Cautionary Tale

In the last two days at work, I've received two calls from literary agents. Now that doesn't sound like a lot, but keep in mind in the last three years these are the first two calls I've had from literary agents. The first agent wanted to know the proper way to query a publishing company. Huh, don't they teach that in agent school? She honestly didn't have a clue, (The second one was equally clueless).

To me, this is a huge red flag. Is it worth having an agent if the agent is just going to page through the market guide to find publishers? My thought is probably not.  I now understand how important it is to ask questions, to make sure that the agent who wants to represent me, is someone I want to representing my work.

These agents, I'm sure are exceptions. Most agents are competent and possess a breadth of publishing industry knowledge- and have established contacts in the business. It's important, though, to keep an eye out for the ones who aren't competent and who don't know the business. Anyone can give themselves the title, literary agent. It's important to find one that's doing it for the right reasons and knows the business.

Anon,

Nancy

New Agent at Fineprint

Happy Monday!

It looks like the good folks over at Fineprint Literary Management have added an agent to their staff. Her name is Marissa Walsh...

Marissa specializes in pop culture, humor, narrative non-fiction, memoir, and children’s books (picture books/middle grade/YA).

http://fineprintlit.com/about-the-agents/marissa-walsh/

Anon,

Nancy

Awesome New Contest

And easy to enter. Jim McCarthy, one of the good folks over at Dystel and Goderich Literary Management is running a contest right now for the best first line. You can find more details here. The winner gets their full manuscript considered by Jim. Not a bad deal!

What a Week

-I spoke to a woman who thought we were messing with her account. Apparently, she forgot she actually had to login. Did I mention she was about 2 1/2 sheets to the wind? Seriously, it was 1:00 in the afternoon.

-I also spoke to not one but two different people who were hired by writers to help them find an agent. Hiring an agent to find an agent. Is this a new trend? If it is, it's a bad one. It makes me wonder if these people are lazy or clueless.

Anon,

Nancy

While I was away...

I had time to surf the internet. I found a couple of cool sites I thought I would share.

The first site is a blog by Kathleen Ortiz, an agent with Lowenstein Associates. She has some great contests, it's definitely worth checking out. The Neverending Page turner

The next site is the website for Mem Fox. Check out her 20 tips for writing Picture Books.

Finally, check out this great interview with Agent Holly Root over at the Mother.Write blog.

Anon,

Nancy

Attention Kid Lit Authors

Chuck Sambuchino is running another contest over at the Guide to Literary Agents blog, this time it's for Middle Grade and Young Adult manuscripts. You can get there from here. He's got some awesome prizes lined up! Good Luck.

Anon,

Nancy

What to Include in a Query

Over at Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents' blog, he includes advice from Janet Reid regarding what to include and what to cut from your query letter. It's definitely worth a read. Check it out here.

While you're at it, Cynthia Leitch Smith has posted some great agent interviews on her blog Cynsations. (Agents Sarah Davies and Laura Rennert among others).

Anon,

Nancy

What Do Agents Want- The Sequel

Today I found a listing on the http://www.verlakay.com/ site from Linda at the McVeigh Agency, listing what Mark McVeigh is interested in when it comes to representing kid lit. Check it out here.

Anon,

Nancy

What Do Agents Want?

How many times have you asked that question? If you're like me, A LOT. Over on the Upstart Crow Literary Agency blog, agent, Chris Richman recently posted a detailed wishlist. If you write middle grade or young adult it's definitely worth a look. You can get there from here.

Anon,

Nancy

Times They Are A' Changing

Sadly, it looks like Kirkus Reviews is closing it's doors after reviewing books since 1933.

Agent, Michelle Humphrey has recently left Sterling Lord. You can find more details about that here. If you look over on the blogroll (of that link) you should see a recently posted interview regarding what type of submissions she accepts.

Anon,

Nancy

A Wish List

Just in time for the Holidays, the good folks at the Dystel Goderich Literary Agency have posted a wish list for submissions... The list is posted on the right side of the blog and you can get there from here.

An Interesting Week

-I spoke to a woman who thought we were messing with her account. Apparently, she forgot she actually had to login. Did I mention she was about 2 1/2 sheets to the wind. Seriously, it was 1:00 in the afternoon.

-I also spoke to not one but two different people who were hired by writers to help them find an agent. Hiring an agent to find an agent. Is this a new trend? If it is, it's a bad one. It makes me wonder if these people are lazy or clueless?

Anon,

Nancy

This Friday

-I spoke to a woman who thought we were messing with her account. Apparently, she forgot she actually had to login. Did I mention she was about 2 1/2 sheets to the wind. Seriously, it was 1:00 in the afternoon.

 -I also spoke to not one but two different people who were hired by writers to help them find an agent. Hiring an agent to find an agent. Is this a new trend? If it is, it's a bad one. It makes me wonder if these people are lazy or clueless?

Anon, Nancy

This Friday

I had an interesting day... -I spoke to a woman who thought we were messing with her account. She apparently forgot she had to login. Did I mention she was about 2 1/2 sheets to the wind. Seriously, it was 1:00pm in the afternoon. -I also spoke to two different people that were hired by writers to help them find an agent. The writer essentially hired an agent to find them an agent. Is this a new trend? If it is, it's a bad one. How was your week?



Anon, Nancy

New Agent at the Bent Agency

Looks like The Bent Agency has added a new agent. Her name is Susan Hawk and she represents both Middle Grade and Young Adult authors. You can find out more about her here.

Twitter as a Resource Tool for Writers

Twitter- that internet phenomenon that asks the simple question “What are you doing?” has become especially popular with publishing types. Because of this, it can be a great resource tool for writers..

1. You can use twitter to determine a particular agent’s likes and dislikes. They will often mention trends they are seeing as they read through their slush pile.

2. Waiting for a response from an agent? Many agents will list on Twitter where they are in regards to their slush pile.

3. Organized Twitter Topics are popular with Agents. Topics like #pubtip, #askagent, #Allaboutagents (or #askanagent) and #Kidlit allow agents to communicate with writers without having to leave the comfort of their home or their neighborhood watering hole for that matter. To reference the transcripts simply go to http://www.twitter.com/ and enter the “#” then Kidlit etc. in the Search field. In many cases, agents will answer questions directed to them if the #topic is listed with the question.

4. You can also sign up for TweetChat, which does allow you to chat real time with people other folks on Twitter.

So how do you determine if a particular agent is on Twitter? You can go to http://www.twitter.com/ and place the agent’s name after a slash
(e.g. www.twitter.com/chucksambuchino) to see if that person is on Twitter. Also on many agency websites, you will see the Twitter icon or the agent will say follow me on Twitter at:_____

You can also use a skip tracing technique that collectors use to find information on the debtors they’re trying to locate. If you find one agent on twitter, look at their tweets, they will often respond to another agent, if you click on that agent’s tweets, this will often bring you to another agent etc.

It’s free to sign up, to do so go to http://www.twitter.com/. If you don’t want to sign up, you can still reference many of the tweets.

Also, http://www.agentquery.com/ has a pretty extensive list of agents on Twitter.

http://agentquery.leveragesoftware.com/group_discussion.aspx?discussionid=d696c822a8e24febb2b621e8974219df

One Agent talks about what she's looking for

Agent, Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary recently did a post on her blog/website listing the types of projects she's hoping to find. Middle Grade boy books are still hot it sounds like. You can read the post here: http://www.greenhouseliterary.com/index.php/site/sarahs_blog

There Will Be Prizes!

Agent Nathan Bransford today announced the 3rd Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Contest.

The winner receives their choice of a partial critique, a query critique or a phone consultation. A few of the past winners of Nathan's contests have gone on to receive representation by him. Other finalists have gone on to get published! So go on get your first paragraph out there.

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/10/3rd-sort-of-annual-stupendously.html

Anon,

Nancy

Agent Blogs

It seems like more and more literary agents have blogs these days. Agents may use their blogs to promote their clients work, mentor aspiring writers or as a way to distribute updates about the everchanging publishing business. Whatever reason the agent uses their blog, it is a great tool to learn more about the agent and to determine if they would be a good fit for your work.

Here are some of the agent blogs:

http://www.jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/: Janet Reid's blog, it's an excellent mix of publishing info, submission do's and don'ts and client promotion. And just the right amount of snark.

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/: Nathan Bransford's blog: includes some great advice for new writers and publishing info. He includes some tips for writing query letters that are incredibly useful.

http://www.pubrants.blogspot.com/ : Kristin Nelson's blog. Her blog includes sample pitches from some of her actual clients. She also describes why the query worked.

http://www.queryshark.blogspot.com/: Janet Reid also manages this blog. Step into the shark tank if you dare to have your query critiqued.

http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/ Rachelle Gardner's Literary Ramblings blog includes tips on writing query letters, how to write a book proposal and also includes questions to ask literary agents when you get "the call." There's some great information on her blog.

http://www.bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/ The blog kept by Jessica Faust of the Bookends Literary agency. She frequently answers comments and questions on her blog and is a great mentor to aspiring writers.

Other Lit. Agency blogs:

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/ Colleen Lindsey's blog, she's with Fineprint Literary Agency

http://dglm.blogspot.com/ Dystel & Goderich Literary Management blog

http://litsoup.blogspot.com/ Jenny Rappaport Literary Agency blog

http://arcaedia.livejournal.com/ Jennifer Jackson's blog of the Donald Maas Literary Agency

Some agencies include blogs on their websites. These include:

http://www.greenhouseliterary.com/ Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary Agency

http://www.upstartcrowliterary.com/ Michael Stearns and crew at Upstart Crow Literary Agency

I know there are some great blogs that I missed. Frequenting agency blogs is a great way to learn what's going on in the publishing business not to mention a great way to determine which agents represent the type of manuscript you want to submit.

Anon,

Nancy

Why?

Lucky gives the evil eye at the thought of 275 queries

I work for a midwest-based publisher. I don't really work "in"publishing. I like to think I work "next to" publishing. I handle customer support for a writing website. Most of the calls and emails I get are from subscribers who need help logging in or searching for a market listing, but sometimes the subscribers will ask publishing questions.

There was a guy who sent 275 queries to agents (that is not an exaggeration). He called to ask why no one had responded to these queries which he sent the WEEK before. DON'T ever do this. It's tempting to just send a mass query to every single agent in the Writer's Market. But it's not a phone book and should not be used as such. Also, giving someone only one week to review your work is terribly unrealistic. Following up this soon is just going to annoy the
agent(s).

What should you do?

1. Use the market guides to determine who accepts work in your genre of interest.

2. Use sites like Google to search for interviews the agent has given and to determine what kind of online presence the agent has. You want someone who is updated on the trends, so if the agent has a blog or uses Twitter, they are going to be pretty web savvy. These sites can also give you additional insight into their likes and dislikes.

3. Take a look at the agency's website to look for updates on their submission guidelines. The agent may also list the types of manuscripts they are interested in and may even list their recent sales.

4. Take a field trip to the bookstore, (I recommend Barnes and Noble) and look at the books they've agented. Are the books similar to your manuscript without being too similar? If a trip to the bookstore is unrealistic, search for the books on http://www.amazon.com/ or http://www.bn.com/ and read an excerpt.

5. Take a look on sites like http://www.verlakay.com/ to see what other writers are saying about the agent. Does the agent respond to status queries? Do they send personalized rejections and editorial suggestions when they request a partial or full manuscript- these are definitely a plus.

6. Once you have a narrow list of agents who accept the genre you write and who seem to be a good fit, then you are ready to send your query.

These steps are time consuming. There's no doubt about that, but they can make the difference between a stack of form rejections and requests to read your full manuscript. Keep in mind that once you narrow your search, you still need a kick-ass query letter. That's another post!

Anon,
Nancy