Tag Archives: David Bowie

I once told a literary agent that he was a rock star (he wasn’t)* and just the other day on her blog a writer called Betsy Lerner (who is a really fab literary agent, author and blogger)* a rock star, too. Now, as someone who is (hopefully)* on a trajectory to being an agent but who has never wanted to be a rock star, I asked myself, “Why do writers think agents are rock stars?”

Let’s look at the two species:

Rock stars — make music; go on tour; trash hotel rooms; wear crazy clothing or leather stuff; have their pictures in the trash mags; drink too much; marry models or Europeans or European models or are British; do heavy drugs; either OD, go to rehab or just hang around looking all skanky; write autobiographies about being rock stars, etc…

Literary agents — read manuscripts; negotiate deals; have coffee; read more manuscripts; edit manuscripts; drown in queries; drink too much; go to writing conferences; lurk on Twitter; do lunch; chase down royalty checks;  hang out in bookstores and fraternize with librarians, read more manuscripts, etc…

So, besides the cocktails, what do these two things have in common? I don’t get it.

(I might be lying about not wanting to be a rock star. Once, way back in the ’80s, I cut my hair just like David Bowie.)*

*WTF is with all the freakin’ parenthetical comments?! I’m annoying myself.