I had learned a lot from Nancy, not least that finding an agent who believes in your work feels a lot more like chemotherapy than cure. It’s when the work starts (again), not when you sit back and relax.

I learned a little more after we parted ways.

At our split, I asked a favor: could she please give me my rejection letters? They would be useful to me going forward, whether I decided to retain another agent or market the book on my own, is what I said. What I also thought was, then I’ll know if she really had, as I believed and half wanted not to believe, worked to sell my book.

I had no idea how or whether she’d respond. She did, though. She sent this:

I’ll get you your info by next Monday;  my computer crashed in May of  ’08 and all email/files were lost.  I know we don’t have any formal rejection letters, but I’ll reconstruct the rest from my notes.  As we discussed, the New York houses were the least responsive, both to pitches and menu listings.  Your best chances will be with small, niched and mid-range publishers.  Back to you on Monday.     All very best    N

Four days later I received a blow-by-blow list of houses she had directly pitched my book to, as well as those who had at least been presented with brief descriptions.

Along with the list came comments she’d received from her editor contacts. The project was ‘too small’ for New York; my first book’s audience was not related to the potential audience for the second book; the market was overcrowded with books like mine; I had no national ‘platform,’ no ‘substantial online presence.’

Nancy also offered advice to go forward with: consider midsize and regional publishers; consider self-publishing to show that I could garner readers; consider coming to Book Expo, a huge event publishers from all over the world attend. And good luck.

Did Nancy do a good job for me? You be the judge. One thing I know for sure is that whatever I got, I got for free.