How to Find and Pitch a Literary Agent
In a previous blog (“Should I Try to Get a Literary Agent?”), I discussed why literary agents exist (to do publishers’ dirty work), whether or not you should try to find one to represent your novel to publishers (probably yes) and how to find them (Guide to Literary Agents, a Writer’s Digest Book).
In this blog, I want to get into more of the nitty-gritty regarding the process of attempting to find a literary agent who is interested in your novel, and pitching him or her with your idea.
The first thing you need to do is buy that book I mentioned. I don’t know the author and I don’t have stock in the company that publishes it. I just think it’s by far the best book I’ve seen on this subject. If you have a better one, use it instead.
Second, actually read the book. There are plenty of great chapters that can help first-time novelists, including…
· How Not to Start Your Book
· Crafting a Query Letter
· How to Write a Synopsis
· 10 Reasons Agents Reject Your Manuscript
· 8 Ways to Write a Great Chapter One
· Crafting a Novel Agents Will Love
· Reading with a Writer’s Eye
· Create Your Writer Platform
Don’t gloss over these chapters in your haste to get to the detailed information about the agents, the genres they like to represent, and the way to contact them. These informative chapters will give you great advice that could increase the likelihood that an agent will be interested in your work.
When you’re ready to identify specific literary agents you want to approach, turn to the “Literary Agents Specialties Index” near the back of the book. Then, locate the genre that best captures what your novel is about, such as Action, Adventure, Commercial, Crime, Detective, Fantasy, Historical, Horror, Literary, Mainstream, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller, Western, Women’s, Young Adult or one of the others.
Next, jot down the names of the agents who are looking for books in this genre, as well as the page numbers on which they appear, and use your list to look up each one individually to see how they want you to present your idea. As mentioned in a previous blog, some literary agents only want a one-page query letter. If you send them anything else, they will probably reject you for no other reason than the fact that you can’t follow simple instructions.
Other agents will request a query letter and a synopsis, while others are seeking a query letter, synopsis, and brief bio. A few will want a query letter, synopsis, brief bio, and one or more sample chapters. Most agents prefer electronic transmissions, but very few are willing to open attachments. You’ll even find a few who only want to receive your materials through snail mail.
There is one more step that is important to follow. Visit the websites of the literary agents you’ve identified and try to confirm that the information you found in the book is still accurate. In a vast majority of cases it will be, but sometimes a particular agent has left an agency to form one of her own, and sometimes an agent who previously only wanted a query letter now is willing to also look at a sample chapter. The website will almost always have more current information than the book does, but the book is still the best place to start.
Once you’re ready to begin pitching agents, there will be a temptation to fire off your materials simultaneously to each one you’ve identified. Don’t do it. It’s not because agents don’t want you to pitch a competitor of theirs while you’re pitching them. The turnaround time for a response from an agent is normally at least several weeks, so they understand that you have to pitch a number of agents at the same time if you’re going to have a chance of landing an agent during your lifetime.
The reason to avoid simultaneously pitching everyone you’ve identified is that you are going to want to tweak your pitch along the way. Send your stuff to five to 10 agents at first (maybe a few who want a query letter only and others who are looking for more), and see what kind of response you get. If nobody bites, tweak your query letter to present your idea in a slightly different way for the next five to 10 agents you approach. Then do it again and again and again if you have to.
Now, maybe you’ll get lucky and land a great agent pretty quickly and perhaps they’ll ask for your entire manuscript and love it and set out to find a publisher for it. But we have to be realistic here. In the vast majority of cases, first-time novelists get rejected by every single agent they pitch. Sorry, but it’s a fact and I’m not going to ignore it in order to give you false hope.
So, do your homework, try to land an agent, and be ready to self-publish if that strategy doesn’t work out for you. We’ll get into more about self-publishing in an upcoming blog.