Read Get a Literary Agent: The Complete Guide to Securing Representation for Your Work Online
Authors: Chuck Sambuchino
“If you are unable to tell me what it is you’re writing (and do not say you ‘really can’t’ because ‘it has never been done before,’ because every time an author says that, a kitten explodes), then how am I going to frame it and sell it? There are of course subgenres within genres, but an author straddling too many genres is akin to Sharktobear lurching out of the ocean, growling and biting and thrashing its eight arms hither and thither. And no one wants to approach that—not an agent, not a publisher, and not Greenpeace.”
—Barbara Poelle (Irene Goodman Literary Agency)
If you were looking for an electrician to repair your house, you’d turn to the Yellow Pages and Google. Well, finding literary agents isn’t much different. You’ll use print resources as well as the Internet in your quest. By this point, you now understand what you’re writing (the genre or category term) and can therefore spot agents who are looking for what you’re writing.
Concerning print resources (and naturally, as the editor, I’m biased), seek out the most recent edition of the
Guide to Literary Agents
, a huge print directory of agents that comes out every year. It’s the biggest book database of agents available in print. And if you have the latest
GLA
and want more, here are other resources to consider.
If you imagine that all literary agents live and work in New York City, you wouldn’t be far from the truth. About 75 percent of them work in the greater NYC metropolitan area. So does that mean agents outside of The Big Apple don’t have the skill, clout, and connections to be effective?
No, not at all. Plenty of agents operate in other parts of the country. You can find many in Washington, DC, the Colorado area, and up and down the West Coast. The simple truth is that an agent’s location doesn’t matter. All that matters is that editors pick up the phone when she calls.
You can judge the capability of a Texas agent the same way as you judge the capability of a New York agent. Examine her background; make sure she has some sort of publishing experience—such as editorial experience or apprenticeship as an agent—and see if she’s currently selling books. The last one is key. If she’s selling books to legitimate, quality publishers, then her skill is tested and approved. You can see what books an agent has sold by looking at her website or checking
Publishersmarketplace.com
.
That said, it’s not quite this simple when dealing with agents based in other countries—specifically the United Kingdom and Canada. If you’re based in the United States, you should query U.S. agents. If you’re based in the United Kingdom, you should query U.K. agents first and U.S. agents second. If you’re based in Canada, you should query both Canadian and American agents.
Beyond these basic resources, try some simple social media, and you’ll be amazed at what turns up. If you get on Twitter and start following several literary agents, the site will begin suggesting other agents for you to follow. You’ll quickly find hundreds of them on the site—and you can examine each to determine whether she’s a potential match for your work. At some point, you’ll find yourself on message boards or other websites—such as
Querytracker.com
or
Guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog
—where agent news and updates are passed around. These sites are excellent resources for finding potential matches.
Scour high and low, and start composing a grand list—but that’s just the first step. Once you’ve created your initial list of target agents, it’s time to do a little (or a lot of) research on each agent. Do some intelligence gathering on Twitter. Read her blog. Scan interviews she’s done. Check her official agency website. All of this research will likely illuminate many interesting personal and professional tidbits that will help with your submission.
Consider these hypothetical examples.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:
While some agents are indeed open to “any fiction,” the truth is that the fiction genre spectrum—as well as the nonfiction category spectrum—is vast, and her passions likely lie in
some
specific areas here and there. These favorite novels all fit a certain mold, and the agent is showing you the type of novel she truly loves. If your novel shares some aspects of her favorites, that means she’s a great fit for your book.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:
It means you shouldn’t query her right now, naturally. If you didn’t check her Twitter, you would have submitted to a black hole and received no reply, likely equating it with a rejection when it wasn’t. Keep checking her Twitter feed until she announces that she is open to submissions again.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:
She likely doesn’t actively seek new clients. Most agents are game for an interview or happy to attend a local writers conference. But some agents don’t do basic outreach such as that, and they may not even have a website or a submissions e-mail you can find online. This almost certainly means that they are so established with their existing clients and referrals that they do not accept unsolicited queries from writers.
Or: At a writers conference, an agent on a panel wonders aloud why no one has pitched her a book about old drive-in movie theaters.
Or: On her blog about agenting and publishing, an agent has a “wish list” where she lists the exact types of stories she wishes she could find in the slush pile—such as “an Indiana Jones adventure with a teenage female protagonist.”
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:
These are great examples of
agent specificity
. Lots of times, agents make public their genres and categories of interest without much explanation or fanfare. In interviews online or on their blogs, agents have more room to get specific and tell you more. This is important, because while an agent may seem like a loose match, a closer look may reveal that while she represents mystery, she gravitates away from the subgenre of mystery you’re writing. Remember that individual agents don’t always have the easiest time updating their info on different websites or even possibly their own agency website (if they are one agent of many), so it’s important to check out a variety of sources to dig deeper.
While your list will be ever growing and evolving, at some point you should feel comfortable with your list of potential reps and the research you’ve done on them, and you can query them with confidence. All your research has provided you with valuable “connection” lines that help you personalize each query and validate your reason for contacting that agent. You know which agents have put out a call for exactly what you’re writing versus which agents aren’t specific but may be seeking what you write. You have your list, and the list is likely broken down into tiers.
Now it’s time to start querying. And don’t worry—we have several chapters and oodles of Q&A coming up on how to query effectively. But there’s one question that comes up even before the finer points of writing a query: “If I do have a small list of ‘ideal agents,’ is it wise to query them all at once?” This decision is up to you. If you truly feel like your manuscript and query have been polished and battle-tested by independent editors, then you have nothing to fear. Query all your ideal agents at once. On the other hand, if you’re not sure, then it’s probably wise
not
to query your handful of ideal agents at the same time—because your work may have a flaw that will need to be fixed in the middle of the submission process.
If you can’t make up your mind about a new agent who offers you representation, use your phone call with them to ask questions (see
chapter thirteen
) and make a final decision. If she works within a larger agency, she can rely on fellow agents to provide contacts, suggestions, and guidance. Says agent Katharine Sands of the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency: “An agent with little or no sales who has been an assistant at a leading agency will have just as much clout getting to an editor perhaps as an established agent, at least initially. One of the things I always advise writers to do is to ask an interested agent—that is, one who’s made an offer of representation—‘Why do you want to be my agent?’ They will then hear a very clear thumbnail sketch of how that agent will sound agenting.”
Although the process of following submission guidelines and writing a query letter is tedious and sometimes frustrating, it is, statistically speaking, the number one way to get an agent to sign with you. Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary Agency once surveyed more than two hundred published authors and asked them how they came to sign with their agent, and more than 60 percent explained that it was a cold query through the slush pile.
That said, a query letter is not the sole way to get your work in front of agents. There are four other acceptable routes you can use. In fact, a certain percentage of agents in publishing actually close themselves off to cold queries altogether and only accept submissions through the “side door” methods listed below—so review them closely. Please note that even if you take one of these alternative methods to get your work read, the agent may ask you to send a query when you send your manuscript, so a good letter is still of the utmost importance.
Don’t believe me? Take Tamar Rydzinski of the Laura Dail Literary Agency. She judged a previous installment of the “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest on my
Guide to Literary Agents
blog. It was a free contest where people submitted the first page of their unpublished young adult novel. Her top three winners won an agent critique from her. Tamar was so impressed by one winner that she asked to see the full novel. Soon after, Tamar offered representation to the writer and sold the writer’s novels in a two-book deal.
So whenever you see an agent-judged contest—especially if it’s free—jump in and see what happens! You could win a critique and even find your agent match.
To give you another example, Writer’s Digest runs instructional webinars each week, usually with an agent instructor. Typically each attendee gets a critique from the agent to help make his or her work better. As with the contests, if the agent really likes what she sees, she’ll request more. So far, at least five agents have signed clients after reading their work as part of a Writer’s Digest webinar.
A referral is when an agented writer passes your work to his agent with a stamp of approval. Referrals are often read soon after they arrive—pushed nearer the top of the agent’s to-do list. If one of the agent’s authors is giving this new writer a thumbs-up, the agent will likely take a longer look at his work, going beyond what she would do for an average submission. I’ve heard multiple agents say something along the lines of “Good writers travel in packs,” so referrals make the agent’s job easier—that helps you avoid the slush pile.
So seek out referrals from any individuals you feel comfortable asking. Let’s say that you join a local writing group and a few of the writers there already have agents and published books. Perhaps one of those writers agrees to critique your novel or proposal. If he really enjoys it, he may offer to submit it to his agent. If the fellow writer’s response is positive but he doesn’t offer a referral, you can gently ask for one, provided you feel like you’re not overstepping any bounds. The worst the writer can say is no.
I found my own literary agent at a conference. I speak at about ten writing events per year, and beyond simply finding an agent, I believe conferences are a great opportunity to immerse oneself in the business side of publishing. You meet editors; you make writing friends for life; you get instruction; your creativity is refreshed; you find inspiration from others who have succeeded. But perhaps most of all, you get the chance to meet agents in person, look them in the eye, and talk to them about your book.