Secret Agent

A Literal Literary Loser Tries Again

My track record with literary agents currently stands at: Two quit the business after working with me. One left her literary agency - and didn’t take me with her. (You can read a more detailed history of my Literary Abandonment Issues, here.)

I sold my first two books, a pair of Regency romances, without an agent. And my follow up contemporary romance. But this was in the 1990s, when you could still get away with that. When I finally did get an agent, she looked over my contracts and asked, “Do you want to know all the ways in which you’ve been screwed over?”

An agent sold my subsequent figure skating mystery series, and my soap-opera tie-ins.

An agent sold my historical fiction, “The Nesting Dolls” to HarperCollins in 2020. And then she dumped me. (See above.)

My latest book, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region,” I sold to a micro-publisher on my own. But I did use a literary contracts expert to look over the paperwork.

Even as “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” was being readied for publication, I continued querying agents with another manuscript.

And I received an offer of representation.

When I got my first agent back in the 1990s, I remember thinking, “Now I will never have a proposal rejected again.”

Hahahahahahahahahaha. I was a lot younger then.

When I signed with my most recent agent and “The Nesting Dolls” sold within a week of being sent out to editors, I remember thinking, “I have finally turned a corner in my career.”

I wasn’t as young then. But, clearly, I was just as naive.

So now I have signed a contract with my fourth literary agent.

I am already anxious. She signed me based on the first 100 pages of a manuscript tentatively titled “Stepmother Russia,” and a chapter by chapter outline.

Last week, I finished the first draft of the complete manuscript. I am now editing the complete manuscript. I am wondering if my new agent will like the complete manuscript, or if it will turn out to be not at all what she was expecting based on the outline.

You’ve been following my Literal Literary Loser journey so far - stay tuned for the latest installment!