My batting average

Time for an update on my efforts to find an agent for INSIDE THE WEATHER CHANNEL.

The bottom line is that I haven’t found full representation for the book yet, although a NY agent did tell me she had one particular publisher in mind that might like it. The agent said she’d be glad to represent the manuscript to that publisher, a relatively small player in the business. (She felt the market was too undefined to pitch the book to major publishing houses.) I said Okay, but let me play out my string first to see if I can find someone who might feel a bit differently. She understood and said that would be fine.

Outside of that, there are five other agents currently reviewing the proposal. Six have previously passed on it. As I’ve said before, this is a business that grinds writers down. Overall, I’ve had 12 agents take a look at the proposal. So, in baseball terminology, I’m batting .308, not too bad, I guess. In more straightforward terms, 12 proposals have been requested in response to 39 query letters so far dispatched.

In the meantime, my intrepid heroes of EYEWALL are taking a long nap in a three-ring binder on a bookshelf. An agent read the first 50 pages of the manuscript earlier this year, but didn’t pick it up.

And I’ve heard nothing from the scriptwriter who contacted me last December about doing a screenplay based on another one of my unpublished novels, THE OLDUVAI CONSPIRACY. So I assume that’s a dead issue.

But INSIDE THE WEATHER CHANNEL remains alive, and I’m absolutely determined to keep it off life support.