Secret Agents . . . Continued

It's true, I have a very large novel that I'd like to get published, but I have no idea how to do this. But everything I read about fiction writing tells me I will need an agent to succeed. But how does a guy living in Evansville, Indiana, who writes in a dimly-lit basement, who types with one hand while feeding children with the other, find an agent? Especially since 90% of these agents live in New York city, the hub of the publishing industry?

I'm asking myself these questions when, one day, I notice in the newspaper that a writer named Tom Kunkel is having a book signing at the Barnes & Noble bookstore. This bookstore is a block from the parsonage (how lucky can a guy get?) and so I decide to go down there on Saturday morning to buy this guy's book and, hopefully, talk to him about writing.

As it turned out, Kunkel had written a biography of famed New Yorker magazine publisher, Harold Ross. And from the looks of the line at the bookstore, I could tell that no one in Evansville had even heard of Harold Ross, or the Algonquin Round Table, or James Thurber, or Dorothy Parker, or any of Ross's buddies. There sat the writer in Barnes & Noble--lonely, tearful, reclining at table with his little pile of books and not a soul to talk to (a scene that I would eventually live out myself).

I walk over and strike up a conversation, buy Tom's book, and when I get up the courage to tell him that I have written a novel, the guy actually seems interested in helping. As it turns out, Tom was formally an editor himself, and he is one of the few writers I've ever talked with who genuinely wanted to help a writer. (I have never forgotten this lesson either and cannot stand uppity authors who will not help other writers!)

"It is nearly impossible to find an agent," he tells me truthfully, "but it is much more difficult to get a book published on your own."

"Thanks for the encouragement," I tell him.

He then directs me to the local library. "Look through The Literary Marketplace," he tells me, "and write to an agent who is looking to represent a novel like yours."

(To be continued)