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Dear "Ask the Literary Agent" Columnist:
Aug. 24th, 2023 12:21 amShort version: We sort of need meta-agents that we turn to whose expertise lies in finding us agents. Because those of you who are agents are no easier for us to acquire than publishers are.
I mean, how would you go about picking an agent if you were an author? OK, you wouldn't. You don't get to do the picking. The market is not one in which authors get to choose from among available agents. But you agent folks, you kind of want to know why we sent you our query letter; you want to feel special among agents, not just wasting your time with the authors who send query letters to everybody, spamming up the place with form letters explaining why we're seeking a lit agent and a publisher. So let's say I really wanted to accommodate that, to pick from among you as if it were the kind of market that it isn't, to behave as if I get to pick.
If I get to pick, I want a lit agent who understands that I don't write for the literary market; I don't know enough about it to write for it, I read books, not markets. So I don't come in knowing how to package my book within the vocabulary of genres, at least not unless you let me discuss more than one of them and how my book is — and also in other senses isn't — a part of this one.
Or another way of going at it: can I find a literary agent who will work with an author who didn't sit down thinking "I am going to write a science fiction book" or "I am going to sit down and write a true crime story" or "I'm about to write a fast thriller spy novel" and instead had an idea for a book. "This would be a good story".
So how shall I, as the person (pretending) I get to pick, find the ones who match that description? Their querytracker profiles don't often answer these questions. Literarymarketplace doesn't provide the answers. The literary agency pages listing the agents and describing how to submit hint at it sometimes. But in general, you lit agent folks present outwardly as "Bring me this! I want to represent a book like this!", most often identifying the "this" by genre.
I had books prior to the current project, and I sought to get a literary agent, and I kept sending out query letters and eventually the criteria for who to send them too consisted of "is a lit agent accepting queries". I don't think that situation was serving any of us well. I'm sorry for spamming your mailboxes. With this new book I'd like to start over somehow.
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My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
I have started querying my third book, Within the Box, and I'm still seeking advance readers for reviews and feedback. It is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. I was going to start echoing it on Substack as well but we're not off to a good start. Anyway, please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
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Index of all Blog Posts
I mean, how would you go about picking an agent if you were an author? OK, you wouldn't. You don't get to do the picking. The market is not one in which authors get to choose from among available agents. But you agent folks, you kind of want to know why we sent you our query letter; you want to feel special among agents, not just wasting your time with the authors who send query letters to everybody, spamming up the place with form letters explaining why we're seeking a lit agent and a publisher. So let's say I really wanted to accommodate that, to pick from among you as if it were the kind of market that it isn't, to behave as if I get to pick.
If I get to pick, I want a lit agent who understands that I don't write for the literary market; I don't know enough about it to write for it, I read books, not markets. So I don't come in knowing how to package my book within the vocabulary of genres, at least not unless you let me discuss more than one of them and how my book is — and also in other senses isn't — a part of this one.
Or another way of going at it: can I find a literary agent who will work with an author who didn't sit down thinking "I am going to write a science fiction book" or "I am going to sit down and write a true crime story" or "I'm about to write a fast thriller spy novel" and instead had an idea for a book. "This would be a good story".
So how shall I, as the person (pretending) I get to pick, find the ones who match that description? Their querytracker profiles don't often answer these questions. Literarymarketplace doesn't provide the answers. The literary agency pages listing the agents and describing how to submit hint at it sometimes. But in general, you lit agent folks present outwardly as "Bring me this! I want to represent a book like this!", most often identifying the "this" by genre.
I had books prior to the current project, and I sought to get a literary agent, and I kept sending out query letters and eventually the criteria for who to send them too consisted of "is a lit agent accepting queries". I don't think that situation was serving any of us well. I'm sorry for spamming your mailboxes. With this new book I'd like to start over somehow.
—————
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
I have started querying my third book, Within the Box, and I'm still seeking advance readers for reviews and feedback. It is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
———————
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. I was going to start echoing it on Substack as well but we're not off to a good start. Anyway, please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts
