Whipped Cream Difficulties

Mark Davis is a writer in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Mark Davis wrote a book about a writer who gets discouraged over his rejections.

So he finds an uber-successful agent, kidnaps her daughter, and gives her 90 days to get his latest novel in print.

That’s not a bad sounding plot. But Mark Davis decided to take things one step further.

…Davis staged and filmed a kidnapping (“I checked with a lawyer first to make sure I wouldn’t get in trouble”) to post on the website, then sent an e-mail to a wide variety of agents. It began: “By the time you receive this, I will have already kidnapped your child.”

“The first phone call I received the next day was at 7:30 in the morning, from an agent,” Davis recalled. “She was yelling at me, saying, ‘Are you crazy?’”

Yeah, I’m going to say the answer to that question is, “Hell, yes!” Either that, or Mr. Davis put on the Bad Idea Jeans that morning. I’m boggled at the fact that a lawyer apparently told him this was legal, or even a good idea.

Apparently, this strategy actually worked, for definitions of  “worked” that include “finding a publisher” (Poinsettia Publications, according to the article; the book is available in their online store) but there’s no mention that Mr. Davis has actually secured an agent. Frankly, if I were a literary agent who’d read about this stunt, or received one of those letters, my first reactions would involve a restraining order against Mr. Davis and press-checking my .45.

(Hattip on this: I picked up the story by way of Marko Kloos on the Twitter.)