Two weeks ago I decided to send out about 100 email queries to literary agents. I started by googling "literary agents, New York", followed by literary agents for Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and London. Most agencies prefer email queries. I found it important to read the particulars of each agency to see how and what they wanted to recieve. Most simply want a proposal. Some are interested in sample chapters. Almost all of them won't open attachments, so everything needs to be cut and pasted into the body of the email.
I recieved about 40 replies within the first two weeks. The majority of them were very short form-letter type responses. Of the 40 or so that emailed back there were 6 that enthusiastically offered representation. My co-author Don DeNevi and I have elected to go with Katie Boyle of The Veritas Literary Agency in San Francisco. Katie has placed books on both the New York Times and Times of London best-seller lists. As you can imagine I'm very excited.
On another note: I've been credentialed as a war correspondent by the Leatherneck magazine. Yesterday I recieved word from the media folks at the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan that I'm cleared to come over and embed with the Marines in Helmand Province. I plan on heading over as soon as I get my Afghan visa and the book deal is locked on. My plan is to use this trip as the basis for a final chapter and for the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Hartford I'll be starting this summer.
