CROSS-POLLINATING With Ross Cavins

We're cross-pollinating again.  Aint it grand?  I am very excited about sharing space with the indomitable and hot  Ross Cavins. 


Since I am in the throes of the query process -- which is bound to inevitably make you feel like a band geek with a braces trying to score with the Quarterback (um, FAIL) -- Ross's story is especially...  poignant. 
 

The Agent Who Laughed Himself To Death

by  Ross Cavins. 

Not many people know this but I had a literary agent for my book, "Follow The Money." This was only a few months ago, in June/July.

What happened, you may ask? After being turned down by God knows how many agents, I finally got one that didn't just want to see a partial manuscript, he asked for the entire thing, and why do I not have this agent now?

Not only did my agent have great taste in absurd humor literature, he was one of the few agents not looking for vampire bullshit Young Adult books. The man was in his seventies; he could care less for yet another stupid book about chasing zombies about YA novels.

You know what he wrote to me? He wrote, "Interesting story idea. I would like to read a sample. Please send the first fifty pages via email for my perusal. Thank you."

I peed myself was ecstatic! After changing my underwear, I sent him the first two stories of the book which, together, equaled around fifty pages.

Eleven days later, he replied, "I would like to read more because you are the most amazing author I have read since Elmore Leonard."

I had him snowed hooked. After probably twenty rejections or more not counting the lazy fucks who only wanted a gay teenage Dracula giving it to a blind wolfman who could only have sex at night, I had a real agent who wanted to possibly represent me.

It's almost an industry standard to not hear from an agent for a fucking eternity six months, but ... three weeks later, I received an official email from his agency.

It said, "[Agent Name] is no longer with the agency. blah blah blah blah"

Are you fucking kidding me? What?

So I thought, I'll just find him wherever he went and get up with him there. The agency doesn't mean as much as the agent himself, right?

I did an exhaustive online search looked at one site and found a post about my agent.

Turns out he died.

Fuck! Great! I find one agent out of a hundred that will return my emails loves me and he up and dies a few weeks after he receives my hilarious book.

One day, when I'm old and fat rich and famous, I'll look back at this, the beginning of my writing hobby career, and laugh about it.

I'll tell my grandchildren how, "I once wrote a book that when my agent read it, he laughed himself to death."

"And that's why I'm talking to you in my underwear the funniest man in the world."