A long chat over the weekend has had me trawling the websites of literary agents this morning. A friend of mine has some interesting opinions on them…

http://www.stephenleather.com/index.php?page=getting-published

It doesn’t make for the most encouraging of reads. 

The weekend chat was with a bookshop owner about achieving the balance between creative writing and promotion. I have been doing a lot of the latter since the book first made it onto Kindle. The Wales national paper South Wales Argus was the first, then Police Oracle, Ministry of Defence Oracle and Soldier Magazine. I’ve been on Military Forum and am doing an interview soon with BFBS radio. 

Twitter has been marvellous and has put me in touch with many people who have read the book. Paperback sales are slow but the e-reader ones are very exciting. Not surprisingly, as my friend this week is a book seller, he wants people like me to get into print. 

So I have to decide. As an independent I am able to keep royalties without paying an agent or publisher (just the taxman!). But the 50Shades phenomenon is an example of what first class marketing can achieve and if the novel is to make as good a film as the reviewers seem to think then I would best be represented by someone who knows what they are doing. 

All I have to do is find a good one who I like and who likes me. What I need is match.com for writers, a plentyoffish site to bring authors and agents together. 

The search goes on…