Announcement

I'm thrilled to announce that I have signed with Sara Megibow at Megibow Literary Agency for representation of my debut novel, Spirit Walker Protocol, an Indigenous supernatural thriller.

Thank you so much to everyone who read the drafts and helped me flesh out the story. I'm happy to share this journey, and the culture woven through it, with all of you.

A little about how and why I got here.

I can't say I ever thought about being a writer. I read voraciously and have since probably middle school. When I read a book I see it as a movie in my head. That's why books have so easily captured me and I've been transported to a thousand worlds in a thousand stories.

As far as my debut story, I've had this in my head for a long time. The idea wouldn't leave me alone, so eventually, after I retired and moved to Japan, I thought, "I wonder if I could write this book." So one day I sat down and gave it a shot.

I find with my ADD, I hyperfocus and fixate. That's what I did with this until the story was out. Several drafts and re-reads later, I thought maybe I could let some friends read it.

So before I ever sent a single query letter (essentially a pitch letter to agents to see if they like it enough to represent you and sell the story as a professional book to publishers), I timidly handed my manuscript to a group of people who I knew would tell me the truth. Law enforcement and those who worked around it. People with real Indian Country experience. A lot of folks I came up with in BIA OJS. None of them was going to smile and say "great job" to protect my feelings. They would shoot me straight.

They did.

They said things like "dang, this is actually good" and "I didn't say I liked it. I said I love it." One compared it to books he'd only read twice in his life, all written by Stephen King and Ken Follett. A few of them teared up. More than one asked me, "are you Marcus?"

That's when I started to think maybe I had something.

Then came the part nobody warned me about. A full crash course, with the internet not always being the most reliable teacher.

I knew nothing about the publishing world. Nothing. I had to learn what a query letter even was. Then how to write one. Then what a synopsis was, why agents want them, and why they are somehow harder to write than the actual book. I learned what comp titles are, what word count expectations exist by genre, what a full manuscript request means versus a partial. I learned about QueryTracker and Publisher's Marketplace and response time windows and what "no response means no" actually feels like when you're on the receiving end of it.

I now know just enough to understand how little I actually know. Which, from what I can tell, is right on schedule.

So I sent 31 query letters. The first full manuscript request came back within hours. Then another the next morning. Then more. Mixed in with the silence, the form rejections, the agents who still haven't responded and probably never will. Every single one of those, the requests and the rejections alike, taught me something.

Four offers of representation came in. I took my time. I chose the person who I felt understood not just this book, but what I want my future as a writer to look like.

I still can't say that word about myself out loud yet. Writer. It feels borrowed.

It's been pretty surreal. I sometimes feel like I'm sitting in a rowboat and the oars are still on the shore. The current took me. I'm just along for the ride.

But here I am. And I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Thanks for following along.