Literary agent for espionage and commercial fiction
07/11/2007Deborah Grosvenor is now director at Kneerim & Williams at Fish & Richardson, Washington office.
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Conspiracy Intrigue Espionage Books Writing Life
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CIE Agent [Conspiracy, Intrigue and Espionage]: In Their Majesties' - The Readers - Service ™
Novelist. Author. Twice knifed in the abdomen, earned a green belt in Kyok-sul, and couriered top secret government documents. Schmoozing the corridors of power, greed and corruption has become inspiration for my novels.
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Although beginning my academic career as an English major, I am currently a well-published clinical microbiologist with contributions in many sectors of the scientific literature including peer-reviewed papers, chapters, serious medical communications, and promotional advertising copy. The majority of my academic and practical experience has been in the clinical microbiology, immunology, and infectious diseases sectors.
After serving recently as a consultant in ID to the Montgomery County Department of Public Health on a pandemic influenza program, I became interested in using what information was currently available (including the well publicized flu vaccine contamination in the UK ) as the basis for a truly relevant contribution to the bioterrorism/BT-preparedness fiction literature genre.
I also would like to discuss some conceptual ideas for what I think be a blockbuster for a combined teenage/adult audience .I would be interested in speaking with you and/or the appropriate members of your staff to determine whether you might be interested in representing me. Can we set up a time for a brief teleconference? I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Dr. M. Dickman
Michael D. Dickman, Ph.D.
702 Willowmere Lane
Ambler, PA 19002
215-646-9937
I’m interested in making a contact as described above.
DR. M. DICKMAN
Hi Folks, thanks for your comments, however… I am not a literary agent.
Please visit my list of agents representing thrillers, suspense, mysteries, commercial and other genres here:
http://www.spywriter.com/litagency1.html
Here’s something from one of my earlier posts:
Several hundred people visit my literary agent list every day. Many ask me how to find an agent when all they get are standard rejections of the kind: Sorry, too busy… or Sorry, not for me…
Thank you all who write, and I apologize for not being able to reply to everyone individually. Even though I am not the obvious person to be asked (given that with my three novels I am still un-represented) I think that after hundreds and hundreds of queries and countless conversations with other writers I can offer some general insight to agent hunting.
The process of (not)finding an agent can be very depressing, one that new writers may find easier to bear if they know up front that most agents will not reply to queries at all, whether emailed or snail-mailed (yes, even those with an SASE). Of the replies you will receive, most will be copy-pasted standard notes – No, thank you… Often you will receive a rude bugger off, or even a threat for… It is truly a bizarre world you will enter, in which a potential employee, rather than to thank you for offering them employment will spit at you (to be fare – of those agents who do reply – most will thank you for thinking of them). So, what is one to do but sit down and grind their teeth?
Be sure to keep a database of queried agents, complete with dates and the query letter version sent out (more about it below).
When you go through the full list of agents and still can’t find one to take you on… start over. Query again those who did not reply, as well as those who did – many agents do not read submissions – their assistants do, and assistants change frequently, so there’s a good chance that the second, or third time around you will reach an agent, and those who read queries may find yours appealing on the second try (yep, it happened to me several times).
Query other agents from the same house – few are those who will pass your query on to their colleague.
Change your query letter – concentrate on a different aspect of your story or characters.
Change your synopsis (as with the query letter).
Personalize your communication with agents – do not make it obvious that your are querying hundreds all at once (yeah, even I get those queries from writers!)
Start your query much as you would a thriller – with a bang, something that will catch the agent’s eye and interest right away. The letter should include a paragraph about the novel, a paragraph about you – particularly when your bio can be commercialized upon, as well as any publishing history.
If you think you’ve queried enough… see query statistics for my first novel: http://www.spywriter.com/getpublished.html
Remember – most writers are not represented. You too can try publishers directly.
And last but not least… “Never give up, never surrender.”
Good luck!
MORE ON GETTING YOUR NOVEL PUBLISHED: http://www.spywriter.com/litagency.html
i finished my book ”HAZARDOUS ASSIGNMENTS”
–WW2 and cold war espionage, fiction.
I would like to have it published.
Any hope?
a copy(by post or e-mail) will be sent immediately upon reqauest.
A reply would be appreciated.
Thank you
MORRIS R ZEBAIDA
‘Rough Diamond’ (working title only) is a present-day book written in a thriller-espionage genre and has a time-line of approx. 6/7 months. At its centre is a modern-day anti hero by the name of Jack Diamond, who is that consummate, ‘license to kill’ MI6 agent. The action is set mainly in Ahmedabad, India and London and is launched from an MI6 commission to assassinate an Indian businessmen with fingers in all sorts of global organised crime.
It develops at a pace, which is held until the final sentence of the final paragraph.
Jack is a complex character, whose life is strewn with more personal tragedy than most normal human beings could handle. He compensates by pursuing an energetic sex life and drinking more units of alcohol than the National Health Service has a chart for.
The story line is a mixture of intrigue at the top of the MI6 office, of the revelation of one mystery wrapped in an enigma after another and of unfolding events that leave the reader guessing, probably wrongly, who ‘the bad guys’ really are.’
By way of background, the idea for the novel comes, in part, from my own Home Office career in national and international intelligence, from my stint as a diplomat in India and from my desire to make the most of my retirement years.
I self-published my first book in March this year. It is called ‘Poor Little Chess Boy’ and can be found on Amazon and AuthorHouse. I hasten to add that this first effort was more cathartic than worthy of literary acclaim, but it served to provide me with a basis of what I think is a much better second novel. I realise that I am up against a hugely gifted set of espionage writers such as Le Carre, Deighton, Littell, Ludlum and Fleming, but, in all humility, I think this work stands up well against the last of these and that it has within its cast a number of well-defined and three-dimensional characters.