On Queries and Agents: Information Sources

Ladyillusion7 said:

I have noticed that several Agents, say they don't represent Romance novels, yet will put Women's Fiction. What is the difference?

My novel is a romance novel, but it can fall into the category of Women's Fiction, since its about the character's survival and all the atrocities she goes through at the hands of her husband. Can any explain the difference please. Ta


NB: Apologies if this has been posted in the wrong area, i thought as it relates to querying agents, it might be appropriate. If its not, please could you move it. Thanks

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IdiotsRUs said:

Romance : abut the development of a relationship that leads to an HEA (happy ever after, or at least a happy for now). Tends to gloss over any 'dark' aspects.

Love story: Same but may not end happily

Women's fiction: I think it more focuses on the life of the MC (think Catherine Cookson/Barbara Taylor Bradford, obviously written for women, not nesc, a happy ending, or happy things in book. Can go a lot darker than romance) They may or may not find happiness at teh end, but it's the heroine's journey through life (rather than A Relationship)that is the focus.


Yours sound more women's fic, from what you've said.

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Andrew Jameson said:

I don't know much about query letters and agents, but I'm trying to learn. And some place like Absolute Write is a great place to learn, because there's always a flurry of questions and answers in this thread and that thread. And, since I'd like to learn as much as possible, I've taken to jotting down people's comments and suggestions in various threads in a file.

I just got to looking at that file, and it seems like there's a lot of good stuff in there culled from all those other threads.

I thought, maybe other people would find these information sources useful. So I stuck 'em in this here thread and posted 'em. And since I still don't know much about query letters and agents, and I'm still trying to learn, if anyone has more links or information on queries and agents to complement what's below, please post it.

Some Links on Queries and Agents

Places on the Net in General. The WWW is a big place, and a whole lot of information is out there.

How Do You Write a Query? Try the how-to articles from

• AgentQuery
• Lynn Flewelling
• Tara K Harper
• Fiction Writer's Connection
• Keith Rommel
• Lisa Gardner (queries and synopses)
• right here on AbsoluteWrite (of course!)
• another AbsoluteWrite source, and, heck take a look at all the articles, why don'tcha?

Non-Fiction Proposals and information:

• Nathan Bransford
• Washington Independent Writers
• Steve Laube (this is a pdf)
• Scott Mendel
• Right here on Absolute Write

Sample Query Letters from published authors are available from

• Charlotte Dillon (check out her query links!)
• Nicolas Sparks
• Holly Lisle
• Beth Amos
• John E Stith
• S. L. Viehl (includes some instructive Bad Queries, too!)
• Sherry Thomas
• Patricia Wood
• Holly Kennedy
• Preditors and Editors
• A thread on writers.net

Agent's Ideal Queries -- what they look for (and hate!) in a query that crosses their desk -- may also be useful. Try the ones from

• Nathan Bransford (and don't forget Part II!)
• Andrew Zack, and his description of the perfect query letter
• Jenny Bent
• Nelson Agency
• More from Kristin Nelson--dissections of real queries (scroll to August 8-18)
• Miriam Goderich
• writers.net's "Equally Entrenched"
• Barry Goldblatt (scroll to August 18, 2005)
• Barbara Collins Rosenberg (scroll to the bottom)
• Wylie-Merrick
• Rachel Vater with one-sentence pithy descriptions
• Caren Johnson
• Book Ends
• Miss Snark brutally reviews queries...as well as first pages and hooks and synopses and query/page combinations (top of this page and bottom of this one).
• The Evil Editor critiques queries and pages all through his blog.
• The Rejecter has all sorts of suggestions.

On Getting Agents, advice comes from multiple sources:

• Teresa Nielsen-Hayden on agents,
• Orson Scott Card on agents and submissions,
• Neil Gaiman and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, with all sorts of links
• On searching for an agent by Victoria Strauss
• Researching their track record by Victoria Strauss (multiple links)
• The Association of Author's Representatives FAQ -- an agent's trade group
• Brian Hill and Dee Power's survey of agents
• Multiple articles right here on AbsoluteWrite

Finding Agents

• AgentQuery: a big list of agents and their needs
• Publisher's Marketplace: more agents. more information
• The Association of Author's Representatives: the main trade organization for agents
• Weekly publishing moves: catch up on who went where

Right here on the Absolute Write forums there's plenty of useful information. In particular:

Uncle Jim, in his novel-writing thread

• speaks out on query letters
• gives some information on agents
• describes a "compelling query" in two sentences

Guest agents answer tons of questions:

• Ginger Clark
• Jenny Bent
• Ben Salmon
• Lucienne Diver
• Nathan Bransford

Andrew Zack, in "Ask the Agent,"

• gives some miscellaneous query advice
• tells how to mail a query and appease the agent
• explains what the role of an agent is

More general query threads

• Query Letter Confusion, discussing what goes into a query
• Query = Letter + 1st 3 pages??? More query discussion
• SRHowen's interesting and unconventional query letter
• Magazine Query - to specific editor or generic

Query critiques and rewrites, are a collaborative effort from multiple members, with discussions and pointers of good and bad things in query letters. For current discussions, check out the Query Letter Critiques in the Share Your Work forum.

A Few Miscellaneous are

• the survey of published authors on first novels, publishers, and agents
• a preparation list for outlines, synopses, etc
• when one should get an agent
• should agents or publishers be queried first? (with many links)

Any additions?

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codone said:

Note: Many of these links are bad.

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rebmacrath said:

As I expected, a very helpful thread. But I'm left wondering about something: I went a-Googling today, now that the time had come to query on the new project. Has something changed online in the past year or two? I ask this, because I had the darndest time when I input the name of an agent or agency. I was looking for the agency's web sites for names of agents, submission information. But I kept finding scads of listings for Query Tracker and other sources, not providing e-mail addresses or agents' names, etc. Did the world change while I Rip Van Rebbed?

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jaksen said:

In order to see an agent's email addresses on Query Tracker you need to be a user of that site. (Registered.) You can either do the free register or paid. (With paid you get more options and some reports, etc., that are not available with the free.)

But with free you get names, postal addresses and email addresses. You can also keep track of your queries.

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Silver-Midnight said:

I have a question, and I sincerely apologize if it's a bad question. Do you look for agents based on the genre you write? I know nothing about getting or even having an agent. I am completely new to even the idea of publishing. Please note that I am not looking for an agent of as of right now. I am just trying to find information and learn.

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BarbaraSheridan said:

You want an agent who represents and has sold in your preferred genre(s) because they obviously have the editorial contacts in place to make sales.

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