My agent is Jim McCarthy at Dystel and Goderich Literary Management in New York. I found him with the textbook approach: I wrote a novel, polished it as best I could, hired an editor, and went through the book a few more times. Once I thought it was worthy of showing, I wrote, polished, and obsessed over a cover letter. I sent that and the first fifty pages of my novel to ten agents, asking if I might send my whole novel for consideration.
I hoped for one positive response and received three. Some agents don’t write back, and three called or e-mailed saying they’d like to read the whole thing.
All three turned me down after reading the whole manuscript.
I sent another ten queries out, and received two more positive responses. Both read and liked the novel. I went to New York to meet them, and I really liked Jim. He pulled out a contract, and I signed.
What type of book promotion seems to work the best for you?
Book promotion is one subject not talked about or glossed over in many writing programs. I happen to teach in USC’s graduate Master of Professional Writing program, which offers a class called “The Business of the Business.” That at least gets students thinking about what they’re actually going to do after they graduate. The best thing I recommend is learning how to write a fabulous one-page query or cover letter. My letters have opened more doors than anything. A good letter is your calling card.
But that’s only the start as I’m still learning with my two books of short stories. There’s so much one can do in marketing. I highly recommend the book The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. It gives one specifics.
The biggest challenge is in getting reviewed. There are over 200,000 books that make it into Books in Print each year, and yet even major newspapers like the Los Angeles Times only review maybe twenty books a week. That’s just over a thousand books a year. Now that literary websites have popped up, new opportunities have arisen, but how much can a single critic read and write about each year? Eighty? That’s a lot. To give perspective to college freshmen, that’s like writing eighty literary essays a year (if it’s done right).
So if you’re a writer, ask yourself how much are you willing to put yourself out there in terms of promotion? I have a publicist for Months and Seasons, a person who’s lovely and means well, but she’s made only four placements in six months. Actually, that’s probably an amazing thing, considering I have a book of short stories. My own efforts at marketing have inspired another eight reviews so far.
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