I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You

I want to respond to yesterday’s post because I hear the frustration about querying agents. As I see it there are three hurdles: the first is generating a list of appropriate agents, the second is the query letter, and the third is judging the material you’re sending. I’ll address #1 tonight. In my opinion, the best way to target appropriate agents is through the website Publisher’s Marketplace ($25 per month). You can search publishing deals by genre. Let’s say you’ve written a memoir, you can search memoir and you will see a long list of sold memoirs, a brief description of the memoir, and the name of the agent who repped it. You can then google that agent, read about him or her, and see what her submission requirements are on her website. You can pull a very targeted list together. Other ways to get names: ask published friends for referrals, go to writer’s conferences and meet agents, look in the acknowledgment of books you like and see if an agent is thanked.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when writers send me projects that our outside my area of expertise such as horror, self-help, how-to, erotical, fiction, health & wellness, parenting, etc. It’s a waste of my time, but it is a colossal waste of time for the writer. As I’ve often said, it’s a rejection you don’t need in a landscape pock marked with rejections. You wouldn’t go to a divorce lawyer if you need help with a house closing. You wouldn’t go to an oncologist for congestive heart failure. You see where I’m going with this. Take the time to research the agents you want to target.

How did you find your agent and/or how do you look for one?