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Monday, July 14

I had consulted with Steve about the idea of going to the conference. After months of participating in various Online forums, writing entries after entries to “build my platform”, I was sick and tired of receiving advice and critique from other amateurs. My hope was to meet world-class professionals whose brain I could pick.

Steve had warned me, though, not to expect too much in terms of learning how to become a better writer, or even get closer to a book deal.

“Just go and look,” he said with a grin like he was sending me out to be the victim in TV’s practical jokes and bloopers show. “Get a first look and feel of the publishing world. Don’t expect to learn anything as a writer. See this as a social study. There is no better opportunity to study this bizarre species in their native habitat. Learn how to be one of them.”

Then he added, “I can promise you that you, the regular human being, will be angry at some time, but whatever happens, stay calm. It doesn’t make sense to release your anger. It may make you feel better, but these people won’t have a clue what ticked you off. People in the publishing world don’t have the same emotional responses as regular human beings.

“You must understand, they all live in happy-land, and they always find the best in every situation, may it be a success, or a miserable failure. They’re almost like a religious sect without a god. Instead they indulge in a bizarre form of self-worshipping. Go play their game, and you will get along.”

I had paid my registration fee in advance, and had also mailed a form to request a personal meeting with Roger Washington, one of the most respected literary agents in the business. Months ago I had received a letter from him, saying he had read my manuscript and that he liked the story, but he advised to cut the word count by about twenty percent, and I should send the revised manuscript as soon as it was done. I spent two frantic days and nights to cut the word count, and on the morning of the third day I mailed it per overnight express. I never heard from him again.

Traffic was not horrendous for a typical Monday morning in New York City, but the taxi ride still took almost an hour to reach the convention center just outside of Manhattan. I went through the usual registration procedure, and received my personal badge and a program guide.

The first item on my agenda was a workshop called “The Writer’s Daily Workout,” and I was looking forward to some advice on daily writing routines. I realized I was already ten minutes late, and I rushed to find the conference room on the second floor. Instead of using the elevator I chose to run up the stairs rather than waiting for the next car going up, carrying my heavy bag that, besides my laptop, also contained roughly one-thousand sheets of paper, a copy of my novel, formatted to the required standards.

I checked the signs at each of the eight entry doors until I finally found the “Concorde” room. I opened the door and peeked inside, cautious not to interrupt the session in progress.

I was shocked to see roughly fifty people inside, hopping and doing jumping jacks as commanded by the female instructor, a woman in her sixties wearing her very tight, pink aerobics outfit and way too much make-up.

Confused, I checked the sign on the door again, and assured it did, in fact, refer to the conference’s workshop as listed in the program. I shook my head in disbelief.

“Yes, hopping around in your living room will make you a better writer,” I heard a female voice behind me, and I turned around to look at a beautiful black woman, roughly two inches taller than I, and very slender. I guessed her age to be somewhere in the mid-twenties. She wore some very expensive looking glasses with a thin black rim, and her hair was short, but curly.

She peeked over me to watch the ridiculous scene in front of us, and she grinned.

“Healthy mind in a healthy body,” she joked. “That’s what it’s all about.”

“This is your first conference, right?” she asked.

“Yes. Can you tell?”

“Oh, the look on your face was precious!” she laughed.

“Sorry,” she added and padded me briefly on the shoulder. “I didn’t mean to belittle you.”

“No apology necessary,” I answered. “I’m here to learn.”

I had to ask.

“They really mean it, right?”

“Oh, you can bet on that,” she answered with another captivating smile. “But I can tell you, this is one of the worst conferences I have seen so far. They’re usually better than this.”

She looked at me, openly and without restraint checking out my body. “You look like you work out on a daily basis. So, I guess you won’t join them.”

She nodded into the conference room, and I shook my head, no.

“Hi, my name is Llysha,” she said, reaching out to me, and we shook hands. “I don’t know about your plans, but my next workshop is in about another hour. How about a cup of coffee? There is a cafeteria in the basement.”

“That’s fine by me,” I answered. “By the way, I am Stuart. And… how to you spell your name?”

She laughed and spelled it to me, and then we took off to the cafeteria. I told her my story of being an unpublished author and that I had come to New York to find a publisher, but omitted the details of my agreement with Sophie.

Llysha had just graduated from Columbia University, and despite her young age she had already written, but not published, five novels.

“I wrote them pretty much for myself,” she explained. “I never contacted any agent or publisher, so I don’t know whether I am good enough to pass as a writer or not. My ultimate goal is to be either a journalist, or being somehow involved with publishing. I just love to read and, of course, to write.”

I, in turn, had no doubt regarding her writing abilities after she told me she had also written various articles that were published in the New York Times and The Washington Post.

Then it was time to part. Our schedules didn’t match at all, but we were sure we would run into each other today at some time or another. I genuinely liked her, and I dared asking her for her e-mail address. I held up my hand with the wedding band as proof that I was not trying to hit on her, and she laughed and handed me a scrap of paper with the address on it.

“See you around,” were her last words before she disappeared into the crowd.

The next topic on my agenda was supposed to be the highlight of my visit, the fifteen minutes that were granted to me to talk to Roger Washington. A very nice, elderly lady took care of me when I arrived at his registration desk, and I had to wait roughly ten minutes. Then it was my turn to be in the presence of one of the divine beings in the publishing industry.

Roger Washington was a heavy-weighted man in his late sixties, thinning hair, and wearing thick-rimmed glasses with huge lenses. I introduced myself, and we shook hands. He didn’t bother getting up from the chair behind the small fold-up table, which struck me as a little odd, but to each his own, I thought.

I watched him when I mentioned my name, and I didn’t see any reaction that it did ring a bell with him. Well, he is a busy man, I thought, so I fumbled with my computer bag, and it took a minute to pull out my manuscript, revised and the word count cut by roughly twenty percent, and put it on the table.

I mentioned the title, Rules of Extortion, explained the characters and the plot while he paged through the manuscript, and, yet again, he didn’t show any reaction, which didn’t help to calm my excitement. I have to admit, I was very nervous, but I worked hard not to show it.

Then, finally, he spoke.

“Very interesting plot,” he said, and I felt relieved. He paged further, stopping every now and then to read another excerpt.

When he was finished, he smiled at me. “I think we’ve got something here. Very nice work, young man!”

My heart made a jump of joy, and in my mind I saw myself storming out of the conference center with the cell phone glued to my ear and telling Sophie that, after all, I would be home much sooner than expected. Fortunately, I hadn’t mailed the contract to Janice Vandenberg yet. I had an appointment with her the following week, and I had promised to deliver the signed contract in person. Now, with the new development, I would just call off the meeting. She would understand.

Washington grunted as he leaned over to hand the manuscript back to me.

“Let me tell you, how we proceed from here,” he said, still smiling and folding his hands in front of his enormous gut. “Your manuscript has some great potential, and I am very interested in representing you. However, before I can present your work to a publisher, it needs some small adjustments. I believe, it is in need of more substance. You are rushing too much. I recommend you increase your word count by, let’s say, thirty percent, and then you submit the manuscript again to my office. We will take care of it from there.”

The virtual punch in the stomach left me speechless for a second, but then I remembered what Steve had told me about anger and his advice not to retaliate.

I smiled at Washington, stuffed my manuscript back in into the bag, got up, and shook his hand.

“Thank you very much, Sir,” I said enthusiastically, “I will get to work right away. It was a great honor to have met you.”

Yet again, he smiled, apparently pleased with the outcome of this meeting.

“I will call you,” he said.

Sure you will, you bastard, I thought and smiled at him while bidding good-bye.

Once outside I took a seat in the reception area, trying to digest what had just happened. A short while later I realized without measurable satisfaction that I had made my first successful step into the bull-shitting society. For a few moments I contemplated going back to the hotel, but the thought of the depressing room was not tempting. I decided to go for a full dose of this bizarre life form.

The next session was held by Vanessa Corrigan, another top agent from New York City with a list of bestselling authors unmatched in the business. According to her bio she had received her BFA from the University of Cincinnati, and earned the degree of Juris Doctor at the Pace Law School in New York. After law school she made her first experiences with the publishing industry by working in the legal and contract department at Simon & Schuster. Only two years later, combining her desire for creativity and a keen business sense,  she started her own agency, Vanessa Corrigan & Associates.

I had checked her out months ago when I did my research on literary agents, and I hadn’t dared to apply at her office. According to an article in the “Us” magazine she spent an annual $20,000 just for hair-do, not mentioning the outrageous expenses for designer clothes and jewelry.

According to a sign on the outside wall, the session room had an official maximum capacity of 200 people, but I had trouble to find a free spot on the floor.

And there she was in her red dress, the beautiful shoulder-long blond hair, wearing more jewelry and make-up I had ever seen on a single woman. She was properly introduced by her assistant, some Erin Walters, a chunky early-thirties woman whose appearance was in stark contrast to that of her boss. I guessed that Vanessa treated and paid her underlings like dirt. Erin did, nevertheless, a great job introducing the star of the session, and her boss was greeted with thunderous applause.

Vanessa, almost ripping the microphone out of Erin’s hand, welcomed everybody with a bright and self-assured smile. Being a professional in the business, she did not miss to mention how humbled she was - Yeah, right - to be here and being greeted in such warm ways. Then she was all business.

“First,” she smiled, “let me tell you what you need to do to get your book on Oprah!”

Frantically, I opened my computer bag to pull out pen and paper like everybody else around me, but somebody reached out and put her hand on mine to stop me. It was Llysha. She smiled and shook her head. Then she nodded toward Vanessa Corrigan as if to say, “Just wait and see.”

Vanessa watched her audience for a few seconds, never losing the winning smile and then proceeded by telling everybody to write down a certain toll-free phone number. I looked around and watched everybody scribbling on their notepads. I looked at Llysha, worried I might miss out on something, but she just smiled.

“When you call that number,” Vanessa continued, “somebody will take good care of you. That number is Dial-A-Prayer!”

She broke out into laughter, while I watched hundreds of faces turning to disbelief. She continued her speech, but for a few moments I was not in a condition to listen. In my mind I wondered why they hadn’t scanned each visitor’s baggage. It would have been easy to smuggle a gun onto the premises, and if somebody did, he or she might have been tempted to shoot Vanessa Carrigan right here and now. In a different scenario I imagined some hysterical woman running onto the stage and strangling Vanessa with 200-plus people giving a standing ovation.

To my dismay, nothing like that happened.

“How about another coffee?” Llysha suggested, but I declined.

I nodded toward Vanessa. “This is the best performance on effective bull shitting I have ever seen in my life,” I said to her. “I’d like to stay around a little longer and learn from the master.”

“Shht!” some people around us complained, shaking their heads, angry about the impertinence of distracting their attention to the goddess on center stage.

Llysha winked at me, and cautiously, tip-toeing through the mass of people sitting on the floor, made her way out of the room. I could only guess, she had seen it before. I, for my part, was fascinated with Vanessa Corrigan’s energy and dynamic performance. From that day on, I made her one of my prime targets. If I could get her as my agent, success would be certain.

To her credit I have to admit that she was right about the odds the aspiring authors encounters when it comes to landing a publishing contract. She explained very precisely the difference between fiction and non-fiction publishing. An author writing non-fiction books already knows his reader group, and advertisement is usually less cumbersome and far more cost-effective. If you write, for instance, about the secrets of the Grand Canyon you place an ad in National Geographics and numerous related web sites, just to name a few options.

Writing and publishing a novel, as she explained, is a totally different ballpark. Just to name the greatest obstacle for a new author, there are hundreds of thousands of new publications each year in the United States alone, and it is impossible to stand out in the crowd unless you receive massive support from your publisher. And then, still, you are competing per default with the heavyweights like Dan Brown, John Grisham, Stephen King, and others. Add to this the reluctance of the established publishing houses to take on new authors. It does happen, but only to a few, very privileged and talented writers.

Those who don’t make it, I may add, read writer’s magazines and spend hours on a daily basis communicating with other wannabe-writers through Online forums, and I was one of them.

Vanessa continued by making a case for literary agents as the only solution to success, but also explained the vast catalog of rules that a writer has to follow to get an agent’s attention.

“If you sense some frustration here,” she said, “then you are absolutely right. As a literary agent I receive literally thousands of inquiries per year, and, believe me, out of those thousands there are only two or three a year that I feel comfortable with.”

She held up a piece of paper. “Let me give some examples.”

“This one here, for instance… ,” she mumbled, put on her reading glasses, and then she cited, “My new novel is based on very offensive stuff and may not be suitable for most.”

Everybody laughed, but Vanessa apparently was not amused. “Needless to say that his grammar was off in more ways than you can imagine.”

“Here’s another one,” she said and cited again. “My story is based on a movie. I don’t believe in hard work and copying ideas seems be more intelligent.”

Laughter again. She held up the papers again.

“Believe it or not, reading this crap, to one degree or another, is ninety-nine percent of my workload. Usually I try to write a nice rejection letter when I see some hope, but most inquiries are not worth the effort. In addition we receive at least one insulting phone call or e-mail per day, and, believe me, ‘bitch’ is one of the modest insults I receive.”

She cited some more bad inquiries, and we had a good laugh, but from there on the presentation became dull, mainly because she described the publishing world without offering any real help for the audience in front of her.

I left the session a few minutes before it was over. My intention was to beat the crowd, and it paid off. As soon as I was outside I noticed Erin Walters standing next to the entrance door, engaged in a call on her cell phone. She seemed totally oblivious of her surroundings, and she didn’t notice me at all, but I could clearly overhear her conversation.

I did everything not to raise any suspicion, so I fumbled with my computer bag to pull out the program in an apparent attempt to check for the next event. I had also pulled a sheet of paper and a pen, just in case I would need it, and it turned out to be a smart move on my behalf.

“Yes, the 25th,” I overheard her saying. “That’s Friday next week. We all meet at the Borders Bookstore on Park Avenue.”

Then she listened to the caller, and continued, “Well, I am scheduled for 8:15 pm, but the actual performance starts at 7:00. I am so excited!”

She giggled, and I made some notes. Park Avenue was less than two miles away from the apartment I would move into the next day. Suddenly I was disrupted by the stampede of people leaving the session, and I watched as Erin hastily finished her phone conversation. Then she rushed against the stream of people to attend to her boss.

It took some effort on my side to escape the steady flow of people looking for their next session. Then I saw Llysha in a chair in the large seating area, working on her laptop. As I walked over, she noticed me and released her trademark smile.

“Are you going to see the keynote address?” I asked her, but she shook her head.

“Actually, I’m pushing it time-wise,” she answered. “I am volunteering at a local homeless shelter, and they’ll start serving food in about an hour. I need to go.”

She started packing her belongings, and we shook hands.

“It was sure nice meeting you,” she said.

“Likewise.”

“Let’s keep in touch,” she said on the way out. “Let me know how it went with the keynote address.”

I watched her leaving, and then I took my heavy bag and followed the crowd to the main conference hall. Originally, I had looked forward to see Alexander Barrister, best-selling, internationally acclaimed author of more than twenty novels which made it all into the New York Times bestseller list. According to the program his books were published worldwide in about forty different languages, and he had sold over eighty million copies of his books. He had just released his latest novel, and he currently toured the entire United States and Canada, making appearances at bookstores, and other “worthwhile events” such as the writers’ conference in New York.

The way the day had gone so far I wasn’t as enthusiastic about his keynote address anymore, and it remains true that low expectations prevent further disappointments. As it turned out, Alexander Barrister lived up to the low expectations. First, it seemed like he wasn’t quite sure why they had invited him, but then he talked about his pre-author life, how he had worked in a bookstore to make a living, how he wrote his first novel mostly at night, and so it went on. His second novel was eventually turned into a Hollywood mega-buster, and now he enjoys his life in Beverly Hills, five million Dollar villa and Rolls Royce included, where he had just finished his last novel. On a final note, he wished all of us good luck with our writing projects. Then he said his thank you very much and have a nice day.

Later in the day I spent some more time on the premises, mostly to sit with my laptop and writing e-mails. The thought of going back to the hotel was still not appealing, and in my mind I made plans on how and where to get drunk most efficiently. Tomorrow morning, finally, I would move into my luxury apartment on 34th Street.

I wrote to Llysha, giving her two versions of the keynote address, one as honest as I prefer to be, and another one adjusted to the readers in the publishing world. “Let me know how I’m doing,” I wrote in reference to the second version, and I grinned when I hit the Send key of my e-mail program.

As they say, sometimes life is stranger than fiction, and, ironically, one of my first tasks as an editor was being a speaker on a writers’ conference. It was organized by our magazine and financed by one of the greatest sharks in the vanity publishing business. A few days later I wrote an enthusiastic article for publication in our magazine, also citing the positive feedback we had received. In all honesty, most of the feedback I made up myself, and others I modified slightly to reflect a more positive attitude.

Needless to say that my superiors were satisfied with my contribution to the happy writers’ world.

Next: Chapter 5