Western authors don't have agents

Having been rejected by some of the top agents in NYC, though I did have one request a full manuscript before swatting me down, I elected to try some western writers and their agents.
I consider my novel to be historical fiction but it occurs west of the Mississippi so...
I go to the local library and make a list of Western authors with more than one title published.
Got to Publisher's Marketplace, sign up, and search 37 names. Two have agents listed. None of the others turned up even a close hit. I'm thinking that maybe the western authors are pen names for established writers in other genres. I did notice they tend to use a lot of initials, such as L.L. Foreman, H.B. Broome.
The publishers I saw were recognizable and certainly not vanity publishers.
I've researched author/agent matchs at PM before and almost always had hits. What gives???

I'll certainly try it. I'm not about to just throw twenty bucks away at PM.

Thanks for the link.

Some of the western writers I culled were fairly well known and some cross the 'bridge' to mainstream historical, like Terry C. Johnston. No agent listed.

Still searching

I went, as recommended to the Spur Awards site and jotted down the title/author. Searching on PM, and only one showed as having an agent. The Don d'Dauria at Dorchester looked interesting.

I'll send off a query. Dorchester appears to be primarily reprints and paperbacks and they say they adhere to the word count stridently. I'm about 5,000 words over but, if they like it, I can edit it.

Its been about a year since I first went into the marketplace looking for an agent for historical fiction. Sent out about a dozen or so and got one NY agent to request the MS but ultimately rejected it. I got pretty down after feeling pretty good about the manuscript request.

Guess I'll get up, dust myself off and have another go.

Well, thanks. I'll be putting some queries together this weekend, then runninng off sample pages at work on Monday. Maybe I'm just having bad karma for using the office copy machine. Ya think??

Thanks for the encouragement

I was going along fine, at least dealing with the rejections as part of the program. Once I got a real (and fairly well known) agent to request the entire manuscript, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Now, I did question why a house that was mostly women and specialized in chick lit was asking for my historical fiction; still, they asked. A month went by and I got a personal letter of rejection instead of the stock one. No explanation or pointers, though.

I had been using my rejects to tailor the query letter and reading every query letter tip I could find. I tried to customize them slightly if I could find something in the agent bio or website that warranted it but did try to stick with a page and a half synopsis, history and spiel.

Granted, I was submitting to only the recommended ones on P&E so I wanted to go straight to the majors. I guess getting a 'request for manuscript' lifted me up higher than it should and the rejection slapped me down pretty hard. Nothing to do now but spend more money on postage.

Its a lot harder to attend to the business end (if there even is one in sight) then to actually put words on paper and endlessly edit them.

I have a two day fishing trip planned with a friend whose cousin is a big cheese at S&S. I'll take the first 50 pages and badger him to recommend me. After all, we'll be stuck on a boat for two days at sea. That's like being in jail with a chance of drowning.