April 13, 2008

I have a bit of progress to report this week. In order to appreciate this, you need to realize that so far, after contacting dozens of literary agents, I haven't been able to find a single one who is interested in even seeing my book. Most of them don't give me any feedback. Those who do typically say something like, "This is a Jewish book, and Jewish books never sell more that 20,000 copies, and I can't make any money on that."

I respond by saying, "Yes this is a Jewish book, and it is also more. It can reach millions of people, people from any background who are moved by stories of the spiritual journey, and the relationship between student and spiritual teacher, and San Francisco in the 1960s, and friendship." They respond with silence.

So here's the story (for now I'm disguising the names). A couple of weeks ago, as I was going through Writers Market online looking for yet another another agent to contact, I found one who caught my eye. Dan has had a long career in both films and publishing, has represented a number of fameous people, wants 50% of the authors he represents now to be first time authors, and likes to represent inspirational memoirs. But what really caught my eye was that one of the authors he is representing, Larry, was one of my graduate school college instructors from over 30 years ago. The crazy thing is, Larry actually appears in a chapter of my book!

So I sent Dan a query note mentioning Larry. Normally my query notes don't get answered very quickly. Within an hour Dan had sent a note to Larry, cc'd to me, saying, "Who is this guy?" Within another hour there was a note from Larry to Dan, cc'd to me. I lucked out. Not only did Larry remember me, he had some very nice things to say.

Dan then sent a note asking me to send him the entire manuscript, saying that he would read it. Larry sent me a note separately saying that Dan is so good at what he does that, if he likes my book, it will surely get published.

So Dan is now reading the manuscript, and I'm trying not to check my email too frequently.