Friday, November 12, 2010

Baseball!! WOOOOO!!!! (Big fan hand in the air!!!!)

Boy, do I like baseball.  Latin people hitting balls.  Balls hitting Latin people.  Bats hitting balls.  Batted balls hitting people's balls.  Latin people hitting balls.  Bats hitting Latin people in the ballsBases.

Boy, do I love baseball. 

Remember how John Danks of the Chicago White Sox posted a 3.72 ERA with 162 strikeouts (K's!) this season?  That put him 19th in the American League in strikeouts, only eight K's behind Texas's CJ Wilson.  And CJ Wilson went on to pitch in the World Series.  Probably because his team, the Texas Rangers, had the most productive outs in baseball this season.  But, alas or hurray, they lost to the San Fransisco Giants

I sure hope free agent pitcher Cliff Lee doesn't "wind up" (that's a baseball pun) with the Yankees (grrr!).

But really, underneath, I don't care who^ beats whom^ for whom^.  I'm just a fan of the game!

I love baseball. 

If you are an agent, stop reading now.
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Maybe the rest of you think I've lost my mind, or at least the thread of my blog.  I haven't.  On the contrary, I've garnered some vital information in my pursuit of an agent.  Ready?

Agents LOVE baseball!

Wanna know how I figured it out?  Well, there's a curious pattern forming.  

The First Request

I started marketing my novel around the beginning of baseball season.  At first I was getting all rejections.  Finally, the first request (and subsequent rejection) I got happened in September, from a letter I sent in July. The agency was in Toronto.  Let's look at the Toronto Blue Jays' record surrounding the date of that request:

Sun 8/29    @DET   L  4-10
Mon 8/30   @TB     L   2-6
Tues 8/31   @TB     W  13-5
Wed 9/1    @TB     L   1-2
Thurs 9/2  OFF DAY (!!!!)
Fri 9/3        @NYY   L  3-7
Sat 9/4        @NYY   L  5-7

Weird.  The agency in Toronto asked to read my manuscript on the Toronto Blue Jays' off day, in the middle of a losing streak.  Could it be that they were disenchanted with their team, wanted a distraction?  No . . . could it?

The Second Request

The second request (and subsequent rejection) I got was from a New York City agency on September 9.  I will assume they are Yankees fans, since they ultimately rejected me. 

The Yankees were going as follows at that time:

Sun 9/5     TOR   L   3-7
Mon 9/6    BAL   L   3-4
Tues 9/7    BAL   L   2-6
Wed 9/8    BAL   W  3-2
Thurs 9/9   OFF DAY (!!!!)
Fri 9/10     @TEX  L  5-6
Sat 9/11    @TEX  L  6-7
Sun 9/12    @TEX  L  1-4
Mon 9/13   @TB    L  0-1

Okay, now I'm getting paranoid.  Is requesting my manuscript some sick thing agents do when their team is choking?  Is it a coincidence that, like the Toronto agency, the New York City agency asked for my manuscript on an off day in the middle of a nasty Yankee losing streak, and to the bottom of the AL no less? 

I'm not crying yet, but let's call it strike two. 

October

Then October "hit."  (Oh man, I'm full of 'em.)

During the month of October, I sent out 11 query letters (selectively, and intermittently*).   Four of them garnered form-letter "no's."  Six of them have not garnered responses at all (yet?)

And boy did those form-letter "no's" ever seem just a little too hastily written -- as in during "God Bless America!"  (I use this time to write letters, too.  I mean, do we really need two Hurray-for-America songs every baseball game?)  I'm glad I didn't query any Boston agencies in October.  They would have written back "Bum bum bum!  So good, so good, so good!"

Finally . . .

One of the October letters garnered a request for what we aspiring novelists call a "partial." (That is, one agent requested to see the first thirty pages of my novel.)  The letter is dated November 2.  What day did the World Series -- and thus, baseball season -- wrap up?

Well, if you can't answer that, then you obviously don't know anything about baseball.  I hope you're not trying to publish a book or become an agent.

Strike three.  Thank God baseball season is over.  Now I can start to be taken seriously!

. . .

Unless they pay attention to the hot stove  . . . ?
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* in case some agent is still reading
^I think I used "who," "whom," and "whom" correctly!

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