Every book, website, magazine, and person in the publishing business says selling a book cannot be done without an agent. I am not here to refute this. I’m sure there’s someone out there who has done it, but not me. My agent is great. His name is Michael Denneny.
He wasn’t my first agent. Years ago, when I had just finished the first draft, I sent out query letters to agents. One of them responded so positively that she became my new best friend. Professionally, anyway. She was coming to town for a convention, so she and Jan and I got together. It was good Jan was there, because I don’t think I was quite what she was expecting – long hair, beard, earring. But it was a nice dinner, and we all had a good time.
Then I joined her at the conference. I should have had a warning sign when I was the one schmoozing and introducing her to people, instead of the other way around. But I was so deliriously happy to have an agent I hardly noticed her inherent reticence.
Time passed, and as I focused on the second draft and my acting career at the same time, I kinda missed the fact that nothing was happening at her end. Then, just when I began to ask questions, she got a friend at Harper Collins to read my book. Wow! HC was Bernard Cornwell’s publisher. If they liked my book, I’d be in great company!Validation – it’s all a budding author desires.
Of course HC passed (twice) on it, the second time while Jan and I were in Paris. It sucks to be depressed in Paris. But, fortunately, we were in Paris, so my funk quickly passed.
Then I checked into the names of the other editors my agent was passing the book around to. Most of them were romance editors. Sorry, wait – Romance editors. I was puzzled. My book is not a Romance novel. Sure, it’s historical fiction. Sure, there’s a love story. But no bodice ripping, and too little sex, really (wait for the sequel, folks – wow, the sex!).
That just added to my overall discouragement. Not just with the agent, but with the book. I couldn’t tell if it was any good anymore, couldn’t make out the forest for the trees. So I decided to hire a professional editor to streamline and “fix” my book.
I contacted Darlene Dobrin, a professional editor I met back when my parents were in the advertising biz, promoting a book she’d worked on. Darlene said she’d be happy to look at it, but that the guy I really wanted was her friend Michael Denneny. Michael, it seemed, had just retired from St. Martin’s Press after twenty-five years, and was starting up a freelance editing business. At Darlene’s suggestion I called him. With his gruff-but-personable voice he said sure, send the book to him.
I did, though at the time I couldn’t afford a line-by-line editing, just an overview. The edits he gave were great, but there was a single line that will stay with me as long as I write. “David, you have confused what a writer needs to know to write the book with what the reader needs to know to enjoy it – which is much less.”
Then, at the end of the cover letter, he said he didn’t know much about agenting, since he’d always worked the other side of the equation. But that he really liked my book, liked it enough to give it a try. Was I game?
Ah, validation.
Game I was. I contacted my then-agent and, after three months of wrangling, got myself released from my contract with her. Once I was free, Michael started work.
I wish I could say it was all champagne and roses after that, but alas, no. After a year Michael was beginning to have doubts – about being an agent, not the book – and I was doing the low-down, no-one-will-ever-love-my-book-or-me-ever-again dance.
Then, in the summer of 2005, while Jan and I were back in Italy, Michael got a call from his friend Keith at St. Martin’s. Keith had read the book nearly eighteen months before, and passed on it. Now he said, “Michael, is that Shakespeare book still available? I haven’t been about to get it out of my head.”
Four months later, after lots of talk and a little preliminary revisioning, the book was sold.
Thank you, Michael, for believing in this, and me. This wouldn’t have happened without you.
My agent.
– DB
