Thrillers Are a Rare Species

I found ITW while doing research on the thriller genre, and joined two years before my first ThrillerFest. I live in Ecuador, where thrillers are a rare species, so I was surprised to find out that there was actually an organization dedicated to writers in the genre. I’m probably the only thriller-writer in Ecuador with 10 books—not all thrillers—under my belt. It’d always been my dream to publish in English—as I do some of my writing in this language—but circumstances had it that I ended up publishing in Germany and Ecuador. So one day back in 2011 I said to myself that it was time to make a serious effort to get myself commercially published in English.

In 2012, as I had enough miles to get to NY and back, I decided to make that first step. With only three chapters and a sense of “it’s now or never,” I singed up for ThrillerFest 2012, asked a friend to put me up in Queens, and went for it.

The concept of pitching to agents in a “speed-dating on steroids” scenario sounded off the rocker, still I prepared myself knowing full well that having only three chapters wouldn’t cut it. Nevertheless, as the business of writing for publication is an ultra-marathon—long time, long distance kind of affair—it wouldn’t hurt to scout it out.

Around ten out of fifteen agents asked for my sample chapters, but as I’d already suspected, nothing would come out of it on the first round. No finished novel, no deal.

On the other hand, being able to meet some many writers and enthusiasts, just becoming part of the milieu, was worth the trip. In fact, after so many years of working away from the publishing highway, it all felt like a breath of fresh air. With new wind in my sails, I decided right away to prepare for ThrillerFest 2013.

A year later I returned feeling slightly annoyed at the fact that, due to personal reasons—I was trying to get my own company on its feet—had left me with less time than I’d anticipated to finish and properly polish my manuscript. In any case, I had re-invented my pitch—adjusting it to the feedback I’d received from agents that had decided not to represent me but were kind enough to hint at what they thought would make it a better story.

As in the previous year, I had a list of around 20 agents that I’d divided in three groups—(AAA, AA, A), (BBB, BB, B) and (C)—having decided to concentrate on New York-based agents only. But it so happens that in the morning before AgentFest (now PitchFest) I crossed paths with Lisa Cerasoli, who was here with Ken Atchity—co-founder of Atchity Entertainment International—an Intellectual Property Management agency based in Hollywood.

I recognized Lisa Cerasoli because one of my Ecuadorian publishers had told they’d met her at a book fair, and considered her to be a good agent. Lisa and I exchanged words, then cards, and we parted with smiles and in the afternoon—during the pitch session—I saw Ken Atchity sitting alone for a moment and decided to approach him after all.

I pitched and Ken said to send him the first 50 pages. Yet, as AEI was on my C list (not working out of New York, and focusing mainly on the film production side of his business), I didn’t follow up on it. Besides, on their website it said that: “Currently AEI takes on only new representation clients with long-range strategic potential.”

Could I be seen as having “long range potential”? I’ve been writing for the past thirty years, yet was doubtful that someone with over 30 films under his belt, and a whole list of represented bestsellers, would be open to an unknown number from, of all places, Ecuador.

Then, on February 6, 2014, and out of the blue, I received an email from Lisa Cerasoli saying they were open for submission and that she would love to see something from me. We exchanged some emails and I finally sent her a full.

On the 9^th of March, I received another email from Lisa:

Then nothing. Silence. Not a word. A month passed. April went and we were in May. Then, suddenly, just when I was giving up on it, I received this on May the 4^th:

Patience indeed!

One of the definite traits novelists should have if they want to remain sane!

Yet another month went by and I began to wonder why they needed a second team of evaluators.

On June 11, Ken himself wrote an email that immediately got my heart pumping double-time:

But then, my heart almost stopped beating when Ken sent me another email on June 15 with the subject: “Homework” and a note saying:

It wasn’t this what gave me the chills. It was the attachment with the reader’s report, stating that the reader recommended a Pass.

Not just a pass, but a definite bloody NO!

Still, Ken wanted to Skype. I wondered why.

When we finally connected—he at sea level in LA, me sitting high up in the Andes—Ken asked me what I thought of the report.

I asked back why, after such a report, he was still interested in speaking to me.

Ken explained that he’d read the first fifty pages and that he’d liked them, and was so surprised at the strong negative response from his reader, that he decided to read the rest. He still had fifty pages to go—so he wasn’t going to make a decision just yet—but he felt that, if I managed to end the novel in a satisfying way, we should speak the following Tuesday to see what his decision would be.

That same Sunday night, though, he sent me another email saying: