On today’s #writingwednesday, we’ll hear advice from Justin Joschko, author of Yellow Locust and Iron Circle, about getting a literary agent.
Represent! – The Art of Landing a Literary Agent
For some authors, the first step on the road to publishing their novel (aside from writing the darn thing) isn’t submitting to a publishing house, but instead in acquiring that strangest and most elusive of beasts: a literary agent. I stress the “some authors” part, as it’s certainly possible to publish a highly successful book without any representation. Indeed, with the rise of digital submissions and easy online self-publishing, it might be easier now than it ever was. For those with a bit of insider knowledge and marketing savvy, going it alone is a viable approach.
I had neither of things, however, so for me getting an agent was essential.
Which is not to say that it was easy. The process can be confusing, tedious, and occasionally heartbreaking, but also highly rewarding. Below, I offer a few tips gleaned from my own experience.
1. Writing a query letter is an art: learn it. The query letter is your shop window, your message in a bottle, your signal flare. In a couple of hundred words, it has to convince the agent to invest more time in your work, either by requesting pages or reading those you’ve already submitted. That might only take a few minutes, but minutes are precious. Describing the anatomy of a query letter is a post (or ten) in itself, but the key is to keep it brief and professional. Sample letters are easy to find online, and for those with the means, plenty of published authors will edit your letter for a fee.
2. Choose your target wisely. If an agent’s clients all write hard science fiction or military history, don’t send them a query for your paranormal romance. If their bio says they don’t do political thrillers, don’t send them a political thriller. Doing so wastes your time and theirs. Nearly every agent has some sort of online presence these days. Take a few minutes to see what they’re looking for and who they represent. If they use Twitter, read through their feed.
3. Make it personal. Agents hate form letters, and while they’re not naïve enough to assume you wrote the entire query just for them, they appreciate feeling that they’ve been contacted for a reason, and not just as part of an email blast to the first fifty names that showed up on AgentQuery. Take a look at what authors they’ve worked with in the past, and explain why your work would be a good fit for them. It doesn’t have to be much: “I’m a fan of your client’s series, Vampire Dentist, and given your interest in monsters and medicine, I thought my book Werewolf Obstetrician may appeal to you.”* And for the love of Pete, don’t address the email to “Dear Agent.” These people have names. Learn them and use them (and spell them correctly).
4. Proofread your submission. Then proofread it again. Do you think you’ve proofread enough? You haven’t. Do it again. A single typo doesn’t make a bad book or a bad author, but agents are busy people, and they spend their days sifting through thousands of queries in search of one that stands out. Spotting a typo gives them an easy reason to reject your submission.
5. Submit in batches. Simultaneous submissions are not a sin in the publishing world, but resist the temptation to fire off your query to a hundred agents at once. Each new submission is an experiment of sorts, and you need to give yourself time to collect and review the data. Batches of 6-10 are a good size, though tastes vary. Take any feedback you get on board, but even form rejections tell you something. If you send out 10 queries and get 2 requests for partials or fulls, your letter is doing its job, even if the samples don’t lead to a contract. Ten form rejections, on the other hand, tell you that your letter might not be resonating, and that it may be worth tweaking it. You only get one shot per agent for your query to land (at least until you write a new book), and if the letter needs work, it’s much better to learn as much after the 10th submission than the 100th.
6. Don’t take it personally. If an agent rejects your submission, they’re not saying you’re a bad writer. They’re not even saying your book is bad. They may have loved it, but simply thought they didn’t have the contacts they’d need to sell it. Or they may have a similar book on their roster already, and feel that juggling both wouldn’t be in the best interest of either. Rejection stinks, and it’s okay to feel sad, but do what you need to get over it rather than declaring your literary career to be over or blaming the agent for failing to recognize your genius.
7. Know when to end the conversation. Thank yous are nice in person, but they can clog up inboxes pretty fast. Agents won’t be offended if you don’t thank them for a form rejection. If they gave you detailed personal feedback, you can write back a brief note to show your appreciation, but otherwise no response is expected. Avoid asking if you can resubmit a revised version unless the agent mentioned this possibility themselves. And above all, don’t get nasty. It serves no purpose, and word could get out that you’re more trouble than you’re worth.
8. Be persistent. Some writers get lucky and land an agent after only a few queries, but for most of us, the journey is far longer. Learn from your rejections, but don’t dwell on them. Just remember that the number of Nos you hear doesn’t matter. It’s the Yeses that count, in the end. And you only need one.
*If you’ve written a book about a vampire dentist or a werewolf obstetrician, please contact me. I want to read it.
Justin Joschko used these techniques to land his own his agent, Alec Shane of Writers House, and publish Yellow Locust and Iron Circle.
