Searching for a literary agent is depressing and soul wrecking.
Alle’s Super-Successful Way to Approach Finding a Literary Agent
Someone said:
I’m only going to query 50 literary agents, for my new unpublished novel; after that, I’m going to self-publish and never bother with traditional publishing ever again for the rest of my life.
Understanding #1: a good literary agent can receive 1,000 queries a month. Just knowing this fact should assuage a lot of your, “I’m not good enough.”
Understanding #2: You don’t have to research every agent in the country before you find 5–10 to send to.
Alle’s Super-Successful Way to Approach Finding a Literary Agent
- Find 5–10 agents you think would be good for your book. You should be thrilled at the idea of signing with any of them
- Send out 5–10 queries including exactly and only that which they ask for on their site’s submissions page. Address the agent by name and title.
- If you get a bounce from your queries, regardless of whether you sign or not, you know you have a submission that is working.
- You may not get a bounce. Wait. Wait for nine weeks. Unless the agent stipulates on their site that they do not want follow up, make sure to follow up at nine weeks. “I submitted on such-and-such a date and I was hoping that you could tell me where my project is in your process of evaluation.”
- While you are waiting, research 5–10 more agents.
- For three weeks or until you have 25 submissions in the hopper, send out 5–10 subs each week.
- Wait some more.
If you receive positive responses that read something like, “Not quite right for me” or “This is a crowded market for this genre,” THAT IS GOOD. You are on the right track. Keep submitting until you have 50 in the hopper. Then wait.
If you receive nothing but form rejections, or simply nothing: consider working with an editor and especially hard on your query letter and synopsis. (More about the synopsis in a later post.)
