David Thayer

Just a quick reminder to all and sundry that I’m not a literary agent. If you send me your novel or your plans for a novel nothing will happen. I realize that may not distinguish me from legitimate literary agents from whom a certain quiessence may be interpreted in many ways, my silence is more like the permafrost in Siberia which may or not begin melting over the coming centuries.

How to spot literary agents: I met a famous literary agent in the men’s room at a writer’s conference. We did the urinal nod that guys do, if only to acknowledge that pissing in the wind is not okay, that our momentary occupation was both necessary and fleeting, that whatever bonhommie might exist would dissipate with the zipper’s final tug, to wash our hands at identical sinks provided no long lasting bond.

After he dried his hands he bestowed a second nod, a bittersweet farewell, bittersweet because I found it difficult to make a three hundred page manuscript into a paper airplane landing gently at his feet. It can take forever to dry your hands and by the time my manuscript was ready to launch he was gone.

Miss Snark has links to agents like Rachel Vater, Jennifer Jackson, Kristen Nelson, and I have a link to Jessica Faust at Bookends. If you read their blogs you’ll get a sense of what they represent who they represent and what might pique their interest in a query.

Hello. I’m writing today from my embittered dogsbody’s battered desk. My own escritoire is in the shop. I can only hope that Lars and his crack team of mechanics can repair it before the next windstorm. Wellington Leg has battened down for another autumn storm; the hogs have fled to the relative safety of Midtown. I will, no doubt, be receiving the usual cries of outrage from shoppers.

The subject of this morning’s essay is the fake fire. During the holidays writers ( and I’m no exception) are drawn indoors for scenes that require the domestic touch. Who can forget the moment in VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA when Jules and Maude, caught in the amber glow of the artifical fire, decide to flee Paris? Throughout my epic there are no fewer than 39 fake fire scenes. Too many? Too few?

One of the problems is Jules and his constant dithering. After fleeing Paris he returns to make certain his apartment door is locked. No sooner does he escape the wrath of angry peasants, a chance encouter with his landlord results in further delay. As he is dragged to the guillotine, Jules remembers to cancel his grocery order, and of course, his subscription to Le Soir ( another fake fire moment.) He’s completely forgotten his promise to Maude, rendered on a note found by the Bailiff.

Well, I think you would agree that moderation is key. As he awaits the falling blade, Jules realizes that he is engaged to the Duchess of Lambert. What was he doing with Maude before the fake fire? Jules vows to write these things down in the future.

Dateline: The Corner of Wall and Broad, Wellington Leg. Financial reporter Stanley Morgan, who lost his shirt on the Tigers-Yankees ( why oh why didn’t the Yanks sign the Earl? Or the Duchess with her career numbers against Kenny Rogers?) reports that Google may be interested in buying Earltube a service available only to Ostrogoths at the moment.

Earltube employs the technology of the paper towel cylinder: after squinting into one end of the tube you see the face of someone else, a sibling perhaps, on the other end. “Ostrogoths have been playing earltube for a long time,” noted Professor Moriarity. “They’re known for 20-20 vision.”

Stanley is flying to Mountain View and then to Seattle. “We’re trying to get Voltaire’s Miasma into Starbucks,” he said.

The Earl here, blogging from HRH J Mansfield Prison. I very much enjoyed my visit to Lloyds of London and Fenchurch Market. Now that I’m fully insured against Writers Block, I can relax and focus my attention on you, dear reader, and, of course, our beloved publishing industry. The heart soars even as the advice I extended in my Agony Column is finally coming to fruition: Baby Boomers, Who Needs ‘em? Apparently the publishing industry was playing close attention when I wrote, “Everyone is sick of baby boomers. Sure, they grew up reading, but now, they can’t even read the directions on aspirin bottles without consulting a Friend or Loved One. How many Boomers does it take to open an aspirin bottle? How can they be expected to wrangle an entire book?”

Prophetic words. The major publishers have heeded the call. They understand that the future lies with the young. They have may have jumped the gun by a decade or two, but they are greeting the future. Despite the Kaavya Viswanathan setback, I foresee a time when authors are forced into retirement at age twenty five. Like Tennis or Pop Music, we’re forever young!

In another thirty years most boomers will be dead. That’s not sexy. That’s yucky, man. And we’re not about yucky, are we?

The Earl’s Agony Column appears on alternating Saturdays in September. The opinions expressed by the earl are not the opinions of the Druidical & Literary: we think that Boomers are perfectly capable of reading a book if the print is of sufficient size. LIKE THIS.

Fenchurch Market: In a ceremony near the fresh produce stand beneath the British Rail Station, officials from Lloyds announced that the fabled exchange will insure The Earl’s Hands against Misadventure. The Policy, believed to be the first of its kind, shall be written upon pink cardboard whereupon the stamps of each syndicate shall be affixed. It would Indemnify the Assured in the event The Earl is unable to produce future work including Pot Boilers, Bodice Rippers, and other Popular Entertainments including, but not limited to, his Memoires. The Perile of Writers Block is addressed by Endosement Hereon, according to Lloyds Broker Roger Cole Newcastle. “The Policy is very broad. The reading public can rest assured that The Earl shall continue producing his work…such as it it.”

The opening line says it all: Whereas, we, certain Underwriters at Lloyds and London Companies, forced to stand in the drizzle amongst the Cauliflower, when we could be indoors, not that the New Building is in any way comfortable with its hideous exposed pipes, do undertake to Indemnify and Make Goode the Loss of his Wretched Prose against the Periles of the Sea, Upset, Collapse, Overturn, Sinking, Stranding, or Burning. Further, we undertake to Indemnify against the Blockade of Ideas known herein as Writers Block and to Critics as Cause for Celebration in the event that he, The Earl, shall experience Same. Monies shall be sped his way to his rooms on Crutched Friars, this city, by Hande or Poste or Motorized Conveyance should Calamity strike.

Prince Charles, unable to attend the ceremony, expressed his “Alarme at the thought this Policy fall into the Wrong Hands, thus denying Readers their Due in the sum of all parts.”

The ringing of the Lutine Bell following the Earl’s arrival was accidental, said Mr. Cole Newcastle. “There was jostling on the floor of the exchange…rumors that Dame Pamela had purchased Her Policy caused a stir.” Rocky Colavito reporting.

Mists of Mansfield: I think I’ve established a means of communicating with Marge. She is being held in the Artists Wing while I’m among the Commercial Representatives. Needless to say I had hoped to be classified as an artist; these decisions are so arbitrary. At any rate I’ve dug a trench with my spoon and fashioned an RSS feed from old shoelaces. The feed goes directly down the hall to the junction with the Great Flu. Hot air rises, of course, lifting all boats in this case. The authorities have no idea that a real time web log may be fashioned out of the discards of daily life; fortunately I took a class in designing RSS feeds from simple household materials.

Rather than a photo I’ve commissioned a Portrait ( Portrait of the Commercial Representative). Prior to my escape I had the presence of mind to purchase vast quantities of Silly Putty at the HRH J Mansfield Prison Store. The guards believe that I’m sculpting a likeness of Hizzoner when in fact I’m rebuilding the outer wall with the stuff. When the time comes I shall burst through the wall onto Threadneedle Alley. The major difficulty I foresee is the clanking sound I make whenever I hurry. Thus my encounter with Mister Macaroni and his accursed cellular phone which enabled him to make a call even though he wasn’t at home.

My portrait consists of two profile pieces and one face on, a tryptych I suppose. Joey “Two Hands” Vermeer is doing the work. Joey is serving time in the debtor section of this edifice. We’re thinking of having him illustrate this blog with a brooding depiction of your reporter or an exterior daytime montage of the prison. Ah wait, a note from Marge: Blog on, she writes. What a trouper.

Dateline Wellington Leg: At a dedication ceremony held entirely under water Randall “Too Tall” McHugh, COO of the Earl’s Own Telephony Service, announced the world’s first wind powered blog. Entitled “Wellington Leg After Dark” the blog will devote itself to the sometimes seamy world of night clubs, speakeasies, gambling dens and houses of unpeakable acts that come to life after sunset. “All along Great Jones Street and Lesser Hamilcar Boulevard these dastardly establishments flourish under the gaudy glaze of raw neon.” The Wellington Leg Better Business Bureau and Rotary, itself powered by wind, has condemned the proposed blog as “both harmful and fraught” although it cannot be denied that gambling and gamboling often go “arm in arm and hand in glove.”

The technology behind the wind powered blog has been debated for years. “It’s expensive,” says City Manager Man Mountain Muldoon. “Those wind machines don’t come cheap.” Indeed the first attempts at wind powered blogging ended when the RSS Feeds were bitten clean through by the Dowager Princess’ Prized Pomeranian Mister Galahad. Many of the feeds were shredded by the Leg Water Authority’s ill advised street cleaning program. “This is madness,” said Professor Moriarity. He is working on a steam powered blog. Oliver Castinstone reporting.

The New York Observer has discovered platforms as they relate not only to writers, but writers of fiction. I’ve added a link on the sidebar to the article which quotes literary agents Richard Pine, Larry Kirschbaum among others as well as Jonathan Burnham at Harper-Collins. The consensus is that even novelists need a platform because as Nan Talese put it you have to compete to attract readers, they don’t wander into bookstores anymore predisposed to reading. Thus at all stages of acquisition the question is raised “what is the author’s platform?” Bear in mind that this is an issue primarily for the big NYC publishing houses and may be less important to smaller publishers, British, French or Australian publishers. Since most novelists would like to be published by a major house, it might be worth taking a look at what a platform is, and whether the underlying assumptions are accurate.

Nothing is going to alter the New York publishers core belief that the audience for books is shrinking. They have statistics to back that up, but more importantly, they believe it. They believe it the way you might believe that it always rains on weekends where you live and that the storm will pass with the dawn of Monday morning. Readers of books have dwindled down to a handful of hearty Luddites who cannot manage MP3s or play video games on their cell phone. The 72 million Baby Boomers, for instance, who grew up reading, read no more. Most of them are dead. You can’t market anything to the handful of survivors among the Boomers because, being middle-aged, they no longer shop. It is not clear what they do with their leisure time, or leisure suits, but they didn’t buy The Nanny Diaries so they don’t read. Across the globe these Boomer generations still ponder the significance of the books they once read, but are perhaps baffled by the import of Bergdorf Blondes. And, so, authors must have platform.

Even the experts can’t seem to agree what platform is, only that it must be had. Oprah has it. Anderson Cooper has it. Babe Ruth use to have it, but he lost it. I have platform and so do you. My final thought on the subject? Mind the moving platform and watch the closing doors. Step lively. Grab some platform.

A John Phillip Sousa march brought cheers from a small crowd assembled on the Once Great Lawn near the historic city hall and rotunda here in Goth. A similar triumph of engineering ended an eight day ordeal in Wellington Leg where residents filing absentee ballots listened to “My Sharona” while memorizing passages from “The Sot Weed Factor.” His Lordship The Honorable James “Jimmy Stones” Warden of the Whig and Tory Coalition vowed to resume banning books as soon as his team of readers resume the task of reading. His ruling party’s slogan “Free Beer” has raised eyebrows on the council of elders where eyebrow raising is thought to indicate official displeasure.

Among the books targeted for banning: Sara Gran’s Come Closer a tale that may have driven DCI Borchardt into the arms of Mrs. Chalfont-Smythe. Cornelia Read’s A Field of Darkness for revealing Mrs. Chalfont-Smythe’s recipe for lime jello salad. “I prefer shredded carrots,” she said. Patrick Quinlan’s Smoked wherein a late model Mercedes is heavily damaged in a car chase. “I was appalled,” said Borchardt. “That’s a Mercedes.”

The Dowager Princess enjoyed all three novels. She was stopped for exceeding the 15 mile per hour speed limit in the Costco parking lot. Her eight series Beemer was impounded until the matter of her regency is clarified. “Is she a princess or a bookmaker?” asked Jimmy Stones. Under the EU’s revised plan Italy would be divided into 345 kingdoms, duchies, burghs and principates to accomodate her accession to the throne of Bavaria. “She wants to annex Milan,” said an EU spokesperson. “All these speeding tickets don’t help,” noted Ventura county advocate J. Profumo. “This is a scandal.”

Now that the secret of book packaging has been revealed a franchise idea is born. Let’s convert dry cleaners into dry cleaning book writing emporiums. You drop your manuscript off and receive a ticket; instead of starch or no starch you may request any number of options from a menu.

Would you like us to lose your manuscript? Lose, shred, or subject your novel to extreme heat?

Are you the main character? If yes, we can design your platform, for instance, if you’ve written The Manchurian Candidate, we can arrange imprisonment and brainwashing in a Communist Chinese Prison. For a little extra cash, we can ship you to North Korea.

Is your book frothy? Froth is a dry cleaner’s worst nightmare. We can add or delete froth as desired but always within EPA guidelines.

Are you old enough to sign a contract? Your dry cleaner can act in loco parentis, provided, of course, that your parents are loco.

If you’re employed by the Central Intelligence Agency we can cleanse offending passages with Magic marker giving your manuscript the sort of authenticity everyone craves. Other bits of prose may be redacted by order of Chief Justice Anna Nicole Smith.

Don’t lose your ticket! Your manuscript will be made available to other customers and we are not liable if your story resembles someone else’s story or if the government of North Korea decides to keep you longer than anticipated. Always have clean clothes available in the event you are accused of plagiarism and must go on the Today Show.

Don’t make a scene if your book is not ready by Tuesday. We’re only human.