27 Days

I'm going to blow it right here in the opening. Give you what you want to know. Tell you the damn thing that has been driving me crazy. Then weave back around to tell the story in full. (As a side note, my wife is getting her hair cut and dyed in Manhattan right now, so the Drive-By Truckers are leaping from my speakers.) Today, I have officially signed with a literary agent to represent my novel, Alpha House, and all other creative novel-length and short fiction. His name is Douglas Stewart at Sterling Lord Literistic.

Before I go back and tell the how of this story, I want to give a quick Cliff's notes to all of my non-industry friends and family and readers. Although it is tremendous and exciting that I have signed with an agent, it does NOT mean that my novel will soon grace the shelves at your nearest Barnes and Noble. What it means is that I have signed with a powerful literary house that only represents high-literary work and will, God-willing, sell my novel to a publisher. Once my agent sells my novel to a publisher, then I am a few steps closer to having an actual bound book.

Now let's skip back 27 days from Monday.

It was a Wednesday. Tuesday I had completed a full and recent revision of my novel, Alpha House. The first chapter had just been published in the literary magazine, Hunger Mountain. For months, I had been keeping a spreadsheet of literary agents to target, filled with name, agency, address, phone number, how they accept queries (email or snail mail), and who they represent. Many, if not most, of the names on my list were given to me from friends of mine who are in the industry--editors, agents, writers. So on this Wednesday, early in the morning, I sat down on my living room couch, opened the spreadsheet, and began sending my query letter with a sample chapter attached. The letter had also been written for months, and really couldn't have been leaner or meaner. By the end of the day, I had sent out 15 agent queries all by email, as most agents accept by email these days. All 15 had been recommended to me by my friends. Then there were 5 that I wanted to submit to by snail mail. They were put in the mail early Thursday morning. 20 queries out the door in two days. And the waiting began.

I waited a good two days, before I received 4 emails and 1 phone call from agents asking for the whole manuscript. Everyone kept telling me how unusual this was. That it never happens this fast. And they were right. But because they were right, for the next 20-some odd days I was a nervous, sick mess of a man.

By that Sunday, I had received an agent offer. And by Monday, I was applying pressure to the remaining 19 agents, informing them an offer had been made. This is when things started to stall. I quickly received several rejections, most being damn near love letters of the book, but the general reaction being, "I loved this story. Terrific. But Have no idea how to sell it." My favorite rejection was from an agent who was recommended to me. So I sent it to him and he responded with the following:

Dear Ross,

This looks to have a Judd Apatow-style humor, but sorry to say I just wasn’t drawn in by the narrative here.

Best wishes with ALPHA HOUSE.

If you are familiar with Alpha House at all, then you know the ridiculousness of this rejection.

So over the coming weeks, offers came and went and some agents still hadn't gotten in touch with me. I had narrowed my decision to a number of agents and gave the collective group a final weekend to decide whether they wanted to make an offer. I started meeting with agents, speaking with them on the phone, asking all the questions one asks about where they se your book going, which editors, ideas for revisions, questions about contracts, and so on. By this point it is last Thursday and I am at work, when I receive an email from Seth Fishman at Sterling Lord Literistic, a junior agent, who is also Doug Stewart's assistant. He tells me that Doug is out of the office, but Seth had read my sample chapter and liked it and wanted the full manuscript for Doug.

Naturally, after almost throwing up all over my desk, I sent it. Now the reason I almost lost it on my desk was that of those 20 agents, there were really only 5 that were my dream agents. Of those 5: 3 rejected, 1 was not accepting new clients, and then Doug, who I hadn't heard from. Not to mention that I submitted to Doug without an introduction, without a connection, without a recommendation. My submission was slush. But had been pulled out and read and the full manuscript was in Doug's hand. (As another side note, Seth Fishman is probably one of the fastest readers, and has one of the sharpest analytical minds I have met of late. To my writing friends, if you are interested in querying your novel, query Seth. Seriously.)

Anyway that weekend was one of the longest of my life. Tuesday I was making a final decision. It was time to put this whole agent thing behind me. I am not built for this type of stress. I need to be writing or revising or reading. But Monday morning rolls around and there waiting for me in my email is a message from Doug. He wants to talk. He wants to meet. I call immediately and we make plans for me to meet him at Sterling Lord on Bleecker Street later in the day. We meet. We hit it off. His vision for the novel was spot-on. He told me his opinion of my novel and how to approach editor submissions and it was like listening to my own words. The very things I had been saying for years about this book were now being told directly to me. We discovered we liked the same books, mainly Bret Easton Ellis of which he likened my book to American Psycho. What?

But by far the coolest part of meeting Doug was this: he never made an offer. he never said those words, "I would like to represent you and your book." We just sat there for a minute looking at each other. He said, "Well." I said, "Yeah, well." And that was it. We shook hands. He sent over the contract. We did some adult negotiating on the contract. And now I have fully-executed agent agreements in my possession.

The next step is one more revision, which is to be completed by the end of September.

I kept much of the past 27 days secret from most of my friends, so as to temper my own expectations. But my wife and good friend, Jess, both kept me calm and cool and gave daily affirmations and picked me up when I would get another heartbreaking love letter rejection. My parents were inside the inner circle too and their own excitement were a constant reminder that I was on the right path.

I graduated from the Bennington Writing Seminar in January.

My birthday is on Wednesday, the 26th. I'll be 29.

And in the past week, I got an agent, a lawyer, and was given a prescription for eye-glasses from my doctor.

I guess this means I am, officially, an adult.