Hello, writers. Anyone else planning to do
NaNoWriMo? So far our list of who’s going to try for 50k words in November consists of:
jabney
and
maybe Mnemosyne
It’s been a couple years since we last discussed getting an agent. In fact, the last time I wrote a diary about agents, I had never had one. I’m now on my second agent. And the publishing scene has changed a bit, too. I’d say the windows for unagented writers at the big publishers are getting smaller.
There are still editors at major publishers who will read unagented manuscripts. Go to the webpage of any publisher that publishes your kind of book and click on “submissions” to find out their policy.
If you’re shooting for a smaller publisher, such as an academic publisher, an educational publisher, or one of the (royalty-paying) independent publishers, you probably don’t need an agent, and the market may not pay enough to attract one anyway.
I do not know what the story is on comic books—several Write On! regulars have mentioned that that’s their area of writing interest.
Anyway, below are some hopefully useful resources for finding an agent. If you’re not at that stage yet, perhaps you’d like to bookmark this diary for future ref. If you’re not interested in the topic at all, just scroll on down to tonight’s challenge.
Advantages of having an agent
1. Simultaneous submissions. Almost all publishers frown on simultaneous submissions by authors. An agent, however, can submit your manuscript to as many publishers as she thinks are interested. This saves a ton of time. It can also lead to…
2. Auctions. With an agent, you can get more than one publisher interested in your book. This is pleasant.
3. Market knowledge. Good agents know the tastes of individual editors and often what they’re looking for at the moment.
4. Money. Even without an auction, an agent can often get more money for you than you can get for yourself.
5. Contracts. When I sold my first book, the contract was two pages long. The last contract I signed was 17 pages. They’re getting more complex. Good agents know a lot about contracts.
6. Overseas sales. Good agents have contacts with agents and publishers in other countries.
Disadvantages of having an agent
1. Your submission is in the agent’s hands. That means it’s out of your hands, and it’s up to her to submit it. You can’t just send it wherever you want anymore.
2. The agent may insist on changes in the manuscript before she’ll submit it, and you may not agree with the changes she wants.
3. You have to pay her 15% of whatever you get. But see 2. and 4. above.
Where to find an agent
I’m going to give you actual web addresses because we’ve had some trouble with bad links in the past:
http://agentquery.com/ provides a searchable database of agents. No membership required. Doublecheck the info against each agent’s webpage, because some of it may be out of date.
http://querytracker.net/ also has a searchable database. No membership required to search, but some site features require a membership.
Querytracker also lists authors and who represents them (info may not be current), and lists the 10 most queried, most rejecting, most nonresponsive and most accepting agents.
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/ and then “search members” will enable you to find data on a particular agent.
Make a list of the agents who sound copacetic to you and who rep your kind of book. Look for online interviews of the agents, and check out their websites. Take notes on anything that especially interests you about an agent (eg she sold one of your all-time favorite books or her description of what she likes is exactly what you write). Put a star next to those whom you’d most like to have represent you.
Where not to find an agent
Avoid companies that, for a fee, promise to send your query to X number of agents. This will result in X number of automatic rejections. Agents hate these things.
Agents you don’t want
-Any agent who asks you for money upfront. Real agents get paid when they sell your manuscript.
-Any agent who has a “special relationship” with a particular publisher. (It’s usually a publisher you’ve never heard of.)
-Agents who suggest you avail yourself of a freelance editor whom they recommend.
-Agents who contact you out of the blue, unless they specifically state it’s because of something you published that they read.
How to query agents
Most agents accept e-queries, which saves trees and a bundle. Many have particular rules for what they want included in the query (sample pages, sample chapters, nothing) and some have rules for what they actually want the query to say (eg some want an author bio). Check their individual websites for this.
Some good resources on how to write a query letter are:
http://queryshark.blogspot.com/ (site has over 200 query letters critiqued by an agent)
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/...
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/...
http://openquery.blogspot.com/ (this is an open critique site— the individual critiquers may or may not know what they’re talking about)
http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/... (queries critiqued by an editor)
You may want to take a couple weeks to work on your query. Polish it.
If you’re new to this, you should probably send your query out to six agents at a time. Choose six off your list—maybe not your six favorites. Send the queries, individually tailored of course (no “Dear Agent” or “Dear Sir or Madam”). Then wait a few weeks. If all six queries get form rejections, then there’s a problem with your query and you should revise it. Then query six more.
What will happen after you query
Once you send your queries, you can sit back and wait for responses. These can take anywhere from five minutes to three years to arrive. One of the following things will happen:
1. Nothing. Increasingly, agents have a policy of “no response means no”. It’s all part of the Death of Civility.
2. You’ll get a form rejection.
3. You’ll get a specific rejection (eg “the character sounds unlikable” or “vampires are dead”). Keep these. They’re worth thinking about. Specific rejections often include a request to keep the agent in mind.
4. You’ll get a request for a “partial” (10 pages, 50 pages, or whatever) or for a “full”. (The full manuscript. This is why you absolutely should not query until your novel is done! If it’s nonfiction the rules are different.)
If the only responses you get are 1. or 2., there’s something wrong with your query. No one’s rejecting your book. They haven’t seen your book. Revise your query.
If you get a lot of 3.’s, then the problem may be how you’re presenting your book, or it may be the book itself (maybe vampires really are dead). Hard to say. But watch for a consensus among the rejections.
If you get a lot of requests for partials followed by rejections, you may want to revise the opening of the book.
If you get a lot of requests for fulls followed by rejections, you should probably revise the book, especially if there is a consensus among the rejections (eg “the ending makes no sense” or “the characters seem flat”).
Oh, and there’s another thing that can happen, I almost forgot:
5. You get an offer of representation.
This would follow the agent reading the full manuscript, of course.
An offer of representation usually comes over the phone. In fact, I think maybe it always comes over the phone. The agent emails and says she enjoyed your manuscript and when would be a good time to talk? She calls, you discuss your book and perhaps literature in general, and she offers representation.
(This is how it happens. Agents are cautious folk. An email offering representation, with no conversation or Q&A, is probably suspect.)
Now, what do you do? What The Blogging Agents say you should do at this point is notify any other agents who haven’t responded yet, and let them know you have an offer. You can do that if you want. There’s no real advantage to you, because all agents charge the same—15%. If the agent who’s offered representation isn’t high on your list, you may want to contact the others and see if you get offers from one of your starred agents. But unlike with publishers, multiple offers aren’t particularly to your advantage. You won’t know what the agent’s like to work with until you work with her.
Anyway, hopefully the above will be helpful to some of y’all, now or at some future date.
But enough about agents. And possibly too much.
Tonight’s challenge:
Sometimes we all get stuck, and the best way to get unstuck is to turn off the internal editor and just write as fast as you can type (or scrawl). Doesn’t matter if it’s gibberish. Doesn’t matter if it’s the same word over and over. It gets you started.
Start with one word. Write for five minutes without stopping.
The word, of course, is
Togwogmagog
(It’s okay if you don’t want to post your results.)
Write On! will be a regular weekly diary (Thurs 8 pm ET) until it isn't.
Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write and/or Writer Beware.