What Do You Want From Me?
*Cue the Adam Lambert song* In Which We Discuss What Published Authors Need to Send Agents When Querying 📄
No matter how long an author’s sailed on these writerly seas, if they’re hoping for traditional publication, at some point or another they’re looking for an agent. Maybe it’s with their very first manuscript, maybe it’s after they’ve already been published a time or two or twelve. Today’s author-passenger looking for advice falls into that latter category, wondering just what materials are needed to land an agent when you’ve already got a couple books under your belt. They write:
I'm a writer who finds myself stalling when it comes to my career momentum. This time next year I will be publishing my second YA novel with a small, but very respected press. My first YA novel was published with them in 2023, and last year I had two of my plays published by another small press.
During this time I've been trying to secure a literary agent to work alongside as I broaden my professional scope. I've spent two years asking other people in the industry to connect me with agents they might know, and I've been pounding the digital pavement by sending query letters to literary agents in Canada, America and the UK. Thus far I've never even managed to secure a meeting.
It's beginning to feel like I'm treading water.
I'm eager to continue to grow as a writer, but doors remain closed to me without an agent there to open them. Selling two books on my own is often hailed as an achievement when I bring this issue up to other writers, but it isn't quite. My publisher has treated me with nothing but respect and transparency from the beginning, and the advance was small enough that there was really no need for an agent to begin with. However, I do want to find some professional growth. The advance on the second book is only a few dollars higher than the first, so I'm really just taking the same deal I took as a debut author. It's not sustainable.
Beyond the money, I also just want to branch out. As a writer of adult fiction, plays, and short fiction, I see YA Fiction as one of the things I write, not the thing I write. But without an agent, I'm at a loss for how to manage that.
It always seems to me that agents want you to come with a fully prepared manuscript that fits into their area of focus, rather than pitching books and authors to publishers. Are there agents who are interested in representing an author as a whole, as opposed to representing a specific manuscript you brought them? My first book was nominated for several awards, gained critical praise, and pretty quickly sold international rights in three countries. But despite that, this problem persists.
I'm desperate to hear what you and your passengers make of the corner I find myself unable to get out of. I may be treading water, but there's always the chance that one of you can toss me a Life Preserver.
Splash splash,
A Gent Without Agent
First of all, Gent, huge congratulations on being able to sell those two books on your own, and for garnering so much praise and awards attention. I know you said it doesn’t feel like an achievement despite other authors telling you this, but it really is, and while you might not have the access to an agent right now that you’re looking for, you are still a complete badass. But I understand how that badassery doesn’t help open all the doors you’re looking to at this point, so on to the finding an agent part of your message.
It sounds like you already know what you’re doing in terms of where to find agents to query, and even though they aren’t responding at this point, you’re good to go there. But in response to your point that it seems like agents want you to come with a fully prepared manuscript that fits into their area of focus, I say this:
Yes. I think you’re right.
I asked around a bit to see if anyone had heard of an agent signing an author off of their previous books and a game plan of what that writer hoped to do in the future but with no currently finished manuscript. Very few people had heard of this. For the folks that had heard of it, the agent either signed a Big Name Author of Mega-Bestselling Books or an author that agent had some sort of personal relationship with. I don’t mean like, 😉personal, I mean like they’d interacted regularly before and had developed a connection, either in person or through frequent interactions online.
When I signed with my current agent, we had that frequent online interactions connection. The thing that was the ticket here was that in the couple years we’d interacted, it was clear that we were just fans of each other’s work and not trying to use one another for professional advancement. He thought my picture books were funny, I loved the books he represented. So when it was time for me to find a new agent, he was the first I reached out to. But I did reach out to him with a fully complete YA manuscript showing how I wanted to branch out from the picture book space.
So, my number one advice here would be to finish whichever story in whatever genre and age group you’re most passionate about right now while also keeping summaries (like a paragraph or two) of other stories regardless of genre/age that you think you might write next. Then when that story is complete, you can pick querying back up with that manuscript, focusing on (as I’m sure you already do) agents that represent more than just one age category or genre. And when those prospective agents ask what else you’ve got in store, you have those summaries of other projects showcasing the whole scope of what you plan to create. You and I both know that you’re a phenomenal writer, but I don’t think at this point any prospective agent who doesn’t know you will take the time to read your published work to represent a manuscript you may or may not finish one day despite the fact that you’ve got two pieces of evidence proving that you do actually know how to finish a book. You know you’ll finish it, I know you’ll finish it, but when an agent takes on a new client, it’s typically to sell something now or in the very near future, and I can’t really blame them for that.
There could always be an exception to that, so I think in the interim, try to strike up real life relationships with agents you respect and would like to work with. Online is probably easiest here if Twitter/X/Threads doesn’t stress you out. If you have an opportunity to go to workshops/book talks/festivals, anything in real life where agents might be, do that too. Then along the way, after a relationship has been established, there might be a time when you could broach the subject of representation.
One other option coming to mind, and maybe you’ve already done this, is to talk to your current publisher and see if they’ve worked with any agents that they think might be a good fit for you. That might be a nice foot in the door for an agent to take a meeting with you.
But honestly, in the meantime, I do think the best course of action is to finish that manuscript and query from there. Because there are so many agents who represent work across age ranges and genres, and who could sell those works on proposal and represent your career as a whole. But in order to first sign with somebody they don’t know yet, they need something to sell now. That, paired with your banging record of garnering so much praise and awards noms sounds like the perfect combo for snagging agent attention.
-JJ
What about you, fellow author-passengers? Any tips or solidarity for Gent? And if anyone onboard has agent insight into this query, we’d love to hear it! Feel free to put your thoughts in the comments below, or if you’d like to stay anonymous, email me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com and I’ll include your thoughts without your name.
If you’d like to vent about anything author/writing related, write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com with the subject: VENTORSHIP. I’ll give you my take in a post, and we’ll crowdsource author opinions in the comments. You’ll remain anonymous, and any haters will be thrown overboard. Ultimately, I think you’re going to be buoyed up by author love and support as we realize we really are all in the same boat 🛳️
As someone who is also hunting for a new agent and who also writes in multiple different styles and age groups, I feel this Ventor's pain on a deep and personal level!! I'm afraid I have absolutely nothing wise or helpful to add other than, you are not alone lol!!
Oh, this is actually a favorite topic of mine! So, when I queried my first agent, I had a new manuscript, obviously. Ditto second. Third I queried with an anthology proposal. Fourth I queried with a new manuscript again. But I left my fourth after I think less than a year, after they'd landed a two-book deal for me (and the first book had not yet released), and there was NO WAY I was going to be able to write anything else for someone new but I had so many books in the mix, I also couldn't go without representation. There had, however, been an agent I'd *really* loved - I'd been deciding between her and the agent I ultimately went with and fairly quickly left for round four - and I dashed back to her with my tail between my legs and begged her to take me and luckily she did.
So, first things first are that I absolutely agree with JJ and would finish a manuscript and query with it, because it doesn't sound like you're in a position where you're juggling too much (e.g. open contracts) to do that, and it's always my default unless it's really not possible. But to answer what I sent to query my agent when I couldn't write something new, it was this:
1. A spreadsheet with my book ideas laid out, so she could see my plans and get an idea of what I wanted to be doing going forward.
2. An anthology proposal I'd done for my option
3. A proposal for a book I wanted to move forward with at some point. (10k + 1pg synopsis)
4. Information on which of my subrights were available for which books (Which I was wrong about, due to a misunderstanding with someone at my old agency, but I digress.)
Don't know if that's helpful, but!