An agent is interested in my proposal . . .

Although I mention this in a thread in "Ask the Editor," I'm putting it over here also.

My horror novel is winding down. I'm still working through the ending, and plan to put it away for a month or two. Meanwhile, I started thinking about my next project, and came up with the idea of a Q&A type book about radio. (There's also a possibility I may get laid off in the near future, so a paid writing project would be a nice time-filler.)

I didn't plan to write the book and then try to sell it. I did that with my first book; not doing it again. I looked up the agent of a popular existing Q&A book series (the agent was mentioned in the Acknowledgements), and emailed him a query I wrote in about ten minutes, not posted here on SYW, not even rewritten a hundred times.

Not even 24 hours later, I got a response. In part it said:

I've got to be honest with you: I'm not totally convinced that a book about radio is going to find an immediate positive reception from publishers. Having said that, we'd still be happy to take a look at This is Radio, but will do so only on an exclusive basis.

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Note, "This is Radio" was the working title I came up with while I wrote the email. It's awful, but it's better than "Untitled Nonfiction Piece."

I gotta be honest. I didn't expect this response. I had already had my mind set for an immediate "No," but heck, they asked for a proposal.

I emailed her back and told her I'd have one to her in a few days. She emailed back and said "Fine."

Now, I have to remember how to write a proposal! Must get busy!

allen

Thanks! I'll be writing the proposal this weekend, and hope to send it to them by mid next week. And I will have to make the proposal great, because I do have to convince them that publishers will be interested in a book about radio that is geared for everyone to enjoy, not just those in the business. And I'm sure I can do that.

In my original post, I mentioned I might be getting laid off from work. The manager told me on Friday that they're going to put me into a different department. Which means I'm keeping my job! (I'm working through a contracting temp agency, and so are a lot of other employees. And a few of the contracted employees were let go just recently. I assumed I'd be next.)

allen