Backspace 2009 -- "Oh, we finally have a guy!"

So I've just made it through my first three sessions of the Backspace "Agent/Author" day.  The idea behind today--and really, the main reason I am here this year--is that I get the chance to spend the day waiting my turn to read my query letter (in the morning) and the opening pages of my novel (in the afternoon) to literary agents.  We have 75 writers here and about twenty agents.  In a perfect world, I'd get the chance to read my pages for most--if not all--of those agents.  Unfortunately, it's not quite working that way...

As I sat in my seat, trying *patiently* to wait my turn, the first group of agents finished their 45 minutes with us and moved on.  It was heartbreaking to see them go because one of the agents in that group is one I really wanted to read for.  My sorrow was brief, however, as the next group had the agent I really, *really* wanted to read for.  I had seven people in front of me at that point, so I started to feel really good.

But as the minutes wore on--and it became clear that this group was going to spend ten minutes or more on each person--I began to panic.  At the forty-three minute mark (of our forty-five minutes session with this group), I still had two more people in front of me.

Now I should point out that the idea here is that we all learn from seeing how agents are reacting to a "less than perfect" query letter.  But that's not what I came here for.  I wanted to come here to pitch a few specific agents in person...and one of those agents was sitting fifteen feet away from me as my watch ticked to exactly 10:45.

At that moment--as it seems to usually do for me in these situations--fate intervened.  The door to our room opened, and in popped one of the conference organizers.

"Ah, we're going to keep these next sessions longer," he said.  "Keep going until 10:55."

"YES!!!"  I did well to only scream that in my head.

So after spending seven minutes on the girl in front of me, I got my turn with literally minutes to spare.  And that's when the whole morning turned around for me.

"Oh," the agent I had really, *really* wanted to read for said as I stood up, "we finally have a guy!"

Never once in my life have I stood in a room full of people and had them be pleasantly surprised by my gender before.  This is what it must feel like to be a female engineer.

Anyway, that little ego boost aside, I started to read my letter.  Happily, I made it through the entire thing without anyone telling me to stop (I think only four or five people in our room did that...not to brag, but yeah).
"Wow, I really like that," the agent I really, *really* wanted to read for said.  "I would totally ask for pages on that."

"Do you mean you'd ask for pages...hypothetically?"

And the room erupted into laughter and light applause.  She just smiled and wrote out a business card for me so I could contact her assistant.  And just like that I have the first request for a partial on my new book.

So yeah, I basically spent the morning waiting for my turn to get six minutes of concurrent face time with three agents.  But with an outcome like that...  Totally. Worth. It.

Also, I should point out that there is a *major* story behind how my query letter turned out so awesome that I need to tell.  But I need to get back downstairs for our afternoon sessions now.  Hopefully I can post it tonight (along with more good news!).

For now let me just say that my wife is *AWESOME* beyond words, and I owe her big!  Is there  a Tiffany's in NYC?

Comments

[kim]

No need for Tiffayn's I do it because there is no one else in the world I love more!

[Sara J. Henry]

This is one of the reasons I canceled Agent-Author Day - I had been assigned to a group with 33 people and I did the math - it worked out to 4 minutes each TOTAL in the query session and 4 minutes each TOTAL in the two pages session. While, yes, you can learn from comments on others' pages, of course what you really want to do is read YOUR pages. I knew it would drive me nuts sitting there watching the clock. Especially if I ended up reading to agents who had already seen my pages and query.

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