Sunday

What is on the iPod? Let It Go by Cavo

Plug for free here - I saw Cavo two weeks ago with Theory of a Deadman and Daughtry. Good Lord, I had no clue! These guys were worth every cent of the ticket price by themselves. They go on my list of people I would go back and see.

While I go on about bands, I found a site that I am giddy over. Earshotband.com is worth checking out, or maybe not. I got pissed beyond reason when I saw that one of my favorite bands played a $2 show in New Mexico. Geographically speaking, that sucked ass. I am on the East Coast, North Carolina specifically and while I would gladly jump at the chance to see my guys for $20, much less $2, they actually need to come to NC for that to happen. Still, go check out the website and go to iTunes and download a couple of their songs. My recommendation for an Earshot intro is Wait. I play an iPod in my vehicle when I am carrying my kids to school and I always try to work in a couple of songs to get their endorphins kicking (mine too for that matter as the java has not always kicked in at that point). Without fail, my 8-year-old sings along with Wait and the 12-year-old plays air drums while the song is going. What an awesome way to start the morning!

I scavenged the net this weekend and picked out my next set of agents to send queries too. I am scared as hell. Why? Because the book I am trying to gain representation for is dependent on my ability to write a letter. Can I write a novel? Hell yes, I have. Is it good? No, it is phenomenal. Can I sell it? Cue the cricket noise.

I am taking something that I have spent a year on, condensing it into an elevator pitch (more on that to come), throwing in a few odds and ends that I deem worthy enough to grab an agents attention and hope I catch said agent on a day where they are in a good enough mood to not toss my work on a damned slush pile.

AAAAAAAAAH!

By the way, if my children were not asleep, I would have actually made a noise similar to that. This is seriously scary! I am not a salesman, by any stretch of the imagination and it is now my job to sell this work to agents. I do not want to do that. I want you to read it and say this - "I want to read more."

Incidentally, an elevator pitch is a sales pitch that is condensed to the amount of time it would take you to travel from maybe the third to the eighth floors on an elevator. See what I mean? Take a year of your work and wrap it up into 20 seconds. Hard, isn't it?

Can I put in the email how I have tediously worked this book over until it no longer resembles the words I typed out in September 2008? Would the potential agent care to know that I would wake in a cold sweat, searching desperately in the dark for a scrap of paper to write an idea on before I lost it? Does the person who probably reads hundreds, if not thousands, of query letters a week, give a damn that I actually cried when I finished this book?

No, no and hell no.

What is going to matter to them is my ability to convince them, in a page or less, that I have a product worth their time. I think that if it were that simple, I could simply say this.

After her divorce, Natalie is diagnosed with advanced primary sclerosing cholangitis and is nearing the stage where a transplant is necessitated. After the transplant, she meets and falls in love with Rob who has just lost his wife. Come take this journey with me as Natalie gets her happy ending but has to come to terms with what it cost others to get her there.

That is so cheesy, I feel like I need some wine to go with it.

There is so much that is missing, but unfortunately, eliminating details is part of how the game is played. Cut to the chase in as clean a manner as possible while grabbing the agents attention.

Rob looks really good naked, just wait until page 123.

No, that is not how it works. Now, I am going to bed, trying not to worry too much about my prior lack of sales positions on my resume. I have to trust that the passion and belief I have in my writing to translate into the emails that will make their way into certain inboxes tomorrow. Belief in self can carry a long way. I hope it carries me to the right inbox and keeps me out of a slush pile.

Until next time.