How To Research Literary Agents
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Jessica and James give their best tips for researching literary agents.
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Jessica Faust’s love for books is what first brought her to open BookEnds Literary Agency. It is her desire to be an advocate for all authors that pushed her to create her blog, the BookEnds RUclips channel and to maintain a vibrant presence on Twitter.
Jessica is proud to have grown BookEnds to an agency that represents authors of all genres for children and adults, allowing her to reach more readers and help more authors and illustrators achieve their dreams.
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Since interning at BookEnds as an undergrad in the summer of 2015, James has (basically) never left. He's just continuously level-up-ed inside of BookEnds. Now he is the Literary Assistant and Social Media Manager for the team. He’s been a reader since his mom gave him the first A Series of Unfortunate Events book and ordered the sequels regularly through Scholastic book orders.
James is currently growing his own list and is actively seeking submissions in adult literary and upmarket fiction, mystery, thrillers, and suspense. He is also accepting submissions in all sub-genres of Young Adult fiction, and is actively looking for Picture Books that make him laugh.
Connect with BookEnds!
Twitter: bookendslit
Instagram: bookends_literary
Website: www.bookendsliterary.com
Connect with Jessica: bookendsjessica
Connect with James: jmcgowanbks
You guys are amazing. Encouraging writers to begin the journey by easing them into the realities involved. Daunting turned doable. Thank you.
I feel like everytime I have a question you upload the video I need!!! You are the best,!!!
Query Tracker is a good place to start. They list agents by what they're looking for. They note if agents are accepting submissions. They also include a spreadsheet for review and follow up on queries.
Yes! I needed this! I'm finally learning to use querytracker (the free version), and I don't know yet how to query the agents that would be genuinely interested in my book.
(I'm typing as I listen)
SFWA? OK. I didn't know that (I'm overseas). Thank you!
Note for anyone reading the comments: the free version of query tracker doesn't let you see the response rate of agents, by it allows you to search agents representing your genre. The pro version is 25 a year. Yes, I still don't have the 25 bucks for that alright, I'm broke. Lol.
Oh, I forgot the hashtag!
Yes, Twitter is a hard place to search.
No, query tracker doesn't have the guidelines specific to each agent. Each agent's profile has a link to their website and there you can see the guidelines somewhere.
Very helpful tips. Thank you guys.
Been following and watching your videos a lot lately...thank you ❤
To answer your question as to how active AbsoluteWrite is, it is still very active. I love the community there and have learned so much about writing and publishing from the members and their support has been a crucial part of my writing journey. For the past week or so, however, AW has been experiencing a sustained ddos attack and the site is down. They've contacted law enforcement and will do everything possible to get back up, just be aware that if you check and they're still down, that's why. Check the hashtag #absolutewrite on Twitter for updates on the situation from the site owner and moderators. It may take a while but they'll let everyone know when they get it back up.
Yes! Came here to say both of these things. They're also updating on Facebook (search "AbsoluteWrite"). I highly recommend it as a resource (and the site is not usually down).
As a new writer I feel glad that I’ve already been doing most of what you have suggested. Here is something else I’ve done. As I research published picture books I also look up their reviews. Sometimes Kirkus mentions who the agent was. So if the book is like something you’re working on, this agent may be a fit. Then I go to their website. Also, if you get the free newsletters from Publisher’s Weekly in your genre you’ll see lists of newly contracted books and who the agents are. If she’s a match to your type of book, go to the agency’s website to learn more about them.
Could you do a video on what an author is supposed to do with Twitter?
Thanks for all your good info.
Great tips! I'll come back to this video when the time is right 😀
I was at a conference once and an agent advised meeting agents at conferences first. I believe her analogy was "You wouldn't buy a car without test driving it first, why would you query an agent you haven't met?" In some ways, this makes sense because maybe the agent checks all your boxes but you may find out if you meet them that maybe their personalities or energies don't jive with yours. Do you have any thoughts on this? Do you feel it's necessary or advantageous to meet agents in person at workshops and conferences first?
If you have the opportunity, go for it.
Excellent information. Your videos are as entertaining as they are useful. Cheers!
Sometimes authors thank their agents at the back of their book. That's one other way.
Yes. Or Google authors whose work you admire. They often say who they're repped by in their bios (on Twitter and their websites), and/or their agents list them on their sites or write about representing them.
Yes. Thanks for pointing that out, Michael!
Question: What should a first time writer expect in a contract? I assumed it would be print, but your vlogs suggest that some agents might relegate you to Indie publications. Which, to be honest I can do myself. So what does a reputable Agent do? (Notice the 'cap' on Agent. Still massive respect!)
League of Utah Writers is great if you're in Utah. Some chapters even do online so if you're not you can still join. They are non profit and offer a TON if resources.
Question: There this one agent out there-you'll probably know the one-that is basing which authors he takes on at least partly on how much of an online following they have. He's telling authors that they need at least 5000 followers on Twitter, or something like that. Maybe this agent is okay and just a bit unorthodox, but I got a bit of a yellow alert on him. Is this something that your agency, or other agencies you know of, takes into consideration when you decide to represent an author? I'm not talking about just having a websites or blog, but do you look for a specific quantity of online presence before you sign someone?
I can't answer your question with a lot of "authority".... But I do know that the following is much more important for nonfiction. For non-fiction they generally want you to have what they call a platform.
If you're not sure what a platform is, look that up. For fiction I don't know. If this guy is wanting you to have that big of a following for fiction it would be a little bit of a red flag to me. But like I said, I can't answer this for sure.
@@MichaelAlperstein I'm quite certain that it's not just for non-fiction. It seems to be a general thing regardless of genre.
@@MichaelPhillipsatGreyOwlStudio Michael A is actually right. We have a video on platform on the channel, but for fiction, it's not a requirement. Agents and publishers will buy a book despite an author not having a platform. For non-fiction, it is most certainly a requirement.
Querytracker is by far the best resource I have found
Thank you so much! I've been trying to get a together a list of agents, but sci fi seems hard to find.
Very important question! This is a must know subject. Thanks!
Is it okay to ask in the query letter, if they could pass on your query if they think someone in the agency is a better fit?
A question: is there such an organization for the historical literary/fiction/novel genre(s)?
Hi Juan: I found one Facebook group called 'Historical Fiction Authors Co-Op' and another, the 'Historical Novel Society - the place for new historical fiction'.
I’m writing a YA paranormal. On query tracker websites, paranormal isn’t listed as a genre, but YA is. Lots of agents don’t seem to mention paranormal at all, so I’ve been shortlisting agents that are accepting YA and fantasy. Would you consider that the right or wrong thing to do? If I didn’t include them in my shortlist, I’d be left with very few agents to query.
If an agent has not listed that they are open to paranormal (or urban fantasy), then it is probably not quite what they're looking for, but if you query it as fantasy, the worst that can happen is a no! We don't think querying as fantasy is inappropriate.
I enjoy every one of these videos!
Very informative. ThanksWhat if an author has multiple genres?
So if an agent represents many categories that are covered in your book except the main theme should I still query them or no? Example. Your book has romance, family saga, humor. Which the agent is asking for but your book also has Fantasy which is not on their wishlist. What do you do? Just go ahead and Query them because it can't hurt or will it hurt you because you didn't follow their guidelines to a T and they won't want queries from you in the future?
I'm gonna query 100 agents, then if no takers, I'll self-publish and then begin querying my next book.
Could you please tell me about writers groups for Adult Fantasy authors? Thanks.
Jeff Herman's Guide to Literary Agents has a lot of good information. :-)
For the Doggies Guitars I like Jeff Herman.... He lives right over the mountain from me, you'd be driving through town and never knew you just drove by a 'literary agency'
Querytracker.net
Ahh yes, searching for agents in an entirely reasonable method - step one read through the lists of hundreds of agents: identity and list 50 you might identify with in some way.... Step two research these agents as individuals on their agency websites, their PM interviews, duotrope blurbs and other search results including their social media pages..... Make a legitimate effort to try and find out who they are and what they're like as a person (which is all but impossible short of speaking to them but try anyway)... After reading numerous articles, blurbs and bios get your list down to a dozen agents....if you decide to do an exclusive submission, good luck and God's speed because you will need it.... It has its advantages as after you send your query you can stop and wait for whatever the agency's guidelines say to wait for but you can also end up flushing numerous years of valuable querying time right down the toilet by assuming they will show you the same respect you're showing them..... Figure out which 12 agents you think will most identify with your book (which is insanely difficult to do considering the limited accurate information you actually have regarding any agent) begin writing individualized query letters to each individual agent, never copy and paste it's lazy and impersonal (lol yeah right). Throw away, erase or otherwise discard the 5-8 drafts of each 12 queries that you made mistakes in or that don't sound right. Read final draft of each query out loud to be sure it sounds right. Then send query letters and await reply. Know that most likely 50-60% will not reply at all, of the 40-50% that do reply maybe 95% of those will be in form rejection and will offer no value to you. Repeat this process thirty times over a period of six years for a total of well over 3,000 discarded rough drafts, 450 finished and sent query letters and you will receive approximately 75 form rejection letters, 3 partially detailed rejection letters and maybe a partial manuscript request and 370 or so no reply at all but this is only if you are coming up with original story ideas that you yourself created and or are covering realistic topics like racism or the opiate epidemic as though they are stories that probably happened..... books with controversial topics are far too dangerous for an agent to get involved with or stake their reputation on and just because you could have been killed with what you had to go through to write a book doesn't mean an agent will be willing to even jeopardize their reputation to represent it..... however if you write books that are less risky and are what a specific agent is looking for then your query success rate will likely vastly improve from zero percent, to as high as half a percent or 1%😀 the line is very long bucko's...... But hey even if your book gets rejected a thousand times you can always try the other "believe in yourself" method and self-publish, but then you must become the salesman or woman