WORK IN PROGRESS

Tips for writing a book:

• Read as many books as possible.
• Don't be overwhelmed by bookstores. The shelves look overcrowded, and they are, but willfully ignore this. If you thought about the odds of getting published you wouldn't be in this crazy business anyway.
• Talk to other writers. It will keep you sane.
• Be kind to animals and cashiers.
• Listen to other people's opinions on the work in progress. Inside you'll be screaming wrong, wrong, wrong. Unfortunately, they're usually not.
• Quit coffee but use that term "quit" loosely.
• Read writers like Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but try not to live like them. Writing comes from the open space inside you; drinking and drugging too much closes that space down.
• Cry in secret if necessary.
• Start your own writer's grotto. You might have to learn to divvy up office chores and install cable modems, but it's worth it.
• Write! Put sentences on paper like a manual laborer builds a wall. Doggedly, mercilessly, without self pity. Writewritewritewrite. Eventually, it might even be good.

The one question a lot of people ask me after “Are you the Baywatch girl?” is “How do I get an agent?” Since I was one of those few lucky SOBs who was contacted by an agent before I even knew what an agent was, my story is not very helpful (and people just about hate me for my good luck. I understand. The agent search is brutal. It really does make neurotic wrecks out of very nice writers.)

However, my very good friend and excellent writer Marianna Cherry has, after a series of short stories and a Pushcart Prize, just finished her first novel. And she has hit upon a very sound method for finding an agent for those who don’t have a genie, a bottle, and three wishes. She’s done the hard work, and has kindly let me put her advice here, for you, so you don’t become a neurotic wreck too.

When her book comes out, please buy it in hardcover.

“It took me about 25 - 30 hours to go through all the agents listed on: http://everyonewhosanyone.com/agus1.html For each name, I clicked on the link (if there was one) and/or googled each and every damn name to see whom they represent. This gave me a feel of who I thought would be good for me. I just kinda vibed it--looked for authors I knew, got a sense if they were for real, experienced, shared my sensibility. If I didn't recognize any names, didn't like their site for some reason, I just moved on. I probably skipped over some good ones, but you can't drive yourself too crazy.

For the really big guns, I looked up their junior agents.
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After going through everyonewhosanyone.com, I went to publisher's marketplace and signed up for the extremely expensive $20/weekly membership, which expired after 7 days like clockwork and which i hardly used but is probably a good idea--it gives you exact submission guidelines. Some agents want a cover letter and chap 1, others the first 10 pages, others nothing. Some want a longish cover letter, others short and sweet. -- they all have a different idea of what they want, and each agent is convinced, it seems, that their approach is *the* approach and if you do anything different it makes them mad and if you don't get it right it means you didn't do your research. That's what it seems to me.

90% of the time, agencies that don't feature last name partners in the title--for example names like "Writers International" or "The Creative Place" (I'm making those up) but anyway names that sound like that struck me as either Bullshit places, or they are rights agencies, not author agencies. 10% of the time, they were really great places. But you could save yourself a whole lot of time by ruling those out in your research, and accept the fact that you might be tossing out a good agency along with the heap.

And then of course, if you read any book that's up your alley, it's pretty easy to google around or go to Publisher's Marketplace.com and find out who reps them.

Last, Houghton Mifflin is open to writers without agents, so you could send the book straight to them. I thought of Macadam cage, but they aren't right now looking for unsolicited manuscripts.

Cover letter: mine is very dry and professional. I customize each one.

Good luck.” - Marianna Cherry
writer, Grotto member, musician, Good Samaritan.