Q&A with Eric Ruben

I spend my time at RWA working on my inner drill sergeant. I'm normally soft spoken, and while there's no shame in having the voice of an auntie, over the years I've fallen into the habit of being an appointment caller at the agent/editor appointments. I have this thing about pulling order out of chaos.

If you've never been to the a/e's, picture hundreds of  introverts crammed into a space half the size of  McDonald's, all dressed up--scared--and ready to use serious Black Friday force against the person stupid enough to get between them and the person they know will buy their book.  Now crank up the volume, and load fifty people every eight minutes for three straight hours and make it echo. People leave the line to talk--talk gets louder, people wander, come in at the last minute, get mad when we give away their appointments, and get mad when they don't hear us. I'm cranked up loud enough to pulverize concrete and somebody staring me right in the mouth can't hear their appointment being called? I have no sympathy. Everything runs on a timetable right down to the second. There are stop watches, time clocks, enforcers--and me. The cat-herder.


I was calling for the third row--we always call the agent or editors names because they're the constant, and no one jumped up or made the little hand waving motion. So I put in a final call. "Eric Ruben! Eric Ruben--you're about to lose your appointment, Eric Ruben!" When all of a sudden it got very quiet and a man says, "I'm Eric Ruben."

Talk about red. My God, I couldn't open my mouth to save my life.  Luckily he had a sense of humor. Check him out this Saturday at RD when we do our spotlight on Eric Ruben.




Romance Divas presents "Spotlight on Literary Agent Eric Ruben"

WHEN: Saturday, August 6

WHERE: The Romance Divas forum

Join members of the award-winning romance writer's community in a Q&A session with Literary agent Eric Ruben

About the Agent

  

 
 
   
   
 

An attorney with more than 25 years of experience, Eric’s career as a performer appearing in major motion pictures, television commercials, national print advertising campaigns, and Off-Broadway theatre, gives him a unique perspective that benefits his clients. Eric went to high school with Suzanne Brockmann and was in music groups with her. They co-wrote country music and tried for Nashville. When that didn’t work out, Eric stayed a lawyer and, as a result of a goal-setting workshop he got her to do, she started writing Romance novels. Later, when brainstorming ideas for a series, Eric read an old Newsweek magazine with an article on Navy SEAL training. He called Suz and the rest is history. He ended up working as her business manager for many years, met lots of people in publishing, went on book tours across the country and attended many writer’s conferences and signings. Soon other authors wanted him to do for them what he did for Suz, so he decided to become an agent. Eric enjoys historical romance, paranormals and erotica. However, he is open to all genres including non-fiction and graphic novels. He does not represent inspirational.