The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [5]
“Fine,” I said. “How do I find an agent?”
“Well…” they said, “you’re nowhere near finished with the book, you say, so you have plenty of time. Why don’t you just ask around? Find out which agents handle what, who has a good name in the industry, who you should keep away from, and so on.”
So I did. I listened to the stories of published authors, I asked questions, and after several months of such casual research, I thought I had found an agent who was a good prospect. His name was Perry Knowlton, and he appeared to be both reputable and well-known in publishing. Still better, he appeared to have no objection either to unorthodox books or to very long books—both of which, it dawned on me, I had.
However, I had no idea how to approach this man. I had heard that he didn’t accept unsolicited queries, and he wasn’t available online. Still, I was a long way from finished with the book, so I didn’t worry about it; just kept asking questions.
I was conversing one day (via posted messages) with an author I knew casually, named John Stith, who writes science fiction/mysteries, and asked him if he could tell me about his agent, if he had one.
John replied that he did have representation—Perry Knowlton. “Would you like me to introduce you to him?” John asked. “I know you’re nearly ready to look for an agent.”
Presented with this gracious offer, I swallowed hard, and said weakly, “Er … that’d be nice, John. Thanks!”
John then sent a note to Perry, essentially saying that I might be worth looking at. I followed this with my own query, explaining that I had been selling nonfiction (and comic books) for some years, but that now I was writing fiction and I understood that I really needed a good agent. He had been recommended to me by several writers whose opinions I respected; would he be interested in reading excerpts of this rather long novel I had? (I didn’t tell him I wasn’t finished writing the thing yet; “excerpts” were all I had.)
Perry kindly called and said yes, he’d read my excerpts. I sent him the miscellaneous chunks I had, with a rough synopsis to bind them together10—and he took me on, on the basis of an unfinished first novel.11
At any rate, I went on writing, and six months later finally finished the book. I sent Perry the manuscript, and also mentioned that I would be in New York the next week, for a scientific conference—perhaps I could come by and meet him face-to-face?
When I went up to Perry’s office, I was rather apprehensive, since I knew that he had by this time read the manuscript—but I didn’t know what he thought about it. Perry himself turned out to be a charming gentleman who did his best to put me at my ease, taking me back to his office and chatting about various of his other clients. It was at this point that I discovered that—in addition to those electronic acquaintances from whom I’d learned of him—Perry also represented such eminent writers as Brian Moore, Ayn Rand (granted, she was dead, but still…), Tony Hillerman, Frederick Forsyth, and Robertson Davies.
If these revelations were not enough to unnerve me, he had my manuscript sitting on his desk, in the enormous orange boxes in which I’d mailed it. I was positive that at some point in the conversation he was going to cough apologetically and tell me that having now seen the whole thing, he was afraid that he really didn’t think it was salable, and give it back to me.
However, as I was sitting there listening to him (meanwhile thinking, If you have the nerve to call Robertson Davies “Robbie,” you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din), he said instead, “You know, the thing about Freddy Forsyth and Robbie Davies is that both those guys are great storytellers.” Then he laid a hand on my manuscript, smiled at me, and said, “And you’re another one.”
At this point, I really didn’t care whether we sold the book or not. I felt as though I’d been beatified. As it was, though, I gathered sufficient presence of mind to ask what he planned to do with the book.
“Oh,” he said casually, “I