Secret Agents . . . Continued

(continued . . . )

A few months go by and, like the patient writer that I am, I wait for David to call with good news while I continue writing like a mad man. "He's never going to call," Becky tells me. "You're holding out hope in this guy like you're waiting for the second coming of Jesus."

"Oh, Dave will call,"I tell her. "He's gotta! He's gonna!"

And one afternoon, he does. I pick up the phone and yell upstairs to my wife, "Hey, I told you, sugar. It's Davey! Didn't I tell you. I knew he'd call. Hey, Davey! How ya doin' old pal?"

David, my gorgeous third agent, reveals the good news. "I've got a contract worked up with a west coast publisher," he tells me. "I'm overnighting it to you. Look it over, then get back to me ASAP. And congratulations!"

The next day the contract arrives. It is the thickest contract I have ever seen in my life. I brew a pot of coffee, go out onto the back deck to read it in the warm spring air, and immediately fall into a deep depression. Because I've worked up so many of my own contracts (again, no agent!) I've learned how to read lawyerese rather well, and also how to read between the lines. I note that the publisher is willing to give me a $1000 advance, but is requiring that I sign up for public speaking courses, media classes, and must invest considerable sums of my own capital in marketing and advertising the book THEY are going to publish.

I call David collect. "Hey, what is this?" I ask.

"What's wrong?"

"This isn't a contract," I say. "It's a robbery. I can't sign this. I'm not enrolling in public speaking and marketing courses. I speak to hundreds of people every week. I'm no good at it, but I think I know how to talk to people."

"My advice," David says, "Is that you don't sign it."

I don't. I won't. My wife knows I'm an idiot, but I'm not about to sign a piece of paper that will reveal my idiocy to a broader audience.

But I can tell that David, my gorgeous agent, is miffed. I don't sign. And as the weeks go by, when I call, email, or write, he never responds. Not a good sign. And as far as writer/agent relations go, this is the sign that I should go screw a light bulb into some other socket. And so ends agent relationships number three. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

(continued . . . )