I have written two books, three short stories, an epic poem for my daughter about her favourite toy and a few other odds and ends, not to mention some postings on this blog.
Maybe I'm being too reserved and self-deprecating but I have never claimed to be writing great literature. However I truly believe that my writing is no worse than a lot of stuff that does get published and considerably better than most of it.
But I can't write a synopsis.
I never said I could. I never said I wanted to. A synopsis is something you put together to sell a book and, for better of for worse, I am not good at selling. That's why I want an agent, except that an agent wants to read a synopsis and, well, if I could write one of them I'd have more of an idea how to sell my work and so wouldn't have such a need for an agent.
Ah, you say, but writing a synopsis is a form of writing so you should be able to have a crack at it and make a half-decent attempt. This is fatuous reasoning, like choosing your 100m sprinters based on who the best tap-dancers are on the grounds that they both involve waggling legs around a lot.
So, to all the agents out there (not) reading this blog, on behalf of authors the world over, stop reading synopses. Read the first page of the BOOK. If that's good, read the next one. If you get to the end of the sample, ask for the rest of it. And if you get to the end of the book and like it then take on the author as a client and sell that book for squillions of pounds. What's the synopsis for again?
