Kelly McClymer's Blog

Okay, let’s start with the number one “Truth” that writers believe about the agent search:

1. If the Book is Great, Every Agent Will Want It.

Seems reasonable, right? We’re talking great, not just good. We’re talking about a book that could win awards, sweep the world like The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter, or The Time Traveler’s Wife. Any agent would have fought to represent those books, right?

Ummm. Wrong. While J.K. Rowling was taken up by the second agent she queried, she then received twelve rejections from editors before making her deal with Bloomsbury. Twelve. And the one poor agent who looks at the sales and wonders “what if I had said yes?”….

The thing is, agents have something significant in common with everyone else who loves to read — personal taste. Some love lush detail, some love action, some love twenty dollar words. Whatever. We all know what we love when we see it. And we know what we don’t. So do agents. No pleading, gifts, witty query letters or personal charm is going to change that. Any writer who wants to find an agent needs to understand this truth in order to make the search slightly less frustrating and painful.

The agent who turned down the first Harry Potter was right to do so, because an agent needs to love a book to get it the best deal possible. Rowling’s agent loved her book so much he looked past the small first book deal into the misty possibilities of the future and kept her film rights. Her spectacular sales then allowed Rowling to negotiate creative approval on her films (unusual, and not something most authors can manage — but without her agent’s belief in Harry and foresight, those rights could have been signed away into her publisher’s control). When a writer goes looking for an agent, the first quest is to find an agent who loves the book. The second is to find one who has the connections to sell it. Which leads us to the magic word: research.

When I first began writing, umptydumpty years ago, I was lucky. I was writing short science fiction stories. I subscribed to three science fiction magazines, and picked up others occasionally at the newsstand. The editorial submissions policy was printed in every magazine, and in the writer’s magazines I read. Simple. No agent needed. Research (reading the magazines) was fun and easy.

It took me almost ten years to begin a novel, and three more to finish it and research how to sell it. I knew I should get an agent, but at the time some publishers accepted unagented submissions in their “slush” piles. This policy has changed significantly in the intervening years. I would not advise a writer submit to most publishers without an agent, unless the writer has a personal connection with the editor (not BFF, but has met at a conference, won a contest judged by said editor, etc.). Despite all that, getting information on agents was difficult and unreliable. My published friends had talked about their agents enough I knew which of those I wanted to avoid, and which were out of my league. Writer’s Market was full of agents and agencies. What was I to do?

My strategy when first looking for an agent is not one I would recommend to my worst enemy: I picked ten agents based on (1) whether they represented the genre (historical romance) and (2) by how much I liked their name. Yes. Really. I did. But learn from my mistake, and use the technological tools at your disposal nowadays. My first criteria was spot on. My second was the equivalent of throwing a dart at a dartboard…while blindfolded…and drunk on cheap beer.

Here’s a better strategy (the one I’m employing this time around in my search):

1. Subscribe to Publisher’s Marketplace ($20 a month, but you can subscribe for just one month). Read the deals, note the agents for projects in a similar vein as yours. Note the editors, too, in case you have an editor in your sights, because you can check to see if your agent has ever made a deal with that editor. [NOTE: Not all deals are listed here. Some agents do not send updates to this list.]

2. Google (or Bing) those agents names and read interviews. You may be shocked how many agents you can take off your list after reading a few interviews. Most agents are pretty sure what they like, and they know their odds of getting it are better if they are clear, and blunt, and repetitive about it. Ignore this friendly advice if you like to take long shots and don’t mind quick form rejection.

3. Read agency blogs, and writer blogs where agent interviews are a part of the process. A good blog to start may be Editors and Agents, Oh My. I follow about 1,000 blogs (through a feed reader, and I don’t read them all with the same attention). I’m slowly starting to put my favorite writer, editor, and agent blogs in my sidebar, so check those out, too.

4. Make your Top Ten Agents Wishlist, ranking agents by the criteria that matters most to you (years in business, agency reputation, proximity to NYC, editorial relationships, etc.). [NOTE: By this time you've already weeded out agents who don't represent your genre and whose interview didn't float your boat, or who you saw at a conference and got a bad vibe from.]

5. Query following the directions on the agency websites (more on this in an upcoming post).

6. Begin compiling your “Next Ten Agents Wishlist” (hoping never to need it), and reminding yourself at every rejection that an agent who doesn’t love your book is the wrong agent for you. [NOTE: Consider printing that out on a piece of paper and taping it somewhere you can see it every day during the agent search.]

Next Up — Top “Truth” Number Two: The Query Letter Is Everything.