Anyone know any young adult epic fantasy agents?

Stacey9958 said:

Hello Everyone:

I am attempting to get an agent for my young adult epic fantasy novel. I have never been published before. I haven't had much luck so far but I am pushing forward. I am trying to come up with some self promotion stuff just to get my name out there.

Any suggestions for this newbie would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Stacey

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Welcome to AW.

Check out the Beware & Backgroud Checks forum to research agents.

Querytracker.com and Agentquery.com are both good sources to look up agents - and you can look up agents by genre or by who they represent, and then come back over here and look them up in the Beware & Background Checks threads to see what other AWers are saying about them. But you'll need to do that research yourself. And it is important to carefully research prospective agents.

When you have a draft of your query ready, check out Query Letter Hell In the Share Your Work forum - BUT, before posting there, or anywhere else in SYW, read all of the stickie threads - ALL OF THEM - and some of the critiques, both to know whether you are ready and to know what to expect.

Welcome and enjoy your stay.

~suki

Here's a previous thread about finding agents to represent YA epic fantasy.

Welcome to AW!

I kind of feel like you're asking us to do your homework for you...so I'm just going to do this:

Look here, here, and probably here too.

Hi, Stacey9958, and welcome to AW.

Stacey9958:
I am trying to come up with some self promotion stuff just to get my name out there.

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Obviously it depends on what you mean by self-promotion, but in practice agents really just want a good manuscript that's well written and which they think they can sell.

If you've got a background of sales of YA/children's/adult short story sales to professionally paying markets, then this is definitely worth mentioning in your query. Ditto if you're a celebrity or married to a celebrity. Otherwise, I'd focus on your writing and make sure that you're query letter is the best that it can be. You can use the SYW Forum to test out your query letter if you'd like.

Stacey9958:
Anyone know any young adult epic fantasy agents?

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In addition to the suggestions set out above, you could also check out the acknowledgements pages in YA epic fantasies that you've enjoyed - most authors end up thanking their agent in them.

MM

I recently read Kristin Cashore's debut YA epic fantasy GRACELING, and in the acknowledgements she mentions her agent Faye Bender, who I note is currently open to submissions. You could start there.

Stacey9958:
I've checked all the websites like AgentQuery and even here but when I go to the actual agency websites I look and see what they have published and I don't see any young adult epic fantasy. So then I question if they really even consider it.

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If they say that they represent fantasy, then it's worth sending them a query.

If they just say that they represent young adult, then check to see what their client list has published. If any of them has fantasy books published, then the agent is worth a query.

MM