The Undead Plague

For those of you that have ever begun the search for a literary agent, I'm sure that you folks will know exactly what I mean when I say that it can be a long drawn-out process.

The average turnaround time on a query letter seems to be in the realm of three to four weeks.  Some of the agents require even longer than that to get back to a writer.  I'm usually a very patient person, but I'll admit to checking my email every ten seconds (slight exaggeration, obviously) to see if there's been a response.

There actually have been a few.  Most of them were rejections, one of which was a rejection but with a personally written note (form letters are the devil, I tell you, the devil!) saying that while she was passing on it due to workload, she felt that the story was very strong and a great deviation from a genre that has gone somewhat stale.  She also mentioned that once I found an agent that was able to take on such a specialized style of book, she had no doubt that it would be picked up by a publisher.  So while I was disappointed not to have the actual representation, I thought that was a rather nice boost in the confidence department.

Some people have asked why I don't just self-publish Zombies by the Numbers.  It's rather simple, really: while I'm willing to market the pants off of the book, I want the guidance that an agent can provide.  They're the professionals, after all, not me.  I'm just a guy that enjoys long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, and writing about serial killers and zombies.

For those that have asked, the followup to Zombies by the Numbers, called The Word of Mitch, is coming along well.  If I'm being honest with myself it's a much more difficult writing experience, but I'm also finding it even more rewarding than the first book.  There are some sample chapters up on http://thewordofmitch.blogspot.com if you haven't checked them out yet.

The third book in the Undead Plague series is already being mapped out as well.  For those that haven't heard me rant about it yet, it's going to be the first "serious" book in the series.  It's based around a group dynamic as opposed to the individual perspectives shown in the first two books, so if you're looking for something more action-oriented or something with more depth (although I'd argue that both James and Mitch are characters with a lot of depth, so who knows) this is probably the one for you. 

This isn't to say that the dark humor books are going away.  I assure you that they are not.  I just wanted one thread in the tapestry that is the Undead Plague series to have a more serious tone.  After all, there are quite a few survivors out there, they can't all be happy the end is near!