I Need to Go 1 for 77…
The quest for an agent to represent “Blood Pools” continues! I decided to classify the list of 139 agents in the 2013 Guide to Literary Agents that list “mystery” as one of their areas of interest/specialty into three groups. Those that seem like a very good fit, those that seem like an adequate fit, and those that wouldn’t fit no matter how hard I tried to get them on. My process consisted of reading the 139 entries and grading each one A, B, or C according to the scale above. Along the way, I discovered two additional agencies that looked tempting, so my list expanded to 141 total.
After grading each of them, here’s the way things shook out:
A = Great fit = 77 agencies
B = Adequate fit = 40 agencies
C = No fit at all = 24 agencies
Interestingly, I recognized 17 agencies who actively rejected “Flesh Wound”, and 10 who never replied to my query for “Flesh Wound”. Do the math and you’ll discover the I submitted “Flesh Wound” to 27 agencies. If I submit “Blood Pools” to only the “A = Great fit” agencies, that will be 77 submissions – three times as many chances to succeed.
Submitting a query to 77 agencies seems like it could take most of a year, but in reality, most of them want an email query consisting of a query letter and sample pages, which is very easy to put together and send. So I am hopeful that over the course of the next several weeks, I can hit all these agencies.
Now obviously, the possibility exists that I will get rejected either proactively or passively by all 77 agencies, and who wants 77 different subject matter experts to tell them that there are prettier girls to dance with than them? No one. But there are a couple of coping mechanisms I plan to employ. First, I only need 1 of the 77 to like “Blood Pools”. Second, if all 77 do in fact thumb their literary nose at me, I can go into self-publishing with no doubts that it is the right course of action. It feels sort of like having a lottery ticket. And hey, someone has to win.
So off I go to start writing emails….
