March Madness, or That Time I Got an Agent

The long and the short of it is that I’m now represented by Danielle Chiotti at Upstart Crow.

I started March (well, January if I’m being honest) wanting to find one person who loved my little book about death row  as much as I did. What happened was two people loved it. I liked both agents a lot and had to make a tough choice. Saying no to someone sucks. There was happy crying and some shrieking when I got THE EMAIL from agent 1. There was panic and happy tears when I got THE CALL from agent 2. Then there was much ugly crying as I tried to figure out which agency would be the best fit.

I could have flipped a coin, but I hate gambling. I’ll leave that to my husband and the black jack tables on cruises ships. Instead I wrote out a list of pros and cons, talked to the agents, talked to their clients, read interviews and blog posts. I also asked numerous writing friends for advice, but they weren’t much of a help. They all told me to trust my gut. The problem was, my gut was too busy spazzing out to make any decisions. They told me to go with who I liked best. The problem was that both agents are AMAZEBALLS. So I went to the naked Korean spa in town and floated my way into a decision (*note, from now on I’m making all my decisions at the naked Korean spa).

In the end I went with the agency that also reps a writing friend. Also, besides sharing the same name, Danielle and I also had similar visions for my book and impending fame.

So March was a madcap month of revisions and offers of representation and choices. And I would do it all over again, though this time with less ugly crying.

And now that the contract’s been signed I can do this:

and this: