Angry Robot Round II: Epic Fantasy

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Debeucci

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You should always be submitting. Regardless of what status you have with a publisher, including AR, you should continue to submit to agents until you get the one you want.

That's what I did during the AR process and was able to leverage being pushed up to editorials to secure my agent.
 
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AndreaGS

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Sweet! Thanks for the advice, jjdebenedictis and Debeucci! I'll do that :)

Tex_Maam, that sounds like a really cool story idea! Good luck!
 

Filigree

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This is how I got my agent's interest: an offer from a publisher, an email to the agent, then a phone call, and we were off and running within two days. Much faster than the year-and-a-half I spent querying dozens of other agents on the previous mms. And she's one of my first picks, whom I couldn't reach any other way.

So the thing I was going to send to Angry Robot has to wait in the trunk a few more months, because I'm probably going to be in edits. Who knows, it might go to AR in the end.
 

Anne Lyle

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Thanks. I get to hear her undying love for Juliet every. Single. Day.

*lol* I'm seeing her soon - I'll tell her that ;)

Similar story here re offers and agents. I got little interest from agents at first (admittedly, I had only subbed to a handful) but then Zeno opened to submissions literally days after I got an R&R from Angry Robot. I got the request for full from JB within a few days of that, and when the offer came in from AR I went back to him to ask if he'd represent me. Bit of a no-brainer on both sides, really!
 

Debeucci

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It's an interesting dilemma really. You can't get in front of a publisher without an agent. But in many cases, agents won't give you a chance without interest from a publisher.

My agent almost never signs first time authors, but my submission to AR and subsequent promotion to editorials piqued his interest.
 

Anne Lyle

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I think it's particularly tough to get an agent at the moment, with publishers in disarray over ebooks and self-publishing. I got one nice personal rejection that started off by saying they weren't taking on any new clients at the moment owing to the recession - though I suspect if you queried them with something totally amazing and commercial, they might change their mind!
 

Debeucci

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I think it's particularly tough to get an agent at the moment, with publishers in disarray over ebooks and self-publishing. I got one nice personal rejection that started off by saying they weren't taking on any new clients at the moment owing to the recession - though I suspect if you queried them with something totally amazing and commercial, they might change their mind!

Why didn't they just close themselves to submissions then?
 

Anne Lyle

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Perhaps because they still hope for that one amazing query? The first bit read like a form rejection, though I got a personal response at the end, probably because I met the agent ages ago at a writers' conference and he asked me to send the book when it was finished.
 

lauralam

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Wesley, you jerk :)

Yeah, I subbed an almost first draft (I read through it a couple of times, thinking that meant it was polished - um, LOL), and my book deal's been announced today. I wouldn't have done that if I knew then what I know now, but being cheeky paid off, in my case. I had a revision request and ended up gutting it, rearranging it, and adding 40,000 words of new material. But so, so easily, I could have been rejected. I had a premise that appealed, good prose, and I got really lucky.
 

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Hmmmm...

I'm probably thinking too hard, but I'm having a problem figuring out what is epic/classic fantasy. Like, they can't possibly mean EXACTLY the stereotype Lord of the Rings story, or do they?

My novel is set in a fictional medieval type period, there are swords, and magic, and a fortress, and monsters, and demons, and a prophecy. But there aren't dragons, kingdoms, princesses, elves or other races.

In other words, I'm confused. How classic do they want it?
 

Mr Flibble

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It's an interesting dilemma really. You can't get in front of a publisher without an agent. But in many cases, agents won't give you a chance without interest from a publisher.

This is a bit of a myth, tbh - was touched on at a panel at Eastercon. Both John Jarrold and Ian Drury pooped the idea. It's nice, from their POV if you have an offer, or previous credits etc but in the end it's about the book you're subbing. Plenty of people that I know (and myself) got an agent without an offer of any kind, just an MS the agent loved and thought they could sell.
 

BradCarsten

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Hmmmm...

I'm probably thinking too hard, but I'm having a problem figuring out what is epic/classic fantasy. Like, they can't possibly mean EXACTLY the stereotype Lord of the Rings story, or do they?

My novel is set in a fictional medieval type period, there are swords, and magic, and a fortress, and monsters, and demons, and a prophecy. But there aren't dragons, kingdoms, princesses, elves or other races.

In other words, I'm confused. How classic do they want it?

This episode of Writing Excuses, discussing Epic Fantasy, may help.
 

Anne Lyle

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I'm probably thinking too hard, but I'm having a problem figuring out what is epic/classic fantasy. Like, they can't possibly mean EXACTLY the stereotype Lord of the Rings story, or do they?

My novel is set in a fictional medieval type period, there are swords, and magic, and a fortress, and monsters, and demons, and a prophecy. But there aren't dragons, kingdoms, princesses, elves or other races.

In other words, I'm confused. How classic do they want it?

They don't want a ripoff of LotR - they want fantasy that falls close enough to bear the label "epic". Sounds to me like you have enough of the requisite elements not to be rejected out-of-hand for not reading the guidelines, so I'd say to go for it.
 

lauralam

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Also, I had plenty of agents reject me even though they knew I almost had a deal on the table (I emailed them saying GOING TO ACQUISITIONS ON X DATE), which was good. I got really close with a few (and still keep in touch one or two), but an agent's representing your entire body of work, so if they don't really love the first one, they shouldn't go for it. I made sure to tell my agent on the phone what other kinds of stuff I planned to write in the future.

But I did go RIGHT to the top of their to-read pile, so my querying only took 20 days. That was the main difference between going in cold on the slush pile. I probably also got more full requests than I would have otherwise.
 

jjdebenedictis

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So. Anyone else getting nervous? Only four more sleeps!
 

Debeucci

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This is a bit of a myth, tbh - was touched on at a panel at Eastercon. Both John Jarrold and Ian Drury pooped the idea. It's nice, from their POV if you have an offer, or previous credits etc but in the end it's about the book you're subbing. Plenty of people that I know (and myself) got an agent without an offer of any kind, just an MS the agent loved and thought they could sell.

I'm not saying that's all cases, but it's completely not a myth. Of course agents will sign writers without deals in hand. Of course it's about the book, but a contract or interest from a publisher helps....a lot. Did it get me an agent? No, but I'm sure agents gave it a faster look than a ms that was just sitting in queue in a slush pile. And I did get rejections even with the interest. A reputable agent won't sign you if they didn't like your ms either. It's by no means a guarantee for representation.

I had several offers to negotiate the deal if I got one which I didn't like. And like Laura said, I got pushed on top of the slush pile because of that interest. I received two offers for representation in the same week. Both had read the ms faster than usual because a publisher had thought it was worth reading. My agent even told me he might not have read my book if I didn't have a pub possibly interested because he doesn't sign a lot of first time authors.
 

Mr Flibble

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A little perhaps :D

But I think the proportion is a bit skewed. Maybe more: It's all about the book. In many cases you will get read faster with an offer, but agents just want a book they love and will give you a chance with or without an offer.

Only that's a bit long!

Most agents will give you a chance if the MS is right. Some (those closed to unsolicited subs, or closed unless you have a publishing offer) won't, but I think they're the tiny minority.

The only reason I'm saying all this is because I heard at least five or six people at Eastercon who thought this was true, that agents won't give you a chance unless you have credits/an offer.

Just ain't true

ETAL It helps ofc. But isn't necessary for most agents
 

Anne Lyle

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Quite. There's a big, yawning canyon between "it definitely helps to have an offer" and "it's impossible without an offer".

Writers who've received many agent rejections are often looking for anything to blame apart from the fact that their manuscript isn't sufficiently awesome, and so they spread these half-truths...
 
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