NaNoWriMo Tip: Tools for finding reputable agents

I'm often asked about how to find agents. It can be difficult sometimes, especially to find good ones, but one of the best ways is to query agents of books that are similar to yours. After all, if an agent was able to place other books, it shows they have a track record.

Amazon Charts - lists the top 20 books sold by Amazon in a given week, and most of them indicate the agent that represent the book. For instance, from that you can discover that David Gernert represented John Grisham's The Rooster Bar and Heidi Lange sold Dan Brown's Origin book.

Use the "Look inside the book" feature and do a search (from the printed book) on the word "agent." That's because many authors will thank their agents in the acknowledgement of their books

.Subscribe to Publisher's Marketplace. It's a site where agents and publishers post the deals they've signed (and usually rank them into various categories that give you and idea about how much the advance was for.  It's a monthly service, but you can subscribe, farm it for agents, then unsubscribe.

Agent Query - is a site that has an extensive database of agents and many of them list the books and authors they represent. You can also search the database by selecting the genre that best fits your book.

I know right now you're concerned with writing your book, and querying it may be some time off. But it's good to know about these resources for the future. I hope you find them useful.