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How To Find A Literary Agent

  • Writer: Savanna
    Savanna
  • Mar 28, 2017
  • 4 min read

You decided you want a literary agent. So how do you find one? More importantly, how do you know which agents are legit? Hiring an agent can reap many benefits and help you become a successful author, but finding one (and one that loves your book) can be tricky. Below are tips to keep in mind when you are on the hunt for a literary agent. (One thing to note: if you plan on self-publishing, you don’t really need an agent unless you want to expand to a larger market. Agents are more tailored to traditional publishing.)

First Impressions

Before you even begin to look for an agent, make sure you are presenting your best work. Revise and read your book until you adore every chapter, sentence, and word in it. Is the placement of that paragraph confusing? Revise it. Awkward sentence structure? Revise it. Don’t like the ending? Revise it. See where I’m going with this? It will be much easier to win over an agent if you love your own work. Along with revising, be sure to read through the entire book at least a few times to make sure everything flows the way you want it to.

Get Feedback

When your book is as polished as possible, gather a few writing friends or your writing group (you can start forming one in the Forum section of the site), and have them read through your manuscript. Treat them as a test audience. Gather their feedback and take into consideration their critiques. Did a few of them mention a confusing passage? You might want to go back and change it. According to WritersDigest.com, you want a group of people who enjoy the same genre and can give you an idea on how your book will be received.

Will The Real Literary Agent Please Stand Up?

It can be exciting to start your literary adventure, but before you go clicking every “submit” button you find, make sure you do ample research on every agent you discover. A.C. Crispin of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America notes that there are plenty of scammers posing as “agents” who will try to con you out of some money by making sure you never see a penny of your book profits. Besides scammers, there are also plenty of amateur agents out there. While they aren’t as ill-intentioned, their lack of experience and professional networks can do more harm to your book than good.

Great Minds Think Alike

The best way to narrow down agents is to find one that has published a book of the same genre as yours. Go to your local bookstore and search the genre closest to your book. Crispin suggests taking note of the title, author, and publisher. Then, flip to the back and look at the Acknowledgments page. Note the agent’s name and their agency. You’ll want to gather a few of these names, so spend some time in that section and take good notes.

Online Searches

You can also search online for literary agents. Be warned: there is a higher chance of running into scammers. Crispin warns that typing “literary agent” into a search engine is a sure way to find scammers. However, there are online networks out there that do monitor the legitimacy of their agents.

Top 3 Online Agent Networks:

Do Your Research

Once you have a solid list of agents, the next step is to start researching each name. Most agents have their own website along with a track record of sales to recognizable publishers and a client list. If they don’t, then cross them off the list and move on. They’re probably scammers.

Doing research will also help you get a feel for who the agent is, what their recent sales are, and what they like to see in a book. Agents will also explain on their website what they want to see from prospective authors. Crispin notes that some just want a query letter, while others want a query letter, synopsis, and first chapter. This is one of the few cases where going above and beyond may hurt you; you should only give the agent exactly what they want, no more and no less. The specifics of writing query letters and a synopsis is a topic worthy of its blog post, so I’ll move on to red flags to look for when finding an agent.

Real Agents:

  • Have a website with a track record of books they’ve sold to recognizable publishers

  • Don’t advertise

  • Don’t charge upfront fees

  • Have a phone number and an address (Most agents will call you periodically along with emailing you)

  • Don’t charge to edit (They’ll help you polish your book one last time before sending it to publishers. It’s included in their commission)

  • Don’t sell you services (websites for your book, business cards, photos, marketing plans, etc.)

  • Don’t sell books to vanity or non-advance publishers (Remember: they get paid when you get paid)

Listed below are more links to help you with your search. If you want to know more about literary agents, check out last week’s blog post

Beware, Recommendations, and Background Checks: More warnings on business practices and what to keep in mind when looking for agents.

Happy writing!

Sources:

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About The Blogger

I'm Savanna. Avid writer. College student.

Bad at bios.

 

 

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