The First W

Something that seems obvious but doesn't seem to occur to many people about finding an agent is that you should be looking for someone who knows and is interested in the kind of manuscripts you write. There's no faster way of getting rejected than by sending a something they have no interest in. Remember, agents are only human. There are only so many things that they know and enjoy. If they don't read your kind of book, they won't be much help with the manuscript except for the basic things like copyediting or pacing. Second, it's a bad business proposition for them because chances are they don't have many contacts in companies that buy such books. Finally, your manuscript better be really interesting or they're honestly not going to care. This isn't to say that an agent won't be interested in things outside their norm. There will always be exceptions, and with publishers as well. But the chances are much, much smaller.

So the very first step in finding an agent is...to find an agent. Duh. Every year there are books printed listing agencies all across the country and giving you some idea of what they do, most notably, those by Chuck Sambuchino. He's also got a website for it- http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/. These are not the outer limits. Your next stop, or perhaps your first one should be Query Tracker. The main downfall of Query tracker, apart from the fact that the statistics only represent those who share their success or rejection is that agents are listed as representing anything they're even remotely interested in. In any event, there are plenty of other ways to find agents you might want to work with and who might be interested in your book. Writing conferences, if you can go. Webinars. Magazines and journals such as Writer's Digest will periodically interview agents or list some they find interesting. You could also do something a little more off beat if you really wanted to. Like the slightly shady Preditors and Editors. After you've picked out ones that looked good in the abstract on paper, GO TO THEIR SITE. This is not a suggestion. I hate using all caps like that, but I don't want you to miss it. A well made site will tell you what they want, the way they want it, and might just give you a better idea of who they are, either by an about us page, or through a company blog or whatever else. This is a valuable resource.

On a final note, if you met an agent at a writing conference or webinar and they gave you feedback personally, you can always try them even if they're not likely to be interested. You probably don't stand any better chance of gaining their reputation, but depending on the agent and the agency, you might get their personal attention when otherwise, you would be at the mercy of a reader or submissions manager. So you might get a little more feedback, and if you're really good, you might just get a few reccomendations for other agents to query. And that is another way to quickly catch an agent's attention. That's always a good thing. More feedback! More reccomendations! It can never hurt. Worst case scenario, we treat your manuscript like normal.

Anyway, long story short (too late!) think about who you'd want to work with, and who would be likely to want to work with you and your manuscript. Oh, and when you do, if you submit electronically, please personalize your query letter. Bad enough when it's generic or expects an agent to publish their book. What really gets under my skin at least is CCing every agent in the world. It's totally unprofessional. We don't expect anything to be an exclusive submission, but it makes us feel like you put no time or thought into who to send to. If an agency takes you on, that means they want to work with you as an author, not just the one book. That means they have to like you. The first part of that is treating agencies as unique entities rather than interchangable cogs. Even if you do query every agent in the known universe, do us all a favor and send the e-mails seperately. Maybe throw in a line about how you saw the agent you're querying at SCBWI or read about them in a magazine, or how you follow them on Twitter or whatever. It gives us the feeling that you know what you're doing and have really given the whole process some thought.