Chez Shaffner

Monday, March 05, 2007

Agent Search Update

Thought I would spend five minutes going over my agent search so far…

Things started out great. From my initial three queries I received one request for a partial and two for the full manuscript. One of those requests came from my top choice agency; he still has it and I’m eagerly awaiting a response…

Initial success stalled me. Partly because I naively let myself think--“Hey, this could be it, the fastest agent search in history!”--but mostly because I hoped to receive feedback, maybe one sentence worth, that would help me prospectively. No such luck. Form rejections trickled in.

Spurred to action by rejection (I don’t deal well), I re-read the opening of my novel and lopped the first chapter off clean. That sounds dramatic, but with each previous draft I had whittled the opening chapter down another page. What started at 15 crafted pages about young Billy Jones unloading boxes from a U-Haul truck became 6 meager pages when I “finished” my book on New Year’s, and with a single keystroke I purged the remaining lines before the latest round of query letters.

Several of my friends (non-writers) have asked about the process of finding an agent. Some have the impression it’s an easier task than it is. “I spend two to three hours researching an agent,” I tell them, “just to write one tiny paragraph explaining why I’m contacting her and why she is right agent for me. Most of the time, they won’t agree.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” they say. But in truth I have sugarcoated it for them. I don’t explain that prior to that agent-specific research, first I had to build my list of potential agents, which requires searching Publishers Marketplace for recent deals on books similar to mine, reading MediaBistro profiles, figuring out which agents are in the market for queries, etc. They say you have to be very cautious whom you query, so you’d better aim for the right bull’s-eye.

(NOTE: I have heard of some services that blast email your query letter to every agent in the business. This strikes me as a disservice to all the authors out there who are spending time narrowing in on the right agents. This business is hard enough without making the agents even busier reviewing spam.)

Agent selected, it is time for research. I review Publishers Marketplace again for recent deals. I look at the agency’s website, if it has one, and check out the agent’s official client list. With luck, I read something the agent represented. Unfortunately, this is not always the case (poring over these lists of published authors whose names I do not recognize can be rather humbling, a reminder that becoming famous is not quite so automatic).

Next, I check Agent Query, because sometimes they have more info than the website, especially for some of the Dark Ages agencies out there. Next, I make sure her name doesn’t have any red marks on P&E. Then I Google. Thanks to Google, I have found some interesting stuff: a podcasted interview with one agent, a detailed transcript for a seminar in New York last fall with several agents, Q&A hosted by certain agents on random blogs, testimonials by an agent’s clients on what a fantastic job s/he has done. From all this information, I craft my personalization. On several occasions, I have found that a star agent would not be the right agent for my project and skipped to the next agent in my ordered list… And I’m not just saying that for the benefit of any agent who may have followed the link to this website from inside the query letter, I promise.

I will refrain from listing statistics today, except to say that I have approximately ten outstanding queries. Perhaps one or two of them will request the first three chapters. Maybe one will ask for the full manuscript. If those requests come in, I will smile and let myself become giddy for at least ten whole minutes, before remembering that in all likelihood, they will reject me.

Boy oh boy, will they be some kind of upset when they see me on the bestseller lists…

2 Comments:

At 8:23 PM, Don Capone said...: Frustrating, isn't it? I've done all the research too, and once in a while I'll come across the absolutely most perfect agent for my novel--couldn't be a better fit. Exactly what they are seeking. So, I send out my query...and nothing. Not even a rejection. Sometimes I wonder if I am even connected to the internet.

Sounds like you got a pretty good response rate, though. Good luck.
At 9:17 AM, Shaffner said...: Thanks for the comment! It is a tough process for many reasons. One is that there is precious little information on some agents. Another is that there are SO MANY agents out there, narrowing the list is a challenge unto itself. The biggest thing I've learned so far is to keep honing the first chapter, since in many cases it's all they'll read. After my first queries I took some time to re-arrange the opening of my book to be faster out of the gates...

I don't dig the whole "no response = rejection" garbage. It's one thing if the e-query gets lost in the spam filter, but some agents have official policies on this! I know they're busy, but I think that's a lousy poliy.

Jason