Agent announcement!

I have just signed an agency agreement with Jennifer Udden at the Laura Dail Literary Agency, and I am OVER THE MOON about it!!!!

After an introduction through a mutual friend who thought we would hit it off, Ms. Udden and I spent a couple of months in email contact as I sent a variety of things, from completed manuscripts to very, VERY short book proposals back and forth, and eventually stepped things up with a vone call.

Our mutual friend was extremely right: we did hit it off, with what just really felt like similar sensibilities about how we wanted to approach an agent/author relationship, and by the end of the conversation we decided that we wanted to work together.

This is a really, really exciting development for me, as I’ve been looking for an agent for quite a while. I told her a lot of truths about myself as a client: like, for example, I’m really quite good at selling books to editors. I meet them, we get along, I pitch something, they go “oh yes please send that to me, that sounds great,” and next thing I know, there’s a book deal.

Which is obviously AMAZING. I can be the easy, effortless client in that way, but it’s not necessarily the best way to elevate my career. I need an agent who will get in my way and take the extra steps to say, “Brilliant, glad they want it, but let’s also send it out to a bunch of other people because if one person wants it, several others might!” And I straight-up told her that.

I also told her some other things that I’ve learned to be a bit cautious about admitting, like: I write really fast, I can write across a lot of genres, and if I say I’ll get it done, I will. These do not seem like wild and crazy claims, but I tell you what, if I lay out my ambitions? Mostly agents and editors go “whoa, nellie, let’s see about that.” But look, I’m fifty+ books into a career at this point. If an agent doesn’t look at my track record and go, “Yeah, she can do what she says she can,” then that’s not an agent I need.

Luckily, this one looked at my track record and went “DUDE!” :D

But you know, I think maybe one of the most important things we talked about was the reality that look…I can do this on my own. Demonstrably. I am entirely capable of maintaining a career in both indy and trad fields without an agent. But my God, I don’t want to. I want someone in my corner. I want someone who’s going to push and elevate me, and whose career, in turn, I will also elevate. I want a rising tide partnership, here. And I really think I’ve got one with Ms. Udden, and I’m really, really excited about that.