So You’re Ready to Find an Agent for Your Novel
Episode 8
You are an author. Or more accurately, you are a writer. You have published nothing. But your goal is to publish a work of fiction. A novel. That’s been your goal for as long as you can remember.
Currently you write your own blog, but your love is fiction. It doesn’t matter what form. You love to write stories. All kinds of stories. You have written stories ever since you started getting serious about writing. That was back in junior high. You took every creative writing class you could find. English was your major in college. And you received your MFA from a prestigious university, though you often thought your professors were more interested in showing how great their own writing was instead of improving yours. Not to mention the piss poor job they did explaining the business side of the literary world. For that you’ve sought answers from books and the internet.
Your manuscript has been worked on by two professional editors. A beta group has offered their suggestions…and best wishes. Then, after five years of dedication to your masterpiece, you had the most concise product possible. It was time to find an agent who could help you find a publisher. So you followed all the required steps and produced a catchy query letter and an informative (but not dry) synopsis. With those essentials in hand—manuscript, query, synopsis—you scoured the web to find agents that best fit your story, because you hoped to get selected by a Big Five publisher or any of the reputable indie publishing houses that would place your novel in bookstores and on Amazon. Your research of virtually every literary agency in America produced a list of 60 agents. They became your targets. You were realistic. You knew that not all agents would want to represent you and your work. But you weren’t worried. You didn’t need 60 agents. You only needed one. So you took a deep breath, put your list of agents in front of you, and hit the send button. You were nervous, but you felt good. You had dotted your I’s and crossed your T’s.
That was then. This is now. You hear nothing but the sound of crickets. Sixty queries sent and not one response. You decide to analyze the situation. You consider your doors. One of your writing tutors once told you that when it comes to sending unsolicited queries to agents, it’s all a matter of enticing them to open your doors. The first door is your name itself on the submission form. Many agents won’t open that door because they don’t recognize your name, and they’ve got too many clients to take care of without having to deal with a no-name writer. So the door stays closed. If the door is open, the agent sees your query and maybe even reads it. What you hope your query does is spark enough interest for the agent to open another door, which contains the synopsis you’ve painstakingly written to show where your story is going. If the agent is still interested, she may then open the door to the story samples she has requested. And after reading a ten-page, twenty-page, or first chapter sample, the agent might even open the last door and ask you to send the complete manuscript for her review.
You don’t know how many agents even opened your first door. You just know not one agent opened them all and requested your manuscript. The hard lesson to learn is that every door must be opened, not just one or two. You’re not the first writer who’s had to learn that.
You look for outside reasons for your failure. Excuses. You wonder if you are being shunned because you are a woman. No, that isn’t it; most agents are women, and they love female authors. Could it be because you’re young? That makes no sense at all. Agents are always looking for young authors who hold the promise of years of novels to sell. With no nefarious outside force to blame, you’re forced to consider an ugly truth: the product you submitted just wasn’t up to snuff.
So you spit out a few of your favorite obscenities, tell yourself to calm down, and decide to go back to the old drawing board, starting with the manuscript itself. Rework it once again. See where the holes are. Edit the damned thing for the millionth time. You will rewrite your query and synopsis too. And you will start from scratch on a targeted agent list. Find new faces. Find more intelligent agents this time.
You would like to go on to your next novel because you have a great idea that keeps percolating inside your head. It’s a mystery with a heavy dose of romance thrown in. But it will have to wait because you have unfinished business to take care of first. You won’t allow yourself to become discouraged. It’s just the world of publishing. It is hard work. It requires patience. And you have finally come to grips with reality—sometimes the submission process can be a real bitch.