I'm looking for a literary agent.
I have an idea for a book, it's non-fiction, about science, for a general audience. It'll cover some themes I've written about on this blog, although it'll all be new material.
Anyway, if you can recommend any good agents who you think might be interested in this or if you are one and are interested - please let me know. You can email me at neuroskeptic at gmail dot com. I live in the UK, so a London-based agent would be ideal, but I'm open to all suggestions.
8 comments:
Daniel Bohr just published a book "The Ravenous Brain". Maybe he has a lead on an agent.
Nice. Put me down for a first run copy, whatever it is! (There's faith for you.) And if in your travails you happen across any agents for fiction, about scientists for a scientist audience, please do let me know! (One's out, one's suspended due to other priorities, and another is a friend's finished draft.)
probably a good idea to write the book first before you approach the agent.
@jonathan:
Not always necessary. A good outline and an existing following, which NS clearly has, may well be sufficient. NS has a track record of writing, too, so some of the questions a typical agent/publisher is asking when I say I've got a book to write are already well answered.
And on that note, NS, do us mortals a favour? When you get the agent and the deal done, do a blog post about your experience?
Thanks for the comments. I've heard different opinions on whether you ought to write the book first; some people say you should, but others say that a pitch & a sample chapter is fine, so I'm going to try that first.
I Know a great copy writer London based if you find you could use one.
Neuroskeptic,
In my experience with "professional people's books", a publisher is needed before the book is written only to help an insecure mind write eventually a book or an ungifted with words person write a book that can sell in the end.
There is no free lunch in the edition business and you will end up signing a contract for a book editors will write for you in part or sternly direct you in writing.
Like say, a movie director who is far less free than an independant writer-unless you are Stanley Kubrick and you do not let the producer influence you,that is.
NB: A publisher found me and asked me to write a book for her firm in 2008-through a journalist whose work I had put a comment to and that journalist telephone me making publicity for that editor and telling me that I should write a book about how to my mind the French school system was killing pupils (some by suicide and many more by killing their talents and expectations especially in science studies).
That editor is a great lady and a real professional and seemed a perfect match for me on the ideological front but her job was to produce "our book" and not mine.
I am not rich and was glad I didn't sign a contract before realizing -for example- that I couldn't possibly tell very interesting and educational stories about my pro-bono clients without some people being hurt by it: it was just impossible to write honestly without some people being recognized by some friends.
I stated up writing alone "my" book from a different angle (the paternalism of teachers and the bias for teachers against the parents and adult students of the French administtrative and criminal courts). I found this much more satisfactory on the ethical front since the juges ' work is public unlike the psychiatrists 'ones.
This editor is not interested in my book and it is only fair.
NB: Your "conflicts of interests " with your publisher will be different of course.
Still, the fact is that you are very hardworking, disciplined and incredibly gifted with words and hardly in need of having somebody holding your pen for your first draft.
My advice would be to write "your" book -first draft- and then discuss any modification an editor will suggest -changing shop if you find that editor too demanding on whatever front.
Also, Neuroskeptic, you might discover that even a "professionnal person's book" gets a life of its own like the best fiction writers describe.
The material you feel like (and right) to write about might change during the process of your writing- or the balance between science vulgarisation and personal anecdote.
With your talent, you might end up writing an autobiography or whatever and it would be sad if a commercial contract were to prohibit it.
Life is so short and so many bad or mediocre books are published to make a little money-sometimes very little.
NB: "My book" now is more about the unaffordable cost of justice in France in general for the vulnerable people more in need of it(with just a chapter on Education's cases)and the human cost of paternalism for pupils and the considered mentally ill.
Of course, I might not be motivated enough to finish it or unable to find a publisher to take care about the many faults of the book and make a fool of myself publishing it on line.
Small price to pay for freedom of writing.
And you -unlike I- will probably get a lot of friends very competent in your different subjects for reading your book before you publish it on line- in the very unlikely event that you were not to find a professional publisher after a first draft of yours.
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