The Agent Hunter

The book is out to be reviewed by an individual who will be my fiercest critic - my daughter. She also happens to represent my target market, i.e. someone who loves reading, particularly literary fiction, which I define as a book that requires the reader to engage intellectually with the content one way or another.

It has already passed one critic, who approved it with minor revisions. Once through my daughter's hands, it will be passed to a friend, who taught English for years, primarily for him to scrutinise my punctuation and grammar.

I have found it difficult to settle on the genre of my book. I have been told magic realism might be it from those who have some inkling of the plot. Reviewer number three will know.

In the meantime, I have started the hunt for an agent. I spent an hour in the library going through the The Writer's Handbook, made a long list and checked them out on the internet.

The latter was an interesting exercise; one agent who I liked the sound of had a site which was up and running except for the list of authors they represented - it was still 'under construction' (it would be one of the first pages I would construct were I they). Another hadn't updated their site since 2007. Another just had a single home page stating they were literary agents. And one I really warmed to has no web presence.

Given the importance of network marketing these days, it is a concern.