The Agent Story
So I’m in an elevator with an agent.
No, no. Hush, peanut gallery. I am dead serious.
It’s me, my pocketful of Office Depot one-sided business cards, and a twinge of panic. Standing in the hotel elevator that smells vaguely of perfume, pot and carpet dust on a muggy St Louis evening smack in the middle of the August heat wave.
Somewhere in my backpack are three other Business Cards (they are double-sided and thus deserve capitalisation) from conference agents. Two asked for full manuscripts—Twinge of Panic Exibit A. As for the request of the third agent—the star agent of the conference, the agent so big in the publishing world that my mother, my mother who lives in rural Spain, has heard of him, yeah, I have no idea what he wants.
I distinctly remember him handing me his business card and saying, “Looking forward to hearing from you.” And me, gobsmackedly star-struck, shaking his hand, gracefully departing the pitch room, only to anime-ugly run to my next agent appointment that started 120 seconds ago.
Did he want a book proposal? I had written one, letter and all (with a typo I only noticed as I walked into the pitch room, grr), and he had tucked the proposal into his briefcase.
Did he want the full manuscript? I mentioned the possibility to my neighbour at the conference lunch and there was a great gasp. “He asked for your a manuscript? Nahuh.” The FaceTime convention of family members immediately after the pitch have no recollection of his asking for a manuscript either.
So he probably doesn’t want it. He said he didn’t like the title. So rewrite the book proposal, get rid of the typo, and suggest a new title?
You have to understand. For someone who had just unearthed a 2-year-old manuscript she hadn’t really planned on pitching, these little correspondence details post pitch feel like the Himalayas. So I tell myself, the professional thing to do is ask him what he wants… if I’m afforded the opportunity. Which is the professional say of saying, Alas, I will never know, and hope he doesn’t hate me when I send the wrong thing…. or send nothing at all.
But, the next day, I find myself in an elevator. And—I kid you not—in walks Star Agent, smiling because he remembers me, not meeting my eye because I don't think he remembers my name and my name tag has been stalwartly giving its back to this entire conference.
The doors close. I gulp. These moments are called elevator pitches. Professional avoidance cannot excuse me now. Only… I’ve already pitched. In some butchery of a baseball metaphor, he decided to play and lobbed the Book Ball right back at me. Only I have no idea where it went!
Another young author is in the elevator with us—looking gorgeous in a Cinderella-like dress. And they are chatting. I momentarily think I’m spared.
But then the elevator starts going up—I need to go down—and Cinderella Writer leaves. LEAVES ME and the agent I’m meant to be re-pitching to, in this twilight zone elevator. The Lord, it would seem, disapproves of Professional Avoidance and had my angel and this agent’s army of angels conspire for this exact moment.
The elevator keeps going up. And I hereby note you have way less time than the elevator pitch prep preps you for.
“Sir, I am so sorry, but you handed me your business card and said that you are looking forward to hearing from me, but I really have no idea what you asked for and I looked back at my notes, but it was full of the book recommendations you gave me and none of what you wanted from my book. Do you remember what precisely it is you’d like to hear from me?”
You’d hope this is what was going on internally. A lightning storm of little thoughts I could hone, Benjamin Franklin style, into one kiteline and key that would zap us in this elevator with the electric brilliance of my professionalism, respect for this agent, and unwavering belief in the importance of my book.
Again, I say: Alas. What you have read above might as well be a transcript delivered from a fly on this pot-perfume-smelling elevator wall.
Ding goes the doors, somewhere right around my panicked “none of what you wanted…!!’’
We have reached the agent’s floor of the hotel. I remind you that I am not, in fact, staying at the hotel, so these are new and lofty heights for my no roomcard self.
And I know right away that I’ve made him uncomfortable. That he’s exhausted. Has met 1,000 people, asked for 1,000 book proposals, my name tag is still studying my bellybutton, and he has no idea who I am.
His smile is more of a grimace. “Oh. Well. Just send me the book proposal, I guess?” he says. And hurries out of the elevator with a look over his shoulder because his floor was the last elevator button pressed, and I am still inside.
I give a half shrug and point up as the elevator doors close, then frantically hit the lobby button. Which, of course, would only cause the down arrow to flash outside if he is still paying attention. I really hope he isn’t.
I lean against the elevator railing and groan something that sounds like, “Oh Lord.” Only the fly on the wall will know if more profanity was involved in this prayer.
Because somehow—somehow!—I have made myself one of the cautionary tales agents tell pitch-goers. The great list of ‘do not do’s you think are ridiculous.
Like the writer at this conference who has lived in decades of infamy for sliding her manuscript under the bathroom door. Only I am the one that rode the elevator up with this agent TO THE FLOOR OF HIS HOTEL ROOM—oh gosh, I can’t—to ask if he was really really sure he wanted my book or just a letter.
Sigh. So there is the agent story.
I put it off telling it hoping that fly and my embarrassment were only witnesses to a great origin story. That I would rewrite the manuscript in two weeks, take out 20k words of filler, change the title, contact these three agents, and be officially launched into my dawning career.
It is not so. I’m still in the rewrites, thinking about posting it back on Wattpad before I query it, and found agents on Query Manager who might be a better fit. Even if it takes me months. Which it will
It’s a difficult game, figuring out what part of the artist spirit is the perfectionism that produces a worthy book, and what part is the cowardice that prevents the book from seeing the light of day in the first place.
But that is a post for another time.
Post Script: While mildly dramaticised—I promise you the elevator, the agent, and the lofty hotel floors are all true. My embarrassment was the biggest exaggeration. In all honestly, I heaved a sigh, dragged my feet through the lobby, then scurried into an Uber, called my best friend and regaled her of my woes until we laughed. My driver even stopped me as I climbed out to wish me the best of luck in publishing—bless him.
And the agent in question isn’t famous for nothing. He struck me as truly kind and gracious in an industry you don’t have to be. So hopefully he’s not writing a blog post about me somewhere. Because I still plan on sending that proposal. New title, no typo, and rewritten into the book I believe it can be.
