This is a good Q, and the answer is different for everyone depending on a wild number of factors—personal platform, genre, etc.
I'd likely start by identifying comp titles—books with similar angles to mine—and digging into the acknowledgments. Authors generally include their agents in the acknowledgments, which can be a great place to start. You find out who represents your favorite authors; you then find out whether that agent is accepting author queries. If they are, follow their query guidelines—usually listed online—to the letter, and make sure to pitch your project as comparable to their other projects. ("My book is tonally similar to [book name here] from your client [author name here].")
If you hadn’t gotten lucky with the agent reaching out to you, and assuming an agent is critical, how would you go about finding one?
This is a good Q, and the answer is different for everyone depending on a wild number of factors—personal platform, genre, etc.
I'd likely start by identifying comp titles—books with similar angles to mine—and digging into the acknowledgments. Authors generally include their agents in the acknowledgments, which can be a great place to start. You find out who represents your favorite authors; you then find out whether that agent is accepting author queries. If they are, follow their query guidelines—usually listed online—to the letter, and make sure to pitch your project as comparable to their other projects. ("My book is tonally similar to [book name here] from your client [author name here].")
This is wonderfully clear and helpful—thank you!
I'm so glad it was helpful!
this rules!!!
thank you!!!
Congratulations on finding the right agent & publisher for your book/baby. Getting a pre-empt is amaaazing. Cool.
Thank you! I feel very, very lucky that my debut experience was so good.