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Tuesday, July 22

The first week after moving into the Herold Towers was agonizing for me, because there was virtually nothing on my calendar. I had an appointment with my agent, Janice Vandenberg, but she was on a business trip to visit publishers on the West Coast, namely San Francisco. She had promised to promote my book, and we would talk about the result the day after her return. That day was today, and the appointment was in the afternoon.

I had spent most of my time with what is called “building a platform.” Building an author’s platform was apparently one small, but nevertheless extremely important step toward recognition in the publishing industry. I had learned that each aspiring author should have his own web site, a so-called blog, and write about his work, and so I did at nausea. Reviews were important, too, and you can hire services to do that for you. Another aspect was participating in writing contests. I was tempted to write my own reviews with made-up names, and add references to prices I had won in various contests. Well, I hadn’t actually won any price, but who would take the time to verify the source?

At the same time I researched to find online articles that were even remotely related to the topic of my novel, and, if possible, add a reader’s comment, not without adding a reference to my novel. The storyline of Rules of Extortion had to do with the blackmailing of interns who worked at the White House, and, believe me, there are tons of articles written on the White House and its employees.

I was also a member of several Online forums where authors, published or not, gather to share or to ask for information. The dynamics of the various forums can be bizarre at times. One particular forum, sponsored by yet another vanity publisher, seemed to be the domain of two seasoned authors, both with a list of published books longer than my arm. Nevertheless, I had never heard of them. Both – let’s call them James and Jeannie – had taken on the task of mentoring the unpublished wannabes, and they would not allow anybody to piss on their turf. One newcomer, for instance, dared to offer unique advice on self-publishing, and she received a severe written bashing, and she withdrew, realizing that she had wasted her time.

What all forums have in common is the huge number of members who jump on every newcomer to wish him or her well, not failing to mention their own accomplishments, and “by the way this is the hyperlink to my web site.” This behavioral pattern is especially common on forums that are organized like social web sites a la Facebook. I found one guy, the author of a bestselling book on self-improvement, who had “befriended” roughly 20,000 other members, and you can bet that the total number of members was roughly 20,000. He probably spent several hours per day to befriend new members. Well, everything it takes to promote your work.

Promoting your book, as I had learned, takes more of an author’s time than actually writing it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there yet, but I had already learned all the dirty tricks of book promotion, and you can believe me, there are a lot of them.

Needless to say, but I was more than ready to start promoting my book as soon as Janice would find me a publisher. However, I was determined to keep all my options, and one of them was Vanessa Corrigan. In my mind I had already developed a strategy of how to get in touch with her, and that strategy included pursuing her assistant Erin Walters, but first things first. First I needed to see Janice and find out what she had accomplished to assure my success.

Janice’s office was located at West 26th Street near Chelsea Park, not very far from the Herald Towers. Yet again, the central location paid off, and I chose to seize another opportunity to indulge a newfound passion, walking through the streets of New York City. The sky was still cloudy after an early day rain, and temperatures were in a comfortable range.

For the first time since I lived in New York I was not wearing my standard washed-out jeans, but some nice black pants and a fitting polo shirt, a combination that would be accepted as business-casual in a corporate environment. Still, it was suitable for the weather and, after all, the occasion.

I had no problem finding the small office building, and, once inside, the receptionist pointed me to the hallway leading to the upper floors.

“Ms. Vandenberg’s office is on the third floor,” she told me. “Second door to the right. Sorry, but there is no elevator.”

The second door to the right was wide open, and there was no sign indicating that, in fact, this was Janice Vandenberg’s office. I looked inside and cautiously knocked on the door.

“Hello?” I called out.

“Come on in,” I heard a female voice from the inside.

Janice Vandenberg was a lady in her early sixties with long, dark red hair that she had tucked up supported by some huge needles. She was standing with her back toward the door, fumbling with some papers that she tried to stuff into an overflowing drawer.

She briefly turned around and said, “You must be Stuart.”

I nodded.

“Have a seat,” she said, pointing to the chair in front of her desk. The desk was a total mess, filled with huge piles of paper, and I was wondering whether or not I would be able to see Janice behind the desk. I removed some more folders from the chair and put them cautiously on top of the pile that seemed to be the smallest.

Otherwise her office looked neat, but it was very small, lacking the storage capacity needed for the daily amount of paper a literary agent like Janice had to deal with. There was only one window facing to the North, keeping the room in a constant dusk, especially on a cloudy day like today. I looked further around the office to find her computer, but to my surprise, there wasn’t any, and I wondered how she received and wrote e-mails. I remembered that she had insisted to put her name in the subject line, which struck me as a little odd, but, naturally, I complied with her request.

“Sorry about that,” Janice said when she was finally finished with fighting paper, and she sat down in her chair, pushing her reading glasses above the hairline.

“Well, you’re a cute one,” she said with a winning smile, but then she was all business.

She pulled out a familiar looking folder that contained my manuscript, the query letter on top of it. I was surprised she still had my papers, considering the mess in front of both of us.

“Stuart, your query letter really convinced me,” she continued. “Very nice work! You wouldn’t believe the number of queries I receive on a daily basis, and I am long enough in the business to see a winner.”

She frowned, “Most of them aren’t, though.”

I could clearly remember the day that I had read the first draft of the query letter, written by a professional in the business. Apparently, you can’t catch an agent’s attention by explaining in common-language words how well written your book is, and everybody would be happy to have read it.

Literary agents require a more “scintillating” approach, “Hollywood-English” as Steve called it. Two-hundred Dollars later my novel was “of all-embracing appeal for the public readership” and it “reflected the brilliant enthusiasm of conflicts in the political arena combined with true-to-life human anguish.” I was impressed. I thought my novel was good, but it became better with the profound use of five-dollar words in the query letter. Apparently, the contrast in style between query letter and the actual manuscript didn’t raise any red flag.

“Anyways,” Janice woke me up from my thoughts. “I believe, your novel has potential, and I ran it by my contacts on the West Coast.”

I straightened up in my seat, full of anticipation.

Janice smiled at me, “There are two publishing houses in San Francisco who want to meet you!”

“Great!”

I was excited, and I asked, “When?”

“Well,” she cautioned me, “it is not going to happen within days. First, I needed to know if you are available for the trip.”

I nodded. “Anytime!”

“Okay,” she smiled, and scribbled something on her notepad. “Secondly, I need to make another appointment with them. My guess would be, it will be in another two weeks or three. How does that fit into your plans?”

“Fine by me,” I answered eagerly. I was excited. Things were moving!

“By the way,” Janice reminded me. “Did you bring the contract?”

“Yes, I did.”

I opened my briefcase, pulled out the papers, and handed them to her. Sophie had forwarded a copy to her company’s legal department, and they had determined the contract contained some minor flaws in regards to exclusivity and termination conditions, all of them in my favor, but I didn’t tell Janice. Sophie had agreed with Steve, who had recommended keeping all my options open.

“You have your signed copy, right?” she asked, looking at me over her reading glasses, and I nodded.

She checked the last page, assuring that, indeed, I had signed the contract. Then she tucked it into the folder with my manuscript inside.

She looked at me. “Nevertheless,” she said, “In addition, I would like to set a meeting with Jonathan O’Keeffe. Have you heard of him?”

I shook my head, “No.”

“Well, you must have heard of Kerrigan & Moore Publishers,” she insisted. “They’re right here in town.”

The name didn’t ring a bell, either.

“Oh yes!” I exclaimed. “Kerrigan & Moore!”

“Okay, same thing,” she said. “Jonathan is their main man. Nothing goes without his approval.”

Suddenly, she seemed a bit excited.

“As a matter of fact,” she called out. “Let’s call him right now!”

She reached over to pick up the phone, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. A young woman with long blond hair, dressed in tight jeans and tight white shirt, stood in the doorframe, holding up some papers.

“Sorry, Ms. Vandenberg,” she said. “Debbie had asked me to bring over your e-mails.”

“Thank you, Nancy,” Janice smiled at her and reached out for the papers. Nancy stepped into the room, and while she walked by my chair, she attempted to check me out, and almost ran into Janice’s arm.

“Sorry,” she blushed and ran out of the office.

Janice shook her head in disbelief and casually put the papers on another pile.

“I don’t have a computer,” she explained. “Debbie, the CPA next door, is a real techno-freak, and she receives my e-mails. I’m too old to learn this stuff.”

“Anyways,” she continued, picked up the phone and dialed a local number.

A few moments later I could hear the muffled sound of a female voice answering the call, and Janice smiled.

“Sandie, darling,” she oozed into the phone. “It’s Janice Vandenberg. Listen, can you check if Jonathan is available to talk with me?”

She waited a few seconds and looked at me again. “I’m on hold.”

Sandie was back a minute later.

“Yes,” Janice responded. “Oh, that’s too bad! Sandie, darling, can we set up a meeting with him then?”

She was put on hold again, and she whispered to me, “He’s in a meeting with corporate management.”

“Yes, darling!” She listened.

“Let me check my calendar,” she said, and looked into the air for a few moments.

“Yes, July 30th works fine,” she continued. “How about some time in the afternoon?”

She listened again.

“Okay, 11 a.m. it is. Thank you, Sandie, darling! Have a nice day!”

She hung up and grinned at me enthusiastically. “We’re in!”

I had made notes, while she was on the phone.

“There were times when I could call Jonathan directly,” Janice complained, rolling her eyes. “Now that he is such a hot-shot in the business you have to go through his receptionist.”

She shook her head and looked at me. “You didn’t hear this from me, but she’s a whore!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah! She’s dreaming of a movie career, and she sleeps around with everybody in the movie business.”

I made some more notes.

“It didn’t work in Hollywood,” Janice continued her rant.

“Apparently she had exhausted all available resources there,” she giggled, “and that’s why she came to New York.”

The phone rang, and Janice picked it up.

“Hello, this is Janice Vandenberg.”

She listened for a while, and then she said, “Can you hold on for a minute?”

She turned to me, holding the phone to her chest.

“Stuart, darling, are we done here?”

I started packing my belongings.

“Yes, I think we’re all set.”

We shook hands.

“See you on the 30th,” she smiled at me. “Be here around 10 am, will you?”

I nodded and left the office. Needless to say, but I was in high spirits. After all, I finally had an appointment in New York and two possibilities in San Francisco. Who could ask for more?

As soon as I was back in my apartment I called Steve and left him a message, telling him about today’s progress. Then I wrote an e-mail to Llysha, who had turned out to be an invaluable sounding board. Wherever she was, her answer came quickly.

“Congratulations,” she wrote. “However, and I don’t mean to burst your bubble, keep on going, and success will come one way or the other.”

I have to admit, her comment did dampen my enthusiasm a bit, but I also trusted Llysha’s expertise. To find some distraction, I started some preliminary research on Jonathan O’Keeffe and his publishing company, Kerrigan & Moore. He was indeed a heavyweight in the business. He had started his career at Kerrigan & Moore as an office clerk more than thirty years ago, and through his great talents he had worked his way up into management. His official title was now General Manager, and, according to sources in the financial industry, he held a twenty percent stake of the business. I made a note to check him out in more detail.

Steve called later, and he confirmed Llysha’s assessment of the current situation.

“Don’t trust anybody in the business,” he advised. “I’m not saying, Janice is not to be trusted. However, agents can only do so much, and sometimes they are being sent on a run-around, yet again, without bad intentions. That’s just how the business goes.”

A bit more sober than just a few hours ago, I sat and thought about the next step. I decided to continue with my previously developed strategy of pursuing Vanessa Carrington to become my agent. First, I had to get in touch with her assistant and pursue her to arrange a meeting with her boss.

I started checking the local listings on various New York related web sites, and finally found an entry pointing to a poets reading and performance matinee at the Borders Bookstore on Park Avenue. It also showed a listing of participants, including one very talented Erin Walters.

The last line showed, “Walk-Ins will have a chance to recite their work between 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm.”

That line triggered another idea, and I called my Dad immediately. He was retired, and I was sure he would be home, working on some paintings or sculptures, all the things he loved doing until he was forced to follow my grandfather’s financial consulting business. Before that he was a free-spirited mind, hair down to his shoulders, John-Lennon glasses, flower-power movement, the whole enchilada.

“Hey Dude!” I yelled into the phone when he picked up.

He laughed. “What’s up, son?”

“Hey, Dad, I need a groovy poem.”

“What?”

“I am planning to attend a local poetry performance, and I would like to recite something cool. Something from your time, something psychedelic would be perfect. These guys are really into that kind of stuff nowadays.”

“Why don’t you write your own?” he asked curiously.

“Oh, I tried that, but first, I am incredibly lousy at it. Secondly, the performance is on Friday, not enough time to come up with something good.”

He thought for a moment, and then came up with an answer.

“Cosmic Wheels,” he said.

“What?”

“Cosmic Wheels. Donovan. Scottish singer and songwriter. Look it up on the Internet. The lyrics should be somewhere out there.”

And then he started singing, “That’s why I’m stumbling down the highway – On my boots of steel – I should be rolling down the skyway – On my Cosmic Wheels…”

I loved my Dad. He was a cool guy.

Next: Chapter 7