King of the Road

After sixteen months on the road, I’m still blogging and the songs just keep coming. This week I ran back across “King of the Road,” a 1964 hit by country artist and humorist Roger Miller. The song title is tongue in cheek. The man in the song is king of nothing, which sounds familiar to me in my mystical kingdom.

It is not much of a stretch to re-write the song lyrics to describe my own peregrinations…

I’m …boondocking on the road/I no longer have a fixed abode

No toilet, no shower stall/No inside plumbing at all

Ah but eight hours of drivin’ around/Gets me to a new state and town

I’m a man of means, by no means/Still on the road

In 16 months, we’ve driven over 44,000 miles, and I’ve beaten the poor minivan to death. The front panel is loose, and driving from DC to Indianapolis last week, I hit a piece of metal on the highway that knocked the driver’s side rear panel loose. I had to pull off the road, so it didn’t just fly away.

A piece of metal on the highway knocked the rear panel loose

The tread on the new set of tires I got last June up in Eureka, California is almost gone. I can’t get through the winter safely with this set of tires in the north where there is snow. So it looks like we will head back down south again. I’m in Indiana for a month to visit my mom before heading out.

I’m supposed to be writing my second book, Home Free, but I have to set aside a week a month to send out query letters to prospective literary agents. How do you write a query letter? You beg. You grovel. You pretend to worship the ground the agent walks on. You become utterly obsequious.

Me, trying to suck up to a literary agent

This past week, I learned a dirty little secret. Most of the literary agents now are women, possibly 75% of the total. There are literary agencies that are all women, and their authors are also women. The last I checked, I am not a woman, and at this stage in my life, I don’t expect I ever will be one.

Why are most agents women now? For one thing, women read a lot more books than men. I have seen estimates that women buy 70% of all the books that are sold. It makes sense that women authors would prefer to have women as agents. And women agents like to represent women.

Women read a lot more books than men do nowadays

All this is find and good until a male author–me for example—decides to look for an agent and learns that women founded and run most agencies which are staffed by women. My heart sank. The awful truth is that I write like a guy. I suspect that most women won’t like my writing. I can’t help it. I’m a guy and I’ve always been a guy. I think and act like a guy and also write like a guy. For guys.

This week I decided that my chances are better with male agents. The women are going to be hard for me to please. They expect elegant prose, good syntax, a killer plot, and good characters. Guys don’t expect all of that. They don’t have time for that. It’s almost time for the World Series.

Men aren’t reading much. What are they doing?

Even if I focus on male literary agents, I still have to convince one of them to represent my book. It’s not that hard to do. I just have to write a killer opening sentence that is simply irresistible. They have to believe that I’ve got the magic. They should feel electricity coursing through them when they read.

How many agents will I have to query? I’ve heard that the average is over 100 letters sent to find an agent. Given how much research I have to do about each agent before writing to them, I can only do three-four letters per day. Has the agent ever done an interview? What did he or she say to the press?

Today I found a 2015 interview with an agent. That’s eight years ago. It’s ancient history. However, to appear interested, I had to quote the interview and hope that the agent doesn’t mind. I feel like a stalker. In the interview, the agent mentioned that he once appeared at a reading wearing a leather miniskirt. I don’t know what to say about that. Should I pretend that I never saw the interview and had no idea?

One article I read said that the odds of finding an agent are 600 to 1. Apparently, I may need to kill 599 other writers to get to the front of the line. I feel bad about killing fellow authors, but what can I do?

The odds of finding an agent are estimated to be 600 to 1

Robert Pirsig, the author of one of the best-selling self-help books of all time, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, reported that he had to send out 121 query letters to find an agent.

One of the most popular books of all time

You can look at that two ways. One, he should have started with the 121st agent. It would have saved time. Or, you can imagine how the first 120 agents felt when his book became one of the best-selling books ever. I hate to admit that it would thrill me to no end to write a best seller so I can mock these snooty agents.

How can I be King of the Road if I can’t even get a literary agent to respond to my emails? They are in the driver’s seat, and I wish they’d relinquish it to me. But without them, I can’t get a traditional publisher.

Becoming an author, a musician, or any other type of artist is an exercise in the absurd, the surreal, and the futile. Waiting for Godot. I’m a character in a Salvador Dali painting and my brain is melting. Help!

Secret Agent Man