Literary Agent Research

Among other things, I am in the midst of researching agents. This is a subject I’ll go into a bit on the last “Thoughts and Tips on Querying” post, but I want to tell you that it’s a lot of work. And I’m only at the point of making a hit-list. Once I have my hit-list and I’m ready to query, I then need to research each one and determine a) if the agent really is one I think would be great to work with, and b) if he/she is an agent that I think would be interested not only in the novel I’m pitching, but in the novels I have in various stages of progress, and the ideas and plans I have for future projects. That requires reading blogs, websites, looking up recommendations, hunting down interviews, finding out which authors they currently represent, etc.

I say this to get the point across that often finding an agent is thought of as being solely dependent on whether the agent likes the author, when in fact, it goes both ways. Agents understand this, I think, but I’m finding that as I look at agent websites, and read agent bios, I’m evaluating them as much as they will one day be evaluating me. When I pull up an agent’s website, if he’s only interested in contracting on a per-book basis (i.e., he will rep your book, but not necessarily the next), I move on. I want to have an agent working on my behalf for the duration of my writing career. I want to be dealing with someone with whom I can build up a rapport, joke with, celebrate with, commiserate with, and trust with my work. Some writers may not care, but this is important to me.

There are other preferences I have when selecting potential agents–things that attract me to some agents, and put me off others–but I won’t go into them here. My point is that finding the right agent is, to me, as much finding an agent I like as it is finding an agent that likes me and my novel. And that takes a lot of work. But hopefully it’ll be worth it in the end. Check back in a few months… 🙂