Getting a Literary Agent

I am now ready to talk about how I switched trade publishers, so that now I have a two-book contract with Simon & Schuster, after being with Harper for some thirteen years.   As I mentioned in a previous note, I had a particularly close and productive relationship with my editor at Harper, Roger.   A couple of years ago, when I was just starting to work on the book that just came out (Jesus Before the Gospels), Roger called me and left a message that he had some bad news and needed to talk with me.  I thought that it was either a serious health issue or a career change.  Luckily it was the latter.  But I didn’t feel lucky!  He had been my editor!! He had decided to leave Harper, stop editing books, and become a literary agent.   Big bummer for me. I had never used a literary agent before, and was not really interested in doing so now (at the time he didn’t ask me to).   My reasons were pretty straightforward.   Agents typically charge [...]