When outside the box thinking pays off

At the Toronto Bouchercon, some of you may remember an ad in the accompanying handbook that read something like this:

!!!LIMITED TIME OFFER!!!

The first 500 literary agents

who answer this ad will get a copy of my manuscript, absolutely free.

No risk, money-back guarantee. Don’t settle for cheap imitations. Get

yours today!

There were a few folks — myself included — who wondered why someone would be so desperate enough to resort to such measures. Fortunately, there were several agents who weren’t as irony-impaired as I was and requested the full manuscript. One of them, Denise Marcil, offered him representation and signed him up.

And not even a year later, the man behind this unorthodox agent-getting scheme has himself a book deal:

Journalist Sean Chercover’s BIG CITY, BAD BLOOD, featuring a Chicago PI

who takes a bodyguard gig for a Hollywood location manager who sees a

crime he shouldn’t have witnessed, to Lyssa Keusch at Avon, in a

two-book deal, by Denise Marcil at Denise Marcil Literary Agency.

Huge congratulations to Sean — and this is one book I’ll be on the lookout for in early 2007.