Finding the Right Fit – Before Sending out the Queries

Now that I’ve identified the 77 agents who look like a good fit for Blood Pools, I’ve decided to narrow those down further so my initial queries go out to the agencies who look like the best fit among those 77.  But what criteria should I use to do that narrowing? 

I read through all of the one or two-line notes I’d made when assigning the initial values of A, B, or C to the entire list of 139 agents, and identified 10 of the A group as being A+.  This was based on either a well-written blurb in the agency listing mentioning they were actively looking for my genre (mysteries), welcomed new writers, obtained new clients through query solicitations, or some other blatant remark about actually wanting to be queried.

My ‘A+’ pass identified 10 out of the 77 agencies.  I didn’t think that was a bad place to start.  It took an hour to identify those 10 out of the 77, based on going back and reading their listings in the 2013 Guide to Literary Agents.  In so doing, I discovered a very important step in the process for vetting agents:

Go to the agency’s website and read it.

These websites list agent names, what sort of work they want to see, and specific submission guidelines.  But most importantly, the website contains the latest info on whether the agency is even accepting submissions.

In 3 cases out of the 10 A+ agencies, their website told me they were no longer accepting unsolicited admissions.  This was updated news since the “2013 Guide to Literary Agents” was published.  One office was moving, and not accepting submissions until further notice.  Two were overwhelmed with volume, and were only accepting queries from referrals.

It wouldn’t have been the end of the world had I submitted to those 3 agencies, but it would have been a guaranteed 3 rejections and a waste of time and money.  The good news is I know the following about the first 7 agencies I’m going to query for Blood Pools:

Agent’s name
Agency’s street address
Agent’s email address
The specific submission criteria they are seeking
The expected turnaround time for a response

All of those elements will make my submission appear as professional as possible, and maximize the chances that Blood Pools will be taken seriously.  At the very least, Blood Pools will get a fair chance to succeed on its own merits.  Not sure I can ask for more than that. 

Let the querying begin…