THE CAREER NOVELIST
necessarily, especially if your novel is one in a catalogue of hun-
dreds. To an agent small sales can matter more.
Okay, let's assume you're convinced. When should you approach
agents? Before you start to write? After you've sold a few stories?
When you've finished your first novel? When you've got a publisher
interested in it, perhaps even an offer on the table?
Working backwards through those options, it should be obvious
that approaching agents with an offer in hand is going to produce
powerful results. Agents are drawn to commissions like bees to
honey. If this is your situation, expect to hear some highly flattering
buzz about your writing.
But how deep is that enthusiasm? To find out you will have to lis-
ten hard and cut through much self-serving PR. It is wise to begin
this scenario with a strong idea of what you want in an agent.
Most authors do not wait so long. Of the five thousand query let-
ters I receive each year, most come from writers who have finished
a novel. But must you necessarily have completed a manuscript to
make contact?
The truth is that it is difficult to the point of impossible to sell a
first novel that is not finished. (These days it can even be difficult to
move an established author from one house to another with only a par-
tial manuscript to show.) Hence, for me there is little point in read-
ing an unfinished manuscript by a first-time novelist. Authors with a
sales history—particularly a good one—are a different matter.
Short story sales are useful credits to have. Sales to national
magazines never fail to catch my eye. In and of themselves such
credits don't guarantee a brilliant novel. Nor does their absence
necessarily mean anything bad. But they do suggest that an author
is on the road to being a full-time professional. Sell some short sto-
ries if you can. It helps.
Last word: the time not to contact an agent is before you have
written any fiction at all. Unless you are a big-name celebrity. (If you
are, call. We'll talk.)
WHERE TO LOOK
This is the easy part. There are excellent general source books
around, and plenty of source books for mystery writers and