Blogger: Wendy Lawton
Location: From beautiful Anchorage, Alaska
Weather: Scattered showers and 63º
Where’s Miss Etta? This was Etta Wilson’s week to blog and I’m guessing many of you tuned in to hear more of her wisdom for children’s writers. But Miss Etta is home exercising a brand new knee replacement so the remaining Books & Such agents are each taking one day this week to answer some of those frequently asked questions. Many of the questions I field have to do with how best to approach an agent. Let me tackle a few of them here.
1. Before I approach an agent, should I have my book completed? That’s a good question to which there are a number of answers. (a) If you are writing a nonfiction book and have some writing experience, it’s usually unnecessary. Most nonfiction books are sold based on the complete proposal– including a chapter-by-chapter summary–and three chapters. (b) If you are a published author, chances are the agent you’ve pinpointed will read your published work to decide. All she’ll need to see from you is your proposal–including synopsis–and about fifty pages. (c) If you are a much-published novelist, you probably won’t even need your next book synopsis–the agent will already be familiar with your work. Just pick up the phone. (d) If you are a debut novelist, you’ll need to have the proposal, including synopsis, and the complete manuscript.
2. Before I approach an agent should I have my manuscript professionally edited? No. Okay, let me soften that a bit. It depends on how much the editor does. An agent needs to judge your work and your voice. Unless you and the professional editor come as a package deal for every future project, how can the agent tell which part is you and which part is the editor? It’s like having your mom help with your homework. That’s not to say you shouldn’t have other eyes look at your manuscript. Critique groups are great for pointing out gaps in your story or illogical jumps in your reasoning. The difference is, they usually don’t fix it. You solve the problems yourself. That said, some editing services do that very kind of editing for you–pointing out the weak spots and letting you solve the problems yourself. That kind of editing is fine.
But what about copy editing for spelling and grammar? There’s probably nothing inherently wrong with this since the manuscript needs to be near-perfect, but if you’re going to be a writer, isn’t this one of those skills you need to attain yourself?
3. Before I approach an agent, what should I know about that agent? As much as you can. I’d love to see a study done comparing the effectiveness of targeted queries vs. the shotgun approach. I’m guessing that no matter how wide the shotgun scatter, the targeted, individual query nets far better results. These days it’s so easy to research agents. Their websites spell out their distinctives; their likes and dislikes; and highlight many of their projects and clients. You can almost always find submission guidelines on the site as well. Instead of sending out a “dear agent” email, you select the agents with whom you’d most enjoy working. When you query the agent, you do it by name, and you explain why you chose them.
We see far too many queries that are scatter-gunned out there, sometimes by the author and way too often by a supposed agent-find service. One quick look tells us that the writer has no idea what we do or who we are. If, at this honeymoon stage, a writer can’t invest in due diligence and target his queries, why would we think he’d be able to study the market and target his readers? Yes, it takes a huge investment of time. And yes, the process is slow and tortuous, but this is nothing compared to the next steps. Being a working writer is not for the faint of heart.
But here’s the good part: Once you’ve found your agent, she’s made the sale, and you are connecting with your readers, I’m guessing you’ll be the first to raise your hand and confess that it’s all the worth the pain.
Now it’s your turn. What “Before I Approach an Agent” question did I forget to address?
Over the past years, I’ve sent a great many targeted queries to agents for my three completed novels. The response has been . . . nothing. Even when agents have requested material, at a conference for instance, I’ve received no response — not even a polite, pre-printed negative.
Has the market become so deluged that writers should simply not expect responses unless they win the timing-interest-luck lottery?
I’ve never understood the shot gun approach. Or addressing something, “Dear Agent” . . . Seems like such an impersonal way to start a, hopefully, long term relationship.
Thanks for the post.
I’d add: “Learn as much about the nuts and bolts of the publishing industry as possible.” Keeping up with some of the better agent blogs can give a great deal of insight that helps you appear knowledgeable and mark you as being a step ahead of some of the others who are vying for the agent.
Because many agencies are working along the lines of what you just stated Janet, what would you say is a decent amount of time to wait for a response before accepting it won’t come and searching again?
Thanks for the info, Janet. I’ve submitted several queries (including one to Rachel Z) a little over a month ago and am biting my nails waiting on responses. It’s beneficial to know I might not hear back from everyone- I would go insane waiting.
I especially hope to hear from Rachel Z because Books & Such seems like a great fit for me. (fingers crossed) I love the hands on approach you all have.
Naomi, I know I speak on behalf of everyone at Books & Such when I say that, should we request to see a project at a writers conference, we try very hard to send a response to that person. And we used to have a policy that we responded to all queries, but we’ve been so inundated with queries (Michelle will write more about that tomorrow) that the cost to respond to each one had become unjustified. We were so busy responded, especially to unsolicited material, that we were taking away time from our highest priority–our clients. So now we respond only to those we want to know more about it. That doesn’t mean we don’t read every query–we do. But it does mean that, sadly, we can’t respond to each. Still, for you not to hear after an agent requested material at a conference is a sad commentary on just how inundated agents are.
I have an etiquette question: I met an agent at a conference, she asked for my package, I sent it. She liked it but had a few suggestions and asked me to contact her after a couple of hurdles cleared out of the way. It’s been a little while but the hurdles are gone and we can continue to discuss representation. So my question is more like – “Before I Approach an Agent – Again.”
Do I now contact her directly or do I go through the agency’s submission process? For example, on the Books & Such site, you list direct email addresses for each agent and a submissions email contact. Which would be the correct one to use in this situation?
Thanks, Wendy, and best wishes to Etta on her recovery!
Ame, you might hear back from an agent in about a month after sending your material in. But 6-8 weeks isn’t unusual, especially if the agent is traveling when your query hits his/her desk. I would suggest looking elsewhere 5 weeks after submitting.
And Bethany, Rachel so knows she hasn’t looked at your project yet. That would be my fault; I’ve been keeping her busy with other things besides reading queries. Guess I’ll have to give her some space to take a look, eh?