She had a more focused approach: Talk up the book to a
few editors she knew very well and try to get something of a
rivalry going for it - before any of them even read it.
Brilliant thinking; this was the kind of agent I wanted on my
side. Shooting for freshness, we decided to change the novel's
title from "Silicon Dreams" to "Double Click," and off it went to
the waiting editors. The long and short of it: Neither Random
House nor Viking wanted it. Adding insult to injury, one even
suggested that if I were to write a non-fiction book he would
publish that. What a depressing thought.
Before she'd signed me up, my agent and I had agreed to treat our
relationship as a trial agreement. After the rejection, I decided
that though she was fast becoming a very hot agent, mainstream
fiction wasn't her area of expertise; what I really, really
needed was an agent who represented best-selling mainstream
authors.
My friend Gloria Nagy, a splendid novelist with seven novels
under her belt (one of which, "Looking for Leo," is on its way to
becoming a CBS miniseries), put me in touch with her then-agent,
Ed Victor, who is based in London, and enjoys a long client list
of acclaimed literary and mainstream authors. After Gloria's
introduction, I sent my novel to Ed Victor, and although he'd
rejected the novel six years ago, suggesting it needed a lot of
work (advise I took to heart), this time he responded positively,
saying he had enjoyed it.
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