Agent: Larry Weissman
My agent is Larry Weissman (and not the actor Larry Weissman), a Brooklyn-based independent agent who has had a lot of success with his focus on non-fiction books by young journalists. This profile by Philadelphia Weekly two years ago talks about his earlier sales, and Mediabistro also explains how to pitch him. His wife, Sascha, is a very important part of their partnership. I was guided to Larry by word of mouth from Sasha Issenberg (who went to high school with someone that worked on my school paper and had just sold his book on sushi and globalization), and Liz Nagle, an editor at Little Brown who knew he had a lot of success with books and food. He is very good at knowing how to write a proposal that will appeal to the house (as opposed to just the editor). For example, making sure you get your best stuff in the summary since that is the part that everyone reads, he emphasized. Also, one of the reasons I went with Larry is I liked the fact that he txtmsged.
Here is a list of Larry’s recent deals that were announced on Publishers Marketplace as of 2007 (when I put this page up)