Warner Brothers had just bought his fourth novel, "Bimini Run," a thriller set in the Caribbean, when he joined the fledgling C.I.A. in April 1949.

In 2010 Ann Godoff at Penguin Press bought Selasi's unfinished novel.

PERHAPS the 150 or so people who have bought Christine Schutt's first novel, "Florida," will agree that it may be the year's best book.

At a bar that evening, she runs into a woman who has bought her novel from a secondhand book bin but kept only the cover.

Now Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, has bought Ms. Stringer's second novel, "Imagine This," a sequel to her first.

Things improved, though, after Pocket Books bought his next novel, "Shampoo Planet," and "Generation X" sales picked up.

In summary, an agent is invaluable once a publisher has offered to buy your novel.

The line editor-often the editor who bought your novel in the first place-has the task of making your story as good as it can be.

Dial has also bought Ms. Tinti's first novel, tentatively titled "Resurrection Men," about a gang of grave robbers.

She bought her first novel in a year and a half, and read it in two days while lying on the small bed under the gentle rush from the ceiling fan.