Theories abound, but responses are mixed over whether or not agents do the Google dance to investigate the websites/blogs of potential clients whose queries interest them. So as I sit here on my high gilded horse trying to decide if I will expose myself in a grimy light by blogging about being back in the agent search game again or not, I pause to laugh at myself. Who do I think I am? As if they're going to bother to stop by here! And what exactly will they find if they do? That I swear like a sailor, that I whine a lot, that I like to post photos of strange houses. That I'm a deeply tender soul.

Problem is, when I sought an agent two and a half years ago, I got replies to my queries often within hours, and occasionally MOMENTS. Seriously. I got a ton of requests for partials, a few requests for full manuscripts and I had me an agent in a month's time. The book represented (don't worry you prospective agents, I'm not shopping that one anymore, my material is virgin, I promise) got some great rejections from publishers and an "almost" from Harper Collins that I really try not to lose sleep over. Albeit, it only went out to eight publishers but I deferred to my agent's belief that my second book had bigger commercial power. No books published later and one agent behind me, here I am again. Not so lucky this time. I haven't received so much as an "I haven't fallen in love with your work," thus far.

I know the routine. I write a kick-ass professional query letter. I follow all the rules. I research the agents I submit to, but I knows what I hears--Fiction is a hard sell. So either I start writing up that proposal for my hippie childhood, or I finish this other novel I'm working on that feels to me to have a surefire commercial hook.

(thing is...i really like this book and its characters. i think it should be read by you.)

But I'm a writer, which means I can't be bothered to do anything unless I've got a carrot dangling ahead of me. You want to pay me an advance to completely alter the storyline? I will most certainly think about it.

Hi ho silver.

JPR