This post is about agents. About Elvis. About a tasteless Netflix show called Agent Elvis.
One and done on Netflix and for good reason.
Let’s start with the agent part. Specifically, literary agents.
Agent
Admittedly, I’m a novice at all this author stuff. Until last spring I’d never submitted a novel for consideration to literary agents.
For those of you who don’t know the ins and outs, if you want to be published by one of the big publishing companies, you need an agent to represent you. Just one of the many rules of this “there are no rules” business.
Armed with a concise “pitch” for my book, which you can see more or less on the home page, and with a synopsis and other required elements, I’ve been querying agents in the U.S. and U.K.
It’s not for the faint of heart.
Look, I used to work in television news. That’s a rejection factory. I mean, looking for a job in that field is strictly for masochists. Which is all to say, I’m used to rejection. I get it. You suffer the slings and arrows of a hundred or a thousand no’s in order to get to a single “yes.”
But with a novel submission you’re pouring out your heart and soul and getting scads of very impersonal (but polite) no’s. And not a lick of feedback.
Strike that. A few months ago I did get one very nice agent tell me she was a “softie” for projects involving Elvis, but she wasn’t the right person to champion the book.
Thank you, one agent!
Elvis
Hey, I’m biased, but I think there’s something unique and very special in Last Bridge to Memphis. I also realize it’s not going to be most agents’ cup of tea. Maybe it’s not necessarily book club material, or women’s fiction, or particularly focused on representation. These are the types of books at the top of most agents’ wish lists. So there’s that.
But there is an audience.
There’s an appealing nostalgia and an Elvis connection that I think his millions of fans will resonate with. And there are MILLIONS. The audience for a book like mine is manifest: according to Google, the 1980s are the most searched decade. Spotify reports that Elvis Presley has 1.1 billion streams. 2022-2023 saw two major-Elvis-themed Hollywood films.
So, yes, lots of Elvis out there. I’ve been reaching out to some U.K. agents because the British really seem to get it. There’s a huge Direct from Graceland event at London Bridge, and this Elvis Evolution show coming to the U.K. this year.
Not bad for an 89-year-old icon.
Agent Elvis
Well, some bad. Take the one-season-and-done abomination called Agent Elvis. Presley’s ex-wife is billed as the creator of this thing, and the only reaction that comes to mind is, “Cilla, what were you thinking?”
If preserving the legacy of Elvis Presley involves a perverted, drug snorting chimp; profanity-laced scatological humor; and graphic, if animated, R-rated violence (and I’d argue the overall content goes beyond R); then we’ve really fallen way down. Blessedly, there will not be a season two.
Later on, I’ll tell you what else about Netflix irks me, but they do have the Elvis movie currently streaming (a film that at least strives to tell a true-if not totally accurate-story of a man’s life), so it’s not all bad.
And that’s how I feel about rejections. Agents, keep ’em coming.
It will all be bad. Until it isn’t.