Among the many clients and their manuscripts I represented, most were on the popular New Age and self-help subjects: dream interpretation, spirit voices, ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs, mystical awareness, alternative health, intuition, miracles, angels/Jesus/Mary, remote viewing and developing your psychic ability. I also agented conspiracy books. I became known for knowing all the newest hottest conspiracies.
The calls I took sometimes broke my heart. Calls from fearful voices telling me a story that I knew no one would ever publish even if it could be proven, stories from whistle-blowers who’d show up at the office, and I’d never hear from them again, scary stories of deception, of death and fear of knowing what he or she knew. It was a heavy burden on the person and on me listening to the stress and fear in their voices.
But not always. Sometimes the manuscript was published and things were better for it. Other times, everyone in publishing would want a crack at a manuscript and I’d set up an auction. And often, no one would show up for the auction. Finally, after a few of these experiences, I scheduled a lunch with a friendly editor and demanded to know what was going on. This young guy was an editor I had submitted these types of manuscripts to because he was really interested and wanted to find out the secrets. I never sold a manuscript to him. He was a good friend.
The editor hunkered down in the back of a dark restaurant in a quiet booth, scanned the area to make sure no one was there from his publishing house: “I love those manuscript you send me. I want to edit and publish them. You know that Sandra. These stories need to be told. But this is what happens: I get the okay from my boss. I call you to say I love the proposal or manuscript and want to make an offer. Later when you set up the auction, my offer has to move higher up the ladder for approval. Within hours I am told, cease and desist. Do not to participate in the auction.”
“It is always a taboo subject-the ones you send me that I want to publish. Government is involved in these subjects and they want to control the access to this type of information. Each publishing house has one editor who is government connected-a straight forward editor but always seems to take on these types of questionable subjects. He or she is the one who stops the sale. I am so sorry. We are powerless.”
He told me much more about how and why but I don’t think it is appropriate to divulge more that he confided to me here.
After that learning curve, as I am sure that was the lesson was for me, “don’t waste your time, money and contacts on pushing information that we don’t approve of going public” I became very discerning and tried to advise these authors on how to be safe and how to get the message out without losing everything or even losing their careers and/or life.
To counter the seriousness and heaviness of most of my career, here is a lighthearted story about a whistle blower.
She was calling from Boston, a scientist concerned about cell phones and brain tumors on the rise. This was when cell phones were getting smaller, more available and trending. The early 90s. Her research was documenting the rise of brain tumors that were aligned with the rise of sales of cell phones. She’d passed along the information to people that needed to know and thought that would take care of it. One of the, batteries, if I remember correctly, was emitting a tad of radiation and all that was needed to correct it was a heavier piece of metal to block those rays. The corporations didn’t want to do that because they felt it’d make the phone too heavy and they believed that their sales would drop. So they denied any problem and pushed her out. People getting brain tumors didn’t seem to bother them.
She said,” I understand that you are someone who knows how to get the message out and this needs to be said. I am a serious scientist and I believe that what I’ve found is harmful to the American public and they need to know about it.”
She was mainstream, well respected and a serious scientist with a serious concern. John Mack had given her my name. John Mack was conducting UFO and alien abduction research at Harvard University.
Umm. She was all about legitimacy.
She was coming to Manhattan the next day and could she stop by to see me.
Sure.
She came, all business and told me the whole story, left me her proposal, her impressive CV and said she’d be back next week to see what I thought.
I called John about her. “Yes. She is amazing and is fighting the good fight. A brave woman.”
Before she arrived for our lunch date, I asked everyone in my office to please not mention any of the strange and/or weird subjects and authors we represented while she we were meeting. I said this because when I asked how she got my name, she’d said this: John Mack is a great guy and has won Pulitzer Prize and is tenured and brilliant, but now that he is involved in this alien abduction trash, he is going to lose it all.
Oh.
I wanted to represent her. I believed her research needed to be out in the public. When she arrived at the office we zipped out to a nearby restaurant for lunch, talking about our contract, her understanding of how that would be handled through her university system and what needed to be done to protect her and her career.
She was ready to do it.
We walked into my office and the receptionist handed me my messages, (remember those pink message pads?) which I took and as we were talking towards my office the receptionist said: “Oh, I forgot, Courtney called and said this was very important and tell you immediately. They’ve sighted the mother-ship. It is behind the moon.”
I never heard from that smart lady scientist again.
Eventually those cell phone corporations did insert a heavier piece of metal to block those rays and the tumor rate has dropped just as she said it would.
Sandra Martin –