Where Are All the Agents?
You Know, *Book* Agents, Not Like, Spies or Anything đ”đ»ââïž
Weâre setting sail into 2024! Bring on the New Year! Iâve already made my list of 2024 manifestations, but of course the universe wants to throw me a few curveballs right off the bat, like my dog getting ringworm or giving me a nightmare yesterday in which Adam Brody was trying to kill me and I woke myself up screaming (I donât know what my subconscious was doing there because I have nothing against Adam Brody, but I definitely do against ringworm). Yay, good vibes!
But Iâm not going to let a few rocky waves get this year off to a bad start. I know weâre all setting goals for the twelve months ahead, just like one of our fellow author-sailors who put their career setback plain and simple:
Iâm having trouble finding an agent.
First off, Alone With No Agent, we have all been there. Like, literally, the vast vast vast majority of traditionally published authors have all been in the same boat, adrift in a wide open sea of agents but seemingly getting no attention. So the good news is, youâre actually not alone at all!
My biggest recommendation for finding an agent will hopefully go along with a New Years resolution of setting time aside to read more. This, obviously, is with me having no knowledge of how much youâre actually reading right now, but I think we can all agree that anything that lets us read more is a fabulous thing. But hereâs where Iâll throw a few directives at you: read things that are similar to your work. Iâm not saying exact copies here, but stories that focus on the same themes and/or genre and/or tone and/or age group, preferably some combination of these things. And when reading those, flip on to the back, peruse the Acknowledgment section, and jot down the name of the agent that bookâs author thanked. I have yet to come across an Acknowledgments section where the author didnât thank their agent, especially when weâre obsessed with them (like I am with mine, and if heâs right for you, I couldnât recommend Brent Taylor at TriadaUS enough). Before long, youâll have a list of agents who represent works similar to your manuscript. You already know (because theyâve helped get a book similar to yours published to begin with) that their tastes include stories like the one youâve written. Then get to querying, and you can even mention you specifically have reached out to this specific agent because you loved (insert other clientâs book here). Thatâs not to say that an agent will instantly say, âOh perfect! Youâve done the hard work for me! Of course Iâll sign you!â, but at least that agent knows youâve done some homework and are querying them for a reason and youâre not just willy nilly typing names into the To: line of your emails hoping for any olâ person to represent you.
There are a multitude of other ways to find agents including attending writers conferences to meet agents face-to-face or get critiques from them, pitching your story in social media pitch competitions, reading Publisherâs Marketplace deal announcements, and perusing your favorite authorâs websites to see who reps them.
Iâm sure for many of youâincluding our current agent-seekerâyouâve tried some of, if not all of, the above. Iâm sending out so much love for how frustrating and time-consuming the agent search can be. Iâve been hearing more and more that itâs harder than ever to find an agent with book sales shrinking a bit and agents focusing on their current client roster. But I promise you that no matter what the trend or pattern is in publishing at any given moment in time, it always changes within a couple years. Like, always. Even now I know there are agents who never close to queries, so you just got to go out there and keep drifting those seas until itâs âAGENT-HO!â and youâve spotted the representative who is just right for you (We get thatâs a âLAND-HO!â terrible pun, right? Iâm not calling any agent a ho, although if any of you agents reading this are in fact a ho, you do you and live your best life! Get it!).
Lastly, when querying (and this will probably seem obvious, but in case itâs not), be sure to follow agent submission guidelines exactly. The query letter you create is *not* one-size-fits-all. Some will ask for different information in a query letter, or different materials to be submitted with each query. For many agents, this is a test if you can follow instructions, and if you canât, theyâll often toss your query out without reading it. They get literally hundreds, sometimes thousands, of queries a week. If youâre already showing from the get-go that you canât take a few tiny steps to make their job easier, your query is gonna walk the plank (Iâm also not calling agents pirates⊠Unless, of course, you are one, then you do you and live your best life! Get that booty! But like, legally?)
Go forth, and I promise you weâll all take shifts in the Crowâs Nest of the Ventorship, a telescope placed to our eyes, keeping a lookout for agents to help you in these publishing waters.
-JJ
What about you, published authors? How did you find your agent, or do you have any tips or tidbits about what seems to be especially fruitful right now for writers looking to find a representative? Feel free to put it in the comments, or if youâd rather stay incognito, write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com and Iâll anonymously include your words on this post.
If youâd like to vent about anything author/writing related, write to me at heyjasonjune@gmail.com with the subject: VENTORSHIP. Iâll give you my take in a post, and weâll crowdsource author opinions in the comments. Youâll remain anonymous, and any haters will be thrown overboard. Ultimately, I think youâre going to be buoyed up by author love and support as we realize we really are all in the same boat đłïž
Great, informative post! I completely agree with how useful it can be to query the agents of the authors you love and to mention that you're querying them because you love their client's books. I did that with my favorite author's agent, and while the agent didn't offer rep, she did give me some super helpful feedback about my manuscript that helped me revise and ultimately land another agent. I don't know if she offered the extra help because of the (brief but heartfelt) shoutout to her client, but I'm sure it didn't hurt đ
I got 86 rejections before signing with my agent, and that was after a year-long Revise and Resubmit (R&R) where I rewrote my entire book! Whew! No glamorous story over here đ