propositional calculus?

An old friend wrote with a familiar question:  I've written a book.  Should I just send it to a publisher, or is it smarter to send it to an agent?

Steve, times have changed radically from when I was sending out stories and book proposals.  We used to look in Writer's Market and check out the listings, and choose a publisher/editor more or less at random -- someone who does books you admire -- and shoot off the manuscript with a self-addressed stamped envelope to one of them.  Then when it came back, send it to the next one on the list.

Nowadays, people look at the agents' listings instead.  Agents publish lists of the writers they represent.  You look for an agent who does writers you like, and send your story or proposal off to him or her.

One thing apparently is the same:  an agent who's any good doesn't have lots of spare time to read manuscripts.  So it's best to write up a killer proposal, rather than send the whole book.

The supposition (which is only sometimes true) is that if you can write a wonderful proposal, you will write a wonderfuller book.

Of course it's really just a sales job, and the reality is that Hemingway or Joyce or Faulkner would probably be crap at writing a sales pitch.  But what does reality have to do with it? 

I have a book at home (we're on the road now) that is a compilation of query letters that worked.  Googling turns up a half-dozen possibilities.

The proposals I've done that worked were either short, a couple of paragraphs, or very long -- pages of detail.  So who knows?

(I think my most successful proposal was for Forever Free.  Five words:  "A sequel to The Forever War."  But first you have to write a best-seller.)

Good luck.