Now it's my turn: Finding an agent

This is an exciting time, and an educational one. I spent 55 consecutive hours last weekend at the Starbucks next to Lincoln Center, completing a 23-page book proposal for "Trees and Numbers." The exception during that time was sleep and the Healthy Kidney 10K (1:02, well off PR) on Saturday morning at Central Park. I recently described the completion of a 5-year, 3-month journey in finishing my book manuscript, and now the book proposal is done as well so this week has been about setting out in search of the perfect literary agent. I am trying to educate myself as much as possible, and I greatly appreciate the ones who make use of their websites to be helpful in that regard. Having just read the fine blog from the Dystel & Goderich Literary Agency, I feel like any agent that does not have a blog is really falling short. It is made for this. So far I have been mainly networking through my infinite contacts after three decades in media/management, and that includes one friend who forwarded my proposal to his former colleagues at a literary agency. I cold-emailed one last night, I will distribute another tonight, and then on Thursday I plan to deliver a few in person (yes, with SASE) and I am being introduced to a very big-name agent whose sibling is a very big-name publisher. My intention is not to blanket the entire field of agents, but to target at least a dozen that are in my bullseye area and I in theirs. I have worked my ass off on this book as I will on the coming manuscripts in this franchise, and I am not about to underachieve in any way in terms of contract terms or the effort to make a worldwide difference. It is about finding someone who believes in me the way everyone else has whenever I have given my elevator speech for "Trees and Numbers."

If you are a literary agent and interested in representing one of the most-read writers on the Internet -- my articles are regularly read by many millions of fans worldwide on the MLB.com homepage -- then please contact me at marknewmanmlb@yahoo.com. I do not expect this to happen and will be on the offensive, but you never know. I think I've got a name and I've got the game working for me. It's time to keep dancing across marathon finish lines.