Timothy Goodwin

Calling all legitimate agents that represent writers. Do you exist? Are you out there? Somewhere? After dozens of unanswered queries I begin to have my suspicions. Now this is not to step on your toes and belittle you if you do in fact exist, it simply means that life, karma, and/or serendipity, has not allowed us the opportunity to meet. Though I have expressed that Tor Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror has expressed an interest in my work, and though I have an audience 300+ strong that not only wants to see my work published by a legitimate publisher—so they can walk into a store and buy it off the shelf, but they would also be delighted to see my work made into a movie, motion-picture, or whatever the technical term for the Big Screen is these days. Those in my audience have professed that my work is more compelling than Stephen King (although I don’t necessarily believe this, and I’m sure that the King isn’t losing any sleep over the views of my audience), which also happen to be Stephen King fans. Others have told me that my work is also reminiscent of the Master of Horror, H.P. Lovecraft. So with all that supposedly going for me, I am a trifle confused as to why I have yet to find a legitimate agent to represent me.

You may ask me that if Tor expressed an interest in my work, then why haven’t I contacted them again. Well, I plan to. However I also know that waiting for a reply after submission takes about 6-8 months, and I was hoping that a legitimate agent representing me, could speed up the process a little.

But alas, it would seem that I cannot find a legitimate agent to answer my queries. Is it then true that you have to know someone that knows someone that knows someone that can hook you up with the proper person? Or…have I just been that unlucky digging through the wrong haystacks all this time as the case may be? I belong to several communities that supposedly could link me to an agent, while I have been trying the doors for little over a year now. Still, no luck.

I have on the other hand managed to attract the attention of some very nefarious scammers, and if you happen to be one don’t bother to contact me, because I will breach your scam, and make those that I associate with aware of your activities. As an advocate of justice I don’t appreciate having my time wasted by scammers, and appreciate it even less when I find out that innocents have fallen victim to scams.

Furthermore, as an advocate, I am also trying to assist other writers where and when I can, and I would certainly like to hook them up with a legitimate agency, as I’m sure that they grow tired of scams inasmuch as I have.

If anyone has any suggestions at this time—maybe you could point me in the direction of a haystack I haven’t yet tried—I’m certainly open to any and all advice that I might be able to share with others which are in a different boat but the same ocean as yours truly.

Currently I am not looking for self-publication at this time, nor am I yet considering e-publication—and print-on-demand is definitely out of the question, I’m still experiencing my seven-year nightmare with Publish America.
So, if there does in fact exist legitimate agents, if you are out there, I invite you to read my work, and judge for yourself if it has commercial value or not.

I have been writing for more than twenty years now—I wonder if even the King could have made it that long without publication, or if he would have thrown in the towel by now. If persistence alone was the key, I would be a very rich man. However the factor seems to strongly center on fortune; being in the right place at the right time. Or maybe…we have to threaten to toss our work in the trash, so that we can have a wife or significant other take it out and send it in for publication, so that we too could have twenty years of published novels and motion-pictures. I will tell you right now that, if I threw my work in the trash, that is where it would stay—there would be no divine-intervention turning me into a multimillionaire because I didn’t have the persistence to see my dreams through to the end. Oh—yeah, and I do have dreams too. Even ones that some might consider noble; like for instance having a chain of decent homeless shelters scattered throughout the nation that offer work-programs and the proper direction to break the cycle of homelessness.

On the other hand, having noble intentions doesn’t seem to see me any closer to my dream than it did twenty years ago.

I’ve been going at this alone with the winds of adversity and discouragement battering my boat as I sail the Seas of Times Reflections. Sometimes—often times wondering, why I had the dream of ever being a successful writer in the first place. Did I think it would be easy? After twenty years do I still think that it would be easy? And why then haven’t I given up? Am I just too stupid to realize that it just isn’t in the stars or the cards for me? Am I too stupid to realize that some dreams are never meant to be? If it comes to choosing between stagnation, and the possibility of making the world a little brighter—even with a little Darkness—then yeah, I guess I am too stupid to stop.

So, I guess that I will keep putting my little messages in bottles and tossing them out on the Seas, in the hope that some day, somewhere, some way, one will be picked up by the right person. I do this not only for myself, but for others that share the same Seas.

So, to all the legitimate agents that might be out there, this one is for you; you have met me, I’m dying now to meet you.

Warmest Regards,
T~