• Here’s the Story

    I wrote a book called The Forest for the Trees and it’s an advice book for writers. This blog hopes to continue in the spirit of the book, answering basic questions such as how to write an effective query letter to more complex issues involving writers' personalities, especially but not limited to their self-destructive proclivities. But mostly, it’s a place to regularly vent about publishing.
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Animals Strike Curious Poses

Agents’ lunch today. Major topic of discussion: Amazon flew 10 “top agents” out to Seattle to talk about, um, you know, how we’re all going to be e-fucked. But before we could broach the subject of digital price wars like the one going on right now between Amazon and Wal-Mart, etc. we had to identify the “top ten agents.”  Actually it was easy peasy. All the usual suspects from the puppy mills and a few wild cards.  Some of us didn’t care that we hadn’t been invited. Some of us were ripshit. Guess which camp I was in?

14 Responses

  1. Um, neither? Because you’re in my top ten. Doesn’t that count for something?

  2. I’d SO love to know who was in that top 10.

    Sounds like a crap excuse of a meeting anyway. A free meal and a trip to Seattle would be nice. But a talk wherein one party refuses to actually…um…talk? Not so much.

    • Would like to tell you but would get thrown out of agents’ group.

    • The ‘puppy mills’ must refer to ICM, Trident, WMA. Only one from each? Otherwise that’d be half of the ten. The other usual suspects can’t be hard even for non-agents to figure, though I’m a bit outta the loop these days. Nesbit or Janklow, someone at Aaron Priest, someone from Greenburger, Hochman, Hawkings? I’m missing a few of the obvious ones.

      Not Dunow apparently. I have a writer’s crush on him, for no reason in particular. I don’t think he even reps the sorta stuff I write.

      It’s the wildcards that I wonder about. I hope they were really wild, from a different, er, stratum of agenting.

  3. Anonymous -
    “Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.”

    ive been wiating to use this quote for quite some time now

  4. I’m guessing Ripshitter, masquerading as a Not Care. Maybe I’m projecting. Because I don’t want to go to your stupid party, I just want to be invited. Sigh.

  5. oh my god…e-fucked. Quick, coin the term. I laughed out loud…. e-fucked. That totally explains how i feel at the end of the day.

  6. John Cheever once said that “writing is not a competitive sport.” That was the 1952…now it is.

  7. I don’t know. It might be best to slide under the radar on this one. The discussion was “frank and contentious.” Amazon wasn’t giving information or backing off their business model.

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