’ll worry about that when it’s time.
Anyway, I told this story to the military people I worked with as an example of daring greatly and failing spectacularly. We always had a good laugh about it, and I hope it helped them feel braver about putting themselves out there and making mistakes. My hope is that you’ll learn from my mistakes, too, and not make the same ones, but come up with some epic, new-fangled fails of your own.
