Can Recent Events help a Novel's Timliness?

[Charles]

Just this past Friday (3/9/12) militants in Gaza started firing rockets at Israel again. The thriller novel “The True Virus” uses the last war between Israel and Gaza which began in December of 2008 and had a cease fire at the end of January, 2009. My question for discussion is: “Is this resent conflict in Gaza timely enough to make this book relevant enough for an agent or publisher to take an interest in this novel?”

[Diane]

Based on agent blogs I've read--no. This is because the time from agent interest to book sale, production, and distribution can be 1 to 3 years.

In fact, I was recently corresponding with an editor at a major house who was potentially interested in buying my book. My book is called Black Oil, Red Blood. The editor actually encouraged me to skip further submissions and put it out myself because the BP oil spill trial was about to start, and her house wouldn't be able to get the book out in time to take advantage of the timing.

That said, there will probably be tension in the Middle East from now until the end of time, so in that sense, for your book. . . maybe?