Steps to Finding an Agent: Part 9

Step 9

9. I basically started the process all over again. I went through this list of big New York agents who owned their own agency with just one or two other agents working with them. I studied the various websites and interviews and blogs and I chose my favorite agency that topped my wish list of these agents.

I wrote up a brand new picture book manuscript and targeted it to this agent’s preferences that I discovered while studying her client list and her list of books she repped. Plus I went to a local SCBWI conference where I met one of the agents at her agency. I used the same strategies to target this second list as I did for my first list…

And the great news was that my journey for searching for an agent came to a successful end. I landed a contract with my top choice on this list. I never even had to send out any more simultaneous submissions because this agent responded immediately and things progressed from there over the next 6 or 7 months toward signing a contract.

Now, if I hadn’t gotten accepted by this agent, I would have gone down my list and submitted to every agent in this group. And if those had all come back as rejections, I was planning to send simultaneous submissions to all the small agencies I liked on the third chart I had been compiling.

So from start to finish, it took me about 1 ½ years of focused submissions to find my picture book agent.