Punch It, Chewie!

We're out of Carbon Freeze!

Well, here’s an entry I wasn’t sure was ever going to get written.  Today I am an agented author.  That’s right, a real human being, with experience at selling books to publishers, nay, an actual career doing so, has said, “Yes, I will spend my time championing what you wrote.  I will speak in its favor and put it in front of people who can mass produce it and sell it to other human people.”

I have a literary agent.  Or she has me.  We’re still working out the dynamics.  To the uninitiated, this means what I said above but it doesn’t mean other things.  I am not a published author.  I do not have a published book.  What I have is a partnership with one of the gatekeepers.  A professional in the industry who acts as a vital go-between for authors and publishers.  And there are a lot of authors and a relatively small number of publishers.  Agents are queried every year by thousands of authors and only a handful of those submissions result in an offer of representation.  Having an agent is a critical step and one that took many years to accomplish, much longer than it did to write several books.

So it’s hard to overstate or understate the momentous occasion signing up with a literary agent is for an aspiring author.  My moment was today.  I’m super grateful Laura Zats of Red Sofa Literary saw something in my manuscript worth going to bat for.  There will be many more hours spent honing the story and, with any luck, countless hours more working with a publisher doing the same thing once it’s picked up.

I look forward to sharing the story of my journey to this point on this blog over the next several months and even more in sharing the journey that still lies ahead.  Thanks for tuning in.  I hope to make this blog informative to those interested in writing and entertaining to those who just love to read.  Truly, I hope to be entertaining to all, even the illiterate.  I will endeavor to post amusing pictures at regular intervals; I’m not above pandering. 

If you know someone interested in the process of getting published, point them my way.  I’ll also be updating on twitter @shawnpkeenan, so go follow me there as well (Follow me?  I sound like a cult leader).

Anyway, more to come soon. 

I think things are about to get interesting.