Please help: What I should do to get an Agent

razibahmed · Feb 26, 2006

I am from Bangladesh and I am in new in this forum. I have two questions:
1. Are there agents who deal with Online writing markets? If there are how can I find them?
2. Can I get an agent in USA from Bangladesh? If yes, what should I do?
Any information will be much appreciated.
Razib Ahmed
http://write-translate.blogspot.com/

dantem42 · Feb 26, 2006

razibahmed said:
I am from Bangladesh and I am in new in this forum. I have two questions:
1. Are there agents who deal with Online writing markets? If there are how can I find them?
2. Can I get an agent in USA from Bangladesh? If yes, what should I do?
Any information will be much appreciated.
Razib Ahmed
http://write-translate.blogspot.com/

My impression is there are no mainline, reputable agents who do this. An agent works on a commission basis (typically 15 percent of the proceeds), and online forums either pay nothing or pay miserably. Most online forums are "direct submission," and you should just do your homework and find out what they are.

On the other hand, why would you want to focus on the online world? It's not mature yet as a platform for literature. If what you've written is good enough, submit to agents and try to get published "for real." Incidentally, in terms of your location, you'll find that a number of agents allow query submissions and even occasionally manuscript submissions online via email. A good place to start is Agentquery.com, where you can get a list of agents who accept queries by email, as well as their email addresses. However, be mindful that many agents who accept email queries don't bother to answer if they're not interested, so it's kind of a black hole sometimes.

aruna · Feb 26, 2006

May I also suggest that you may have better success on the UK market than in the US?
That's because the UK is still pretty much riding the India wave, and books from that region are in demand. I know of one UK agent who even has an associate agent dealing specifically with Indian authors, and I suspect Bangladesh and Pakistan come close enough. Monica Ali had a huge success with her "Bangla" novel Brick Lane, and that is good for you. PM me and I'll give you the name of that agent.

Chacounne · Feb 27, 2006

You might also PM KitKat, here in the Water Cooler; she lives in India and might have some suggestions.

Hope this helps,
Chac

razibahmed · Feb 27, 2006

Thanks for the information

Dear dantem42,
Thanks for your response. I visited Agentquery.com and fount it to be very useful. One problem for me is to know if my work is good or bad. Here, we do not have so many people writing in English language and that is why it is very difficult to to get opinion about a work.
I wish you could visit my blog and tell me our opinion about my writings. For me now, this is a real challenge to know about the problems that I have in writing.
Best regards
Razib

dantem42 said:
My impression is there are no mainline, reputable agents who do this. An agent works on a commission basis (typically 15 percent of the proceeds), and online forums either pay nothing or pay miserably. Most online forums are "direct submission," and you should just do your homework and find out what they are.

On the other hand, why would you want to focus on the online world? It's not mature yet as a platform for literature. If what you've written is good enough, submit to agents and try to get published "for real." Incidentally, in terms of your location, you'll find that a number of agents allow query submissions and even occasionally manuscript submissions online via email. A good place to start is Agentquery.com, where you can get a list of agents who accept queries by email, as well as their email addresses. However, be mindful that many agents who accept email queries don't bother to answer if they're not interested, so it's kind of a black hole sometimes.

razibahmed · Feb 27, 2006

Thanks for the information

Thanks for your information. I really love this forum as I can get answers from a number persons when I submit a post.

Chacounne said:
You might also PM KitKat, here in the Water Cooler; she lives in India and might have some suggestions.

Hope this helps,
Chac

aruna · Feb 27, 2006

razibahmed said:
Dear dantem42,
Thanks for your response. I visited Agentquery.com and fount it to be very useful. One problem for me is to know if my work is good or bad. Here, we do not have so many people writing in English language and that is why it is very difficult to to get opinion about a work.
I wish you could visit my blog and tell me our opinion about my writings. For me now, this is a real challenge to know about the problems that I have in writing.
Best regards
Razib

Why not post your work on the "Share Your Work" section of ABsolute Write? There you'll get a variety of appraisals of your work, and help as to how to improve. May I also add that it's extremely difficult to get short stories sold as an anthiology, ifd that's what you're thinking of. You'd be better off with magazines etc.
Good Luck!

razibahmed · Feb 27, 2006

Thanks

Dear Aruna,
Thanks for your advice and I have already posted my work in Share Work Section of Absolute Write. Thanks a lot too for your other advice about the prospect of short story writing. I will surely keep in mind. Actually, my first choice is writing novels.
best regards

aruna said:
Why not post your work on the "Share Your Work" section of ABsolute Write? There you'll get a variety of appraisals of your work, and help as to how to improve. May I also add that it's extremely difficult to get short stories sold as an anthiology, ifd that's what you're thinking of. You'd be better off with magazines etc.
Good Luck!

dantem42 · Feb 27, 2006

razibahmed said:
Dear Aruna,
Thanks for your advice and I have already posted my work in Share Work Section of Absolute Write. Thanks a lot too for your other advice about the prospect of short story writing. I will surely keep in mind. Actually, my first choice is writing novels.
best regards

I'd say stick with targeting a novel in terms of contacting agents (if you have one). Most of them will not look at short stories. Also, you can post your query letter for critique, there are a lot of people who will help you. Having a great query letter is half the battle to land a good agent.

Please help: What I should do to get an Agent

razibahmed

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dantem42

aruna

On a wing and a prayer

Chacounne

razibahmed

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razibahmed

AW Addict

aruna

On a wing and a prayer

razibahmed

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dantem42