Interpreting agency speak

JackieA · Sep 24, 2006

My ms is nearly finished, my publisher target chosen but.... I have no agent.

I have been searching the 'net and come across many possibles to contact and am confused by their lists of categories accepted. I can't see the point of approaching an agent if they don't cover my genre.

Does 'women's fiction' include romance? The only reference to 'romance' I came across were two negatives, that categorically stated, 'not Mills and Boon types', and the other stated, 'no romance'.

davidhburton · Sep 24, 2006

Have you considered Kristin Nelson? She handles both women's fiction and romance and is a wonderful agent.

Take the time to go through her site and her blog. You need to write a catching query letter if you want to get her interest.

http://www.nelsonagency.com/

Cheers!
David

Susan Gable · Sep 24, 2006

Are you an RWA member? Once again, one of the "services" RWA offers its members is a list of RWA-approved agents. (That doesn't mean that everything will be perfect with an RWA-approved agent. It's the same as an RWA-approved publisher. They've met certain standards.)

Needless to say, all of the agents on RWA's list represent romance.

Susan G.

cmckenziemitchinson · Sep 24, 2006

I'm not clear on whether or not you ARE writing romance. If you are targeting Harlequin, M&B, or Silhouette you do not need an agent to query. You can query directly to the editor. That's my plan. I want an agent, but I feel I will better perceived if I have a published title or two under my belt. HQN, etc. seem quite open, even encouraging, to unagented authors. I have toyed with the idea of 'women's fiction', I even have a lit fiction 2/3 of the way done, but my first interest is writing for HQN so I figured why not go for it. I have looked into joining RWA, but I am a yank living in the UK and as far as I can tell you have to be a US resident to join. If I'm wrong about this, please someone set me straight. Good luck with your search.

Stacia Kane · Sep 24, 2006

Cmckenzie, I'm also a Yank in England and I'm a member--I just had my membership address changed to here when we moved. I know a few Brits who are members, too--Portia da Costa, for one--and I don't think they/she had any problems joining.

Susan Gable · Sep 24, 2006

DecemberQuinn said:
Cmckenzie, I'm also a Yank in England and I'm a member--I just had my membership address changed to here when we moved. I know a few Brits who are members, too--Portia da Costa, for one--and I don't think they/she had any problems joining.

Yep. Even though the name of the organization is Romance Writers of America, we actually have members from all over the world! UK, Australia, Barbadoes, Egypt!

So, join the fun.

The internet makes the world so much smaller.

And we do have email lists that will make you feel like you're "part of the action" no matter where you are.

Susan G.

JackieA · Sep 24, 2006

davidhburton said:
Have you considered Kristin Nelson? She handles both women's fiction and romance and is a wonderful agent.

Take the time to go through her site and her blog. You need to write a catching query letter if you want to get her interest.

http://www.nelsonagency.com/

Cheers!
David

Thanks for the recommendation David. As I am in the UK, I have emailed her to see if she will consider me.

JackieA · Sep 24, 2006

Susan Gable said:
Are you an RWA member? Once again, one of the "services" RWA offers its members is a list of RWA-approved agents. (That doesn't mean that everything will be perfect with an RWA-approved agent. It's the same as an RWA-approved publisher. They've met certain standards.)

Needless to say, all of the agents on RWA's list represent romance.

Susan G.

Thank you for this info Susan, I was going to ask whether a Brit could join RWA, and see you've already asnwered my ?, so I'll look into it.

JackieA · Sep 24, 2006

cmckenziemitchinson said:
I'm not clear on whether or not you ARE writing romance. If you are targeting Harlequin, M&B, or Silhouette you do not need an agent to query. You can query directly to the editor. That's my plan. I want an agent, but I feel I will better perceived if I have a published title or two under my belt. HQN, etc. seem quite open, even encouraging, to unagented authors. I have toyed with the idea of 'women's fiction', I even have a lit fiction 2/3 of the way done, but my first interest is writing for HQN so I figured why not go for it. I have looked into joining RWA, but I am a yank living in the UK and as far as I can tell you have to be a US resident to join. If I'm wrong about this, please someone set me straight. Good luck with your search.

Good luck with your ms

Yes I did know they look at unagented ms, and like you, that's why I'm targetting my first ms in a long while in their direction, but hopefully there will come a time when I'm looking further a field. Thanks for your encouragement

Sonarbabe · Sep 24, 2006

Though this is by far not a complete list by any means, but when I first started my agent search that took romances, I went to this site: http://www.passionatepen.com/agentlist.htm There were a lot of helpful ones and some that didn't pertain to me. Hope this helps.

Interpreting agency speak

JackieA

davidhburton

Purveyor of sacrilege

Susan Gable

Dreamer of dreams, teller of tales

cmckenziemitchinson

Christy Kate McKenzie

Stacia Kane

Girl Detective

Susan Gable

Dreamer of dreams, teller of tales

JackieA

JackieA

JackieA

Sonarbabe

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