Are You A First-Time Author? Have We Got An Agent For You

October 20th, 2004 · 1 Comment
by Booksquare

At first glance (that’s Tim McCarver’s “I’ve been a sports announcer too long” hairstyle), RLR Literary might not seem hospitable to first-time authors. As MediaBistro tells us, if you’re writing a sports-related book, it’s possible — they pretty much have that area covered (but never say never). However, agents Jennifer Unter and Tara Mark go beyond the sports book (because, let’s face it, how many books does Don Zimmer have time to write?). A little smart chicklit here, some cool non-fiction there. Have a story about the entertainment industry? Hmmm, they might be interested.

Unter gets extra credit points in our little book for saying something refreshing:

And for nonfiction, Unter doesn’t always subscribe to the belief that any nonfiction project without a platform is doomed. “If they’re trying to be an expert in a field,” she says, “they really do need a platform and they need to have a built-in audience.” But for more narrative books, she says: “I think if the strength of the work is such that it’s something that’s different or something that is funny or really insightful, then it’s going to work and the platform gets built as you go along.”

File Under: Agents

1 response so far ↓

  • David Madison // Nov 11, 2004 at 6:18 pm

    I would like to write a book about prosecuting the war on terrorism. If I do, it is likely to draw negative attention like the Satanic Verses did.

    We’re not dealing with the Islamic terrorists as if this were a religious war, but it most certainly is. We are still thinking as if modern warefare must compartmentalize within the boundaries of nation states. We are still uncomfortable with preemptive warfare, although the upcoming JScope conference in Virginia in January should provide a rich source of new points of view. We’re accepting the Islamic definition that Moslems fear nothing, when it is simply a matter of them fearing something different than we do. We tiptoe around giving any possible offense to Moslems when this is destructive to our own interests. Moslems respect brutal, arbitrary use of power. The more careful we are, the more we embolden them.

    We need to change our thinking and take a more aggressive stance in the war on terror. The author who says so, and the publisher who gives him a voice, will receive extreme condemnation. If you are not ready for extremely dangerous controversy, then you are not ready for me.