Literary agent needed for a future best-seller

WANTED: A reliable literary agent whose interests in mystery-writing will lead to a successful partnership with first-time novelist Marshall Bruney to publish "Plotz."

Yes, it has been three months since our last "Plotz-The Novel" blog update. We could say we've been busy scouring the Internet, writers' market books and websites to interest an agent in representing us in the big, big, big world of publishing. However, we have other duties and a personal life.

Too bad there are no publications that accept want ads -- such as the one above. Maybe we could strike an accord with an aspiring agent who is looking for a best-seller for another notch in his/her literary accomplishments.

So far, our efforts via letters and e-mails have proved fruitless with a slew of rejection notices/emails. No takers. Nada. Nil. Nothing. Etal.

I don't take rejection as well as my writing partner. So I feed off her enthusiasm (ask her how long it took to bring "Angels Unaware" to having said book in hand?) and keep plodding along. I have a copy of Jeff Herman's "Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents" beside me. I've made it to the "M" entries. The book is over five years old, so some of the addresses and e-mail contacts are no longer worth a sou.

I've learned a bit about the literary world through the book, though -- such as an agent's hobby (reading often being one); his/her areas of interest (no sense sending "Plotz" to an agent interested in gardening, eh?); a list of most common mistakes made by soliciting authors; a description of a dream client (that's Marshall Bruney, honest!); a description of the author from hell (that definitely is not Marshall Bruney!); and an agent's rejection rate, which, believe it or not, averages between 95% and 99% of all submissions.

We have jumped through every hoop we know -- including a cover letter, a brief synopsis, a self-addressed, stamped envelope and, as a bonus, a link to plotz-thenovel.com website that Sandy created. Begging, of course, is verboten (and we aren't at that stage -- yet).

Unfortunately, we haven't found an agent listing that will accept "Plotz" in full on a compact disk. Personally, I feel that once an agent reads Chapters 1-5, he/she will be hooked until the "Epilogue."

Our friends tell us to "Keep trying." So, onward and upward we go!