So I was talking to my literary agent the other day as if this were true.  I don’t have a literary agent told her that writing a book proposal has got to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.  Notice I said “thing” and not person.  That award goes to someone who shall remain nameless from at least three decades ago.

Writing a book is to a book proposal what a wedding day is to a marriage.  The reality of one has nothing to do with the other.  Sure, you’ve written your bowels out as if you had been constipated for years and someone slipped you a laxative something people say they love and tell you how great it is.  If you’re lucky, you capture the ADHD interest of an agent and you are asked to write a proposal.  You get all excited and head to the jeweler looking for the proper engagement ring start imagining yourself at book signings and bouncing up and down sitting on the couch with Oprah. Not so fast, Tom Cruise Dan Brown.  The distance from Point A to Point B makes amassing one million frequent flier points seem easy. 

Unfortunately the real work is just beginining.

Imagine if you will, putting together a three minute trailer for a film that has nothing whatsoever to do with the film itself is meant to convince a studio that they should give you money to make said film because you have just explained in excruciating detail how much money they will make on you if they decide to let you make the film at all.  You stare at a blank screen research like crazy, do your due diligence, put together marketing plans, explain who will buy the book film as if you have a crystal ball, compare what you are not yet allowed to write the film to other  blockbuster books films of the same genre and do everything to prove that big money is to be made on you because you are also telegenic the next great writer film maker.  Basically, you go from being an unpaid writer film maker to being an unpaid marketing guru. 

As john blumenthal has pointed out on numerous occasions, Hollywood is brutal fickle.  The publishing world is not much better.  Once you do all this pain in the ass work (which can be upwards of 50 pages if not more), you also get to attach two whole chapters if you're lucky of the work you are so desparately trying to see get the light of day published.  If you are really lucky, your proposal will not become a permanent placement get read eventually (which in agent speak may take several months) with enough enthusiasm so as to make the agent actually also read the two chapters you have been trying to slip him or her like Godiva chocolate and a gift certificate to Neiman Marcus since you got your foot out of your mouth in the door by virtue of a shaky connection. 

Then you wait.  For eternity a really long time.

And then, things get even worse.  Or so I’m told.

First, the agent has to find your proposal under the pile of other proposals that have now become a mountain that resemble an end table.  Then, he or she has to read like it.  Then the agent goes on a shopping spree with that gift ceritificate looking for publishers who by definition are in the business of making money and not recognizing great writing love saying the word “no”.

Apparently, publishing houses choose what they will publish based on name recognition, commercial appeal and a dart board by committee.  Think of it like a condominium association without the car accidents in the parking lot fabulous lunches.  Imagine a firing squad group of a dozen people drinking lattes discussing how much money they can make the merits of your proposal and the quality of your writing  each one of them is armed with a gun and very trigger happy.  It only takes one member of the committee to shoot you down turn you into another unknown loser wannabe who never makes it into the big leagues.  The decision whether or not to publish your book is unanimous.  The decision to send you on your way is personal not.

Literary agencies are filled with very busy people who don’t want to adopt you for life have time to waste when there is money to be made on another piece of tripe elsewhere.  If an agent from a larger firm takes you on, your work will go to three publishing houses for consideration.  Three strikes and you’re out.  Your book is dead in the water.  The odds of getting published are dismal at best about the same as becoming a professional baseball player, but as a writer, your body will end up in worse shape from all the drinking.  And yet, we still write.

He may be a curmudgeon, but blumenthal is absolutely correct when he lays out the truth in his pithy posts as to what really goes on behind the scenes.  I have to give him credit for putting up with what most of us don’t have the stomach or talent for achieving what few will he has in both publishing and Hollywood.  I recently actually read picked up his novel “What’s Wrong With Dorfman?” and have to say it was an excellent read and surprisingly tender in parts. Kidding and banter aside, I have respect for the old fart him making it into print and living to write tell about it. 

Now excuse me while I go work on my pitching arm book proposal.

And happy belated birthday, Floyd.  Even though the odds are tough, I hope your novel gets published. Nobody deserves it more than you.