Advertisments

Much Ado About Publishing

Bigfoot, Agents & Other Mythical Creatures

by Nina L. Diamond

I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for the Loch Ness Monster.

How could I not? I’m her namesake, after all, so she’s like part of the family. You see, I was named after a great aunt who died just before I was born, and while her name was Nina, everyone called her Nessie. The only time anyone ever called me that, however, was when I was an infant and Messy Nessie seemed an appropriate nickname during diaper changing.

Nessie, as everyone knows, is also the Loch Ness Monster’s nickname. So, you can see why, since childhood, I’ve embraced the reclusive, perhaps mythological, creature who paddles around and dives deep in Scotland’s Loch Ness, and why I have a plastic replica of her given to me by my parents after they visited her natural habitat.

Since I’ve kept an open mind about the existence of my lake-loving Aunt Nessie, I’ve shown the same consideration to my woods-wandering Uncle Bigfoot. Despite the lack of family ties.

I’ve even mentioned them in some of my articles when trying to make a point. My favorite was back in the early ‘90s when I interviewed anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of the book Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce. I wrote two articles, a straightforward one for The Chicago Tribune, and the other a longer version for a magazine where I had room to play:

“Survey those around you and you’re likely to hear: ‘Monogamy? I’ve never seen it and I don’t know anyone else who has either,’” I wrote. “‘I know more people who claim to have seen UFOs, Bigfoot, and The Loch Ness Monster.’”

I’ve also been known to tell authors, “I know it feels like they’ll find Bigfoot before you get an agent or a publisher, but it won’t really take that long.”

I have to be careful what I say, though, because quite often the most bizarre remarks I make come true.

This appeared to be happening once again one Wednesday morning in August when an author I know called to tell me that she’d gotten an agent, and a few seconds after we hung up one of the cable TV news networks announced that two guys claimed to have the body of Bigfoot.

It turned out that the creature’s discovery was a hoax, which was good news to the author, who was quite relieved that somebody hadn’t found Bigfoot before she’d found an agent.

Agents, editors, and publishers can be so elusive that I’m sure many an author thinks those creatures are mythological, too. Even if they’ve worked with one before. Getting another one can be just as tricky.

And, once in a while, just like the recent Bigfoot claim, you can have what appears to be something real, such as a solid commitment from an agent, only to find it disappearing after your agent receives a dozen rejections and doesn’t want to pitch your book to any more publishers.

Poof! Your agent vanishes and you realize that what was real can disappear in an instant, leaving you at square one looking for someone who will stick with you for the long haul and keep pitching your book until it’s sold.

Maybe, in shock, you might even find yourself scratching your head and wondering if any of it had been real in the first place, or if it had simply been an illusion.

Some authors have agents who pull the rug out from under them before even pitching their books, which is what happened a few years ago to another author I know. She got the agent on a Friday and spent the weekend celebrating that one of the biggest agents in the country was going to represent her book. On Monday, though, the agent contacted her with the bad news: he’d decided not to represent her after all.

The elusive creature strikes again.

When a published author is “orphaned” by a major publishing house because the editor left, publishers usually lose all interest in distributing, marketing, and promoting this book they’ve just published. Orphaned authors go from having a real editor and publisher to having nothing more than what amounts to a vanished mythological creature.

If any of this happens to you, in a daze you may wonder where everybody went.

That’s easy to answer.

Your agent, editor, or publisher went out for a drink with Aunt Nessie and Uncle Bigfoot.

* * * * *

Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.

---