Learned a lot during my four days there. The first thing was how to navigate the tunnels that connect the subways under Grand Central Station with the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The second was that query letters should be neither too long nor too revealing, but whet agents’ appetites. And finally, Jon Land and Laura Antrim taught us the fine art of condensing a 300 page thriller to 18 words, give or take a couple.

Conciseness was the soul of the Agentfest sessions. With 40 agents listening to 400 authors over 3 1/2 hours, each author had just one minute to pitch the concept of his or her novel. If the agent liked the idea, the author was allowed an additional two minutes to describe characters and plot. After three minutes another author replaced the first and the cycle began again. Aside from the time frame, authors adhered to one other rule: no following agents into the bathroom during their 15 minute break.

All three conference rooms became seething cauldrons of anxiety, tension, triumph, and disappointment.  Strategy was paramount; no one could hope to meet all of the agents. After careful research and winnowing, my list of candidates narrowed to eight agents who had sold books like mine in the past year. Of those, six asked for a cover letter, a synopsis, and first 50 pages. The other two said up front that they didn’t feel qualified to pitch the concept.

Exhausted yet satisfied with a .750 success rate, my final destination was the Hyatt bar. Over a tall schooner of beer, I determined which parts of my author bio proved most suitable to include in a one page cover letter.