That spring I gathered my remaining determination and dusted off Anything Worth Doing. I revised again but my changes were small. I had reached the point of diminishing returns. And the book WAS good. If it wasn’t, my interior voice was out of sync with reality.

What my interior voice was still unsure of was this: Was it marketable?

I would test that, I decided, by seeking an agent. Agents don’t take on projects they don’t think they can sell.

This time I went about finding an agent the same systematic way I have gone about finding publishers. I did my homework. My first criterium was that the agent be computer savvy. I looked for agents with an online presence who accepted email queries. It surprised me the number that didn’t.

If I found an agency with a smart website but I wouldn’t have been proud to have written at least one of its recently published books, it didn’t make my list. And if an agent didn’t say or imply that her interest in a writer went beyond selling an individual book, she didn’t make my list. I wanted a career partner.

In a week I had ten agents at ten different agencies to contact. I crafted a new query, polished my proposal in case one of them asked to see it, and off went the emails. While I waited for answers, I hunted up another ten agents. Which was good, because my first ten queries netted ten rejections. Out of the second ten, I got a yes.

Her name was Nancy Ellis. She was in California, but she flew to New York several times a year. She worked from a garden office in her yard. She liked dogs and parrots. How…human.

I wasn’t thrilled with the titles she’d been involved with. A lot of self-help. Not my thing. Many of her clients were professionals in a field first and writers about that field second. Not me. But she said she was all about helping writers plan their careers.  She said she liked to represent books which aimed, in some small way, to do good in the world or at least offer a hopeful vision. She said she loved my book. She thought she thought she could sell it quickly for a 20K advance. She knew who would want it.

I would have signed with Godzilla if he said all that.

I told her about Renee, and that I wanted her to keep me apprised of her efforts on my behalf. I wanted to see the rejection letters. She understood perfectly. It was a hassle to send them individually but she’d keep a file for me and mail them en masse if I wanted.

On September 12, 2007 I became a client of NELA which, among other benefits, gave me an answer to a question that has, since the first time I heard it, turned me into a stutterer: How is your book doing?

Answer:  My agent is working on it.

That was worth 15% (of nothing) right there.