Posts in the "Agents" Category

• The Ninety-Ten Rule

  Agents

  Before we get started, I advise you to ignore everything I say; I haven’t the foggiest idea how to write commercial books or get an agent. Sorry. But I do have a piece of advice I got from someone much smarter than me. A brilliant fantasy writer and wonderful person said something to me years ago that has stuck with me. It’s been helpful, and the fact that I’ve ignored it most of the time has been to my detriment. That’s why I bring it up now, in the discussion of getting an agent — because I think it might be the most important thing you can know in seeking an agent.

  What she said was this: “Genre readers want 90% of the same stuff they’ve been reading, and 10% new.”

  What she meant, obviously, is that people who have read Lord of the Rings want something like Lord of the Rings — but enough different from Lord of the Rings that it gives them a new experience. This doesn’t address the overall quality of the work, just its marketability over and above its being (hopefully) a damn good book.

  I like the 90%-10% rule. You don’t have to accept it, obviously, and I’ve already admitted I don’t know what I’m talking about. Agree or disagree with me; the discussion is sure to prove interesting. I think plenty of people may yell and scream that I’m distilling genre writing down to product. I couldn’t agree with them more. It’s a highly dangerous enterprise to do so, because genre writing, to my mind, is where the true innovation in the literary world and in life actually comes from nowadays. (more…)

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• Um, Agent?

  Agents

  

  Agent?   Are we supposed to have one of those?  God, I am so crap at this.  I think I did mail out some agent queries at some point, so I must have got some rejection letters.  I don’t even know that I’ve met an agent, you know, in the flesh.

  Long story short:  If you want to know how I sold my book, keep reading.  If you want to find an agent, probably you should read some of these other posts.

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• …It’s Who You Know

  Agents

  I wrote Southern Gods in late 2007 and early 2008. The following year, I workshopped it heavily, both online and in real-world workshops. At some point – after maybe the seventh rewrite and pass – I realized I had to stop futzing with the manuscript and do something with it. I’d had very encouraging words from beta-readers and workshoppers. So I spent a month crafting a pitch that went like this:

  When Lewis “Bull” Ingram returns to the states after World War II, he finds himself working as muscle for a Memphis mob boss, performing collections. But when a man hires him to find a pirated radio station broadcasting music that may or may not cause insanity, impregnate women, and raise the dead, Ingram ventures into the strange and backward Arkansas of 1951 on a course to discover old gods warring to re-enter the world.

  SOUTHERN GODS is a 94k word horror novel.

  I did my research and found 23 agents that had sold horror/supernatural/dark fantasy titles in the last year. I submitted that block of copy, with a small blurb of personal bio copy after it. I laboriously sent it out. (more…)

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• Serendipity happens, you just need *lots* of patience…

  Agents

  There’s been some great posts about the agent hunt by the others. As in anything as complex as finding an agent to represent you, I took a different path than my fellow Night Bazaar members (at least of the posts I’ve seen so far). I sold my book first, and then I got an agent.

  You’d think that finding an agent after you sold you book is easy. But it’s not. It’s still a challenge, and I hope after reading this you’ll understand why.

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• Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday.

  Agents

  Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…

  They say that having a publisher is like dating. Having an agent is like marriage. It’s a good analogy. Not only is one a shorter-term relationship and the other more permanent, but there’s that whole layer of “Is a long-term relationship right for me?” and “Is this the right one for me?” It is possible to be successful without an agent. It’s just a hell of a lot more difficult, time-consuming and worrying. Like Kameron, I wanted to focus on writing and not the business of writing. However, one should be aware of what contracts say and how they work — adult relationships work best as partnerships, not as dependencies. Agents are one part lawyer, one part devoted promoter and support system, and (in my case) one part editor. All of this is bundled into one very special person who wears armour to work every day and battles the big bad for you and other writers like you. Agents are amazing people. Good agents are rarer. And that one in a million agent who is just right for you? Even more so.

  That said, how did I get a great agent? (more…)

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• Who’s in your Corner?

  Agents

  If you ever asked me how I got my agent, I could blithely say, well, I finished a book and sent it off to three agents and my #1 choice just scooped it right up and then sold it twice!

  This would, technically, be true.

  But, as with all “remember when I was an unpublished writer” stories, it’s not the whole story. (more…)

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• The Great Agent Hunt

  Agents

  

  Some people say you don’t need an agent to get a book deal, and plenty of stories exist to prove them right.  As for me, I knew right off I wanted an agent.  I had zero contacts in the publishing industry, the thought of contract negotiation gave me hives, and I didn’t want my manuscript to spend years languishing in the slush pile at the few sf&f houses that still accept unagented submissions.

  Ah, but wanting and getting are two different things.  A mountain of information on agents and queries and the whole process is available online – much of it excellent, some of it contradictory! – but I always found writers’ personal stories far more interesting and helpful than dry lists of advice.  So, here’s my tale of my ride on the query-go-round, complete with timeline for those as obsessive over details as I was in my agent-hunting days… (more…)

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