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      Chip MacGregor

      When he was in first grade, Chip hurried home one day and announced to his mother, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a book guy!” He clearly could see the future —from high school literary magazine editor to writing bestselling books, from speaking at writing and publishing conferences to representing renowned writers, Chip MacGregor is a book guy.

      January 6, 2012

      The Dark Files

      by

      Tim wrote to ask, "So what's the worst stuff you've been sent this past week?"

      1. A guy sent me a proposal this week detailing how we can reduce the instances of sexual abuse and the problems caused by adultery in our culture. His solution? Voluntary castration. No, I'm not kidding. Huge appeal in THAT idea. Though I suppose it would, um, trim the problem. (Sorry.) A very circumspect idea, don't you think? 

      2. A woman sent me a very brief query to tell me she has written a 20,000-word memoir (that alone gets me all excited — just think of all those popular 80-page books you've been buying) about "the times I brought drugs to school." Very uplifting.

      3. One poet (YES! A POET!) sent me a book of "poems about anti-terrorism." Really. And it's only 607 pages long. REALLY. 

      4. One proposal began by warning me that "the next 27 pages  will forever change your thoughts on reality as it truly is, either now, or when it’s too late; and that is because the beginning of the end has arrived for all civilization." Amazingly, my thoughts weren't changed after reading his work. 

      5. One gent sent me a query that's in ALL CAPS (a sure sign an author's brain cells are running low) to ask, "ARE YOU A REAL AGENT? A REAL AGENT DOESN'T TURN DOWN ANYONE AND IF YOU ARE YOU CAN GET ME THE BOOK DEAL I WANT." Great. An expert. Nothing like a man who knows his own mind. Or what's left of it.

      6. Here is the opening sentence from one fabulous project I received this week: "The time has come for us all as human beings to closely examine ourselves through only the words of God without the opposite words of man that only distort absolute truth concerning all of humanity." I'm sure he's deep. I still have NO idea what he just said. 

      7. One more, taken from a novel pitch: "In the tradition of the movie Left Behind with McCauley Caulkin where a boy is left to fend for himself…" Um… It's "Culkin." And that wasn't "Left Behind," that was "Home Aone." And that was a movie that was intentionally funny, whereas the "Left Behind" movie was just stupendously bad, and therefore funny. (I was working at the agency that represented it, and we got an advanced showing. I still remember standing up, turning to one of my co-workers, and saying, "I must have hair all over me, because that movie is such a dog it sheds." Kirk Cameron can NOT act.) Aside from the fact this author doesn't know what he's talking about, I'll bet the idea is a real winner.

      8. And my favorite: "The proposal you are about to read is GUARANTEED to sell a billion copies…" No kidding. A billion copies. I'm about to wet my pants in excitement. (Yawn…)

      Always nice to occasionally share stuff from the Dark Files…  My thanks to Shannon Potelicki, who is doing some work for us now, and who helped pull together some of these weiners — I mean, "winners." 

       

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