Something Janet Reid said...

[juneafternoon]

Re: this entry. (http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2008/02/friday-night-at-question-emporium-4.html)

Do you think it's a good idea to try sending stuff to, generally, anyone who reps fiction? I think Janet's awesome, and I would actually try this (she took on a YA writer! damn straight I'll be querying her), but I'd love to hear some thoughts.

[Carrie R.]

I did a lot of research and first queried the agents that I really really thought would be interested in my book. I spent a lot of time on that because I thought that was my best shot at getting represented. But beyond that, while I'm not a fan of total scattershot query letters (I think you should only query agents that you're legit interested in) my theory was that the worst thing that could happen is that you could be rejected. I think she's right -- it's not your job to keep her slush pile manageable.

At the same time, I have seen writers who become obsessed with querying rather than focusing attention on their next book. At a certain point, you're likely better off writing book two than querying an insane number of agents. If you can do both at the same time -go for it!

[juneafternoon]

Carrie, you might've said this somewhere, but like you said, I only have so much time: Did you sell your first book, or do you have other novels shelved?

[lkp]

I found that the more closely I targeted an agent's declared interests and record of sales, the better response I got.

[victoriastrauss]

Re: this entry. (http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2008/02/friday-night-at-question-emporium-4.html)

Do you think it's a good idea to try sending stuff to, generally, anyone who reps fiction? I think Janet's awesome, and I would actually try this (she took on a YA writer! damn straight I'll be querying her), but I'd love to hear some thoughts.

With all respect to Janet Reid, I don't think she provides good advice in this case--at least, for genre fiction writers. I addressed a similar question (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2029189&postcount=8) in a different thread--I'm reproducing the relevant part of that post below.

I would not take a chance on an agent who expresses interest in fantasy but hasn't actually sold any. I would stick to agents who'd actually sold fantasy to the publishers you'd like to be published by.

SF/fantasy is a pretty small subsection of publishing, and also rather cliquish. An agent who hasn't sold into that market--even if they express an interest in fantasy--may not know his or her way around the little niche well enough to be most effective in targeting your book to the right editor--and with such a small market, every submission counts. This is especially true for selling foreign rights once your domestic rights have been sold--agents who aren't experts in the domestic fantasy market may be even less expert in overseas markets, or work with co-agents who don't normally deal with fantasy at all. (I speak from experience here.)
Similarly, if I were marketing a YA novel, I wouldn't approach an agent who'd never sold any YA--that's a much bigger market than SF/fantasy, but it is still specialized, and you want an agent who really knows the editors who are buying in that market, and can approach them either on a personal basis or on the strength of his or her reputation for representing strong books in that market.

And as lkp points out, the better match for an agent's interests and track record your work is, the more likely you'll get a response.

- Victoria

[Susan Breen]

I wouldn't spend a lot of time submitting to agents who don't represent what you write. However, there is a certain amount of serendipity in the publishing business, and it's probably a good idea to leave open the possibility of something miraculous happening.
For example, I absolutely love my agent--Alex Glass of Trident Media. However, when I was drawing up lists of agents to query, I leaned toward middle aged women because I assumed that they would be most likely to get what I had to say (and there are a lot of them/us). Fortunately, someone referred me to Alex, and even though he is a young man, he understands my book completely and I couldn't be happier. So go figure.

[Judg]

I've got Janet on my list of agents to query, but not near the top. She doesn't represent my genre, but if everybody above her on the list rejects me, I could certainly do worse than querying her. Besides which, I've given her fair warning...

So the way I'm reading her advice is that it might not be the wisest thing to start with agents outside your genre, but it could be worth pounding on other doors after a while.

[Carrie R.]

Carrie, you might've said this somewhere, but like you said, I only have so much time: Did you sell your first book, or do you have other novels shelved?

I'd written 2 books before I wrote The Forest of Hands and Teeth (FHT) but FHT is the book I got an agent with and it's my first sale. The two other novels shelved are romances and they'll stay very very shelved :)

[juneafternoon]

Ahh cool :D Is it the first you queried with?

[Carrie R.]

Ahh cool :D Is it the first you queried with?

I queried a handful of agents with my ver first novel (back in 2000) but then I realized that I didn't want to brand myself with that book (it was a historical western and no way did I want to write another one). So I started and finished a contemporary romance that I never queried and then I took 4 years off from writing (went to law school, etc). I wrote a partial of a chick lit YA and won a partial submission through a contest and other than that, I approached submitting FHT in the traditional way: finished it, revised like mad, and then queried. I was pulled out of the slush pile with most agents (there was one I had a rec from a client).

I really really targeted my first batch of queries -- I spent a lot of time doing research, revising my query, and personalizing my queries (did all of this waiting for beta reads).

[juneafternoon]

Wow, go you. Congrats on your success with it :)

[brainstrains]

Also, when YA started becoming hot, I heard a lot of agents without any experience or contacts in the YA markets started accepting it. I mean, why not, they're out to make a profit and if that's where the money is.... But just because they accept it does not mean they're equipped to represent it, as Victoria said.

With my book, I felt much more comfortable knowing my agent had quite a few YA sales under her belt-- she has the connections and she knows what publishers are looking for. I think there are so many great agents out there that specialize in and have experience selling YA, that I wouldn't query anyone without that experience. If I were querying and exhausted that (very large) list of YA agents, I'd take it as a hint that I need to write a better book :)