So Close, Yet How Far?

In the next day or so, we'll see how close we actually came to landing a big time agent.

Yesterday I emailed out a feeler to a long established conservative author & former literary agent to see if she could help us in any way. I woke up this morning, thinking that I probably wouldn't receive a response, and when I got out of bed to check my email... nothing. Okay, time to take a hike of Cowles Mountain to clear my head.



By time I got home, I noticed a reply with the same subject as my initial email from the day before, but didn't recognize the name of the respondent.

Dear Tim and Steve,

Many thanks for your nice note to ______, who passed it along to me. (I represent her to book publishers, and work closely with her on some other clients, since she is no longer agenting.)

Although I like your idea, I'm leery of taking it on. Have you tried publishing it in a periodical or on line? It strikes me as a great subject for an article, but it could be a bit of an uphill struggle as a book. Book publishers are looking for author credentials and a platform to help sell a public policy book like this one. If you launch it in a magazine or ezine or a blog, it might help to give it some traction for a book editor.

I'm not trying to discourage you; I do hope you find the right house for your book, if that's the way you choose to proceed.

Thanks again for the shot at this.

I grabbed my stomach, as I felt that sinking feeling of futility creep into our project. This guy is a legitimate agent, who not only most likely shares some of our views, but actually likes the concept. Yet he once again listed the biggest reason of concern for us; that only established authors or personalities got political nonfiction books published.

Dejected, I hopped into the shower, and immediately realized that we had not been fully rejected. When I recalled his words, he left the door open, or at least it seemed to me. "I'm leery of taking it on." When I'm leery of something, it means I have my doubts, but am still open all possibilities.

By the time I got out of the shower, I thought that his email wasn't a rejection, but a subtle plea for us to prove it to him that our book was a winner.

Dear ____,

First off, many thanks for taking a look at our project. As I'm sure you know, it means a lot to prospective authors to receive a personal response.

The reason we feel strongly about getting our ideas published in a book is because the group we're targeting, young people, are by and large completely unrepresented outside of the internet.

If we only limited ourselves to a blog, we'd be joining the many others which share a similar message, popular to many young people, but yet stuck in the underground. Though we already have created a blog, promoting our book, getting published is crucial for the dissemination of our message on a broad scale.

I understand when you mention that publishers are seeking notoriety in our genre of nonfiction, but I think it is that very fact which leaves so many young people out in the cold when it comes to generating a true passion for freedom and personal liberties. There are few published authors, politicians, and celebrities who can relate these issues to my generation in an effective manner, because few are actually young people; like us. We feel that our position as concerned young writers will resonate well with our peers and have wide appeal.

We also feel that with a published manuscript, our experience in marketing, and passion for the issues will make us great promoters. I'm sure that various TV magazine shows would jump at the chance to have young knowledgeable authors like us on their programs as opposed to the same talking heads. Also, ours is a message that aligns well with media moguls such as Andrew Breitbart, who I'm sure is interested in developing a young readership.


I know that seeking a publisher will provide us with a great deal of challenges, but I intend to fight every inch of the way in order to succeed. I do not exaggerate when I say that I feel our message could be the last hope for our generation and must be told.

Once again, many thanks, and if you talk to ______, please give her our gratitude for passing along our email. It was a wonderful thing she did.

-Tim Sorweid

My guess is, by tomorrow we'll know how close we came