Friday, December 4, 2009

Climb Every Mountain

Momentous news. For those who followed my summer adventure in the Hamptons—writing a memoir with Liz Derringer—I am thrilled to share the news that we have signed with a fantastic literary agent, B.G. Dilworth, who has represented non-fiction titles for the likes of Diana Ross, Patti Labelle, Joan Lundin and David Crosby. He came as a referral, responded immediately, we spoke on the phone a few times—and I found everything he had to say constructive and positive—then met with him before I headed to Va. for Thanksgiving. Today, Liz had the opportunity to sniff his butt, and vice-versa, and all was wholly positive. She was charming and looked typically fab, full of anecdotes—and direct with him—and BG had all the right answers, again delivering the cred he sold me on.

From the beginning of this venture, we were told that the most difficult milestone in writing a book is landing an agent. As I've stated to anyone that asks, you could scribe the Holy Bible, but without an agent, all you have is a lot of cool stories about Jesus. It's got to be salable.

The second mountain to climb, of course, is shopping the project to a publisher, getting an advance (imagine: money for all this effort) and an editor, then proceeding to realization of the finished project. "Hello, Barnes & Noble. It's Chuck and Liz calling."

A long road, indeed... already been six months since this process began, and we are just grazing the surface... but what a milestone. Happy, inspired, driven and ready to work my tail to the bone to get this to the next step. Yee-haw.

Journalist. Me then. Author. Cross fingers. Me to be.

1 comment:

  1. "Santa baby, slip a contract under the tree
    For me.
    I've been an awfully good boy
    And toy.
    So hurry with my cash advance tonight"
    (Apologies to Marilyn Monroe)

    ReplyDelete

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