querying agents abroad?

Annmarie09 · Nov 29, 2009

So, I've just got a message from the agent who's currently got my full manuscript, saying that she won't have time to look at it until after Christmas. In this time, I thought about querying a few more agents. However I can't seem to find any more YA agencies in the UK, where I live. It seems my only option is to start querying American ones, which there seems to be a never-ending supply of.

My question is: if you get accepted by an agency in a different country, does your novel necessarily have to be published in that country? Could that agent send out queries to publishing houses in different countries as well? And also, wouldn't it be harder to communicate with that agent if you're in different countries?

Old Hack · Nov 29, 2009

Annmarie, agents sell books into their own territory and (usually) work with sub-agents to sell books elsewhere: for example, Sheil Land Associates in the UK works in association with Geroges Borchardt Inc in the US. So if you live in the UK but got an agent in the US, that US agent wouldn't sell your book back to the UK.

Some of the bigger agents have a presence in both the UK and the US, so will handle sales in both territories themselves.

You'd probably do better to focus on finding an agent in the UK first, and once your options are fully exhausted then consider looking elsewhere--if I were you I'd probably only consider an agent in the UK, to be honest. But others might have different ideas.

waylander · Nov 29, 2009

US agents are expert in their own market, and would only be likely to sell your novel into other territories once they had got a US deal for it.
Is your novel likely to work in the US market?
Communication with a US agent is no more difficult than with a UK one - everyone uses e-mail and you rarely meet your agent face-to-face

Libbie · Nov 29, 2009

There are some agencies that specialize in selling their books to many markets in one push. They're hard to find, but they're out there. The Dean Cooke Agency (Canada) is one you might want to check out.

Annmarie09 · Nov 29, 2009

Thank you for your input. I think I've got a clearer idea of what to do now. I think I'm going to try searching for more UK-based YA agencies first, and then move onto the USA market. I checked out the Dean Cooke agency's website. It looks pretty good, it's a pity their not accepting submissions at the moment

profen4 · Nov 29, 2009

I don't see why it matters if you get an agent in your own country or abroad -- or a publisher for that matter. What’s the goal? To sell books, right? So if your book would work in an American/Canadian/Austrailian…etc market, add agents in those countries to your list. Why not? I can’t think of a single reason not to…maybe someone here can enlighten me.

I know a bunch of people who are represented by American agents and they are happy. I also know of several well known (successful) YA authors who are represented by agents not in their home country (eg. Kenneth Oppel). I even know of people who have been quite successful selling their manuscripts to English publishers in Singapore and Hong Kong. (by quite successful I mean their books have gone to second and third printings.)

Australian author, K. A. Bedford, author of 'Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait" published his book with a mid-sized Canadian publisher, and went on to win The Aurealis Award for best Si Fi novel.

What is the benefit of sticking within your own country? So that you can go do some book signings at your local B&N?

If my book wasn’t available in my local book store, but it was available in every book store across the USA or UK or Australia…etc, etc. I would be freaking ecstatic. Don’t compromise on the quality of agents or publishers, keep them in the professional and “commercial” range with established track records, but don’t limit yourself to within your own borders.

That’s just my opinion. There may be a host of reasons why I’m wrong—if there is, I ‘d love to hear them.

bluehippo · Nov 29, 2009

I write YA and I live in the UK and I’ve been querying agents in the US as well as in England. I did focus on UK agents first, but there is only a small number of them compared to the US.

I don’t see a problem with having an agent in the US, everything can be done through e-mail and phone nowadays. I always put my address at the bottom of my query so they know where I live. The only problem I’ve had is when a US agent requested a full manuscript and asked me to send her a hard copy through the post. It cost me £25 to send my full manuscript to New York, only for it to be rejected a few weeks later, but most agents take e-mail.

When you do find an agent, she will want to get your book published in as many countries as possible, not just wherever she is based. Either she, or a sub-agent who deals with foreign sales for the agency will try to sell the rights to other countries.

If you are looking for more UK agents to query you might want to try the Writers and Artists Yearbook, they list all the agents in the UK. You can find a copy in your library if you don’t want to buy one. I could PM you with a list of all the UK agents that I’ve queried if you wanted. I found about 20 from the Children’s Writers and Artists Yearbook that are open to submissions.

ETA:
I just read your signature. If you have only queried 5 agents, then you still have loads more you can query in the UK, before you need to start worrying about running out of places to query. I will put together a list for you if you want, just let me know.

Annmarie09 · Nov 30, 2009

Wow, there's a lot of varied opinions here about this issue. To be honest, I don't really see anything wrong with querying US agents...I mean, there's a lot more of them than UK ones that's for sure. However I think I'll go through all possible UK ones first, and then start on US ones. With UK ones, I've noticed you can skip out the query part of it and just send in a partial straight away.

Also bluehippo (<3 your name, by the way), my signiture was pretty old and I hadn't updated it for a while... *looks sheepish* since then, I've doubled that number to about 9 or 10. Still not that many, though, but it's hard to find information about them on the internet. I'd really appreciate a list of the ones you queried, thanks

I'll pm you about it.

writegirl · Mar 4, 2011

Going back a long way on posts from you but do you know you reps Kenneth Oppel? Thanks.

writegirl · Mar 4, 2011

swhibs123 said:
I don't see why it matters if you get an agent in your own country or abroad -- or a publisher for that matter. What’s the goal? To sell books, right? So if your book would work in an American/Canadian/Austrailian…etc market, add agents in those countries to your list. Why not? I can’t think of a single reason not to…maybe someone here can enlighten me.

I know a bunch of people who are represented by American agents and they are happy. I also know of several well known (successful) YA authors who are represented by agents not in their home country (eg. Kenneth Oppel). I even know of people who have been quite successful selling their manuscripts to English publishers in Singapore and Hong Kong. (by quite successful I mean their books have gone to second and third printings.)

Australian author, K. A. Bedford, author of 'Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait" published his book with a mid-sized Canadian publisher, and went on to win The Aurealis Award for best Si Fi novel.

What is the benefit of sticking within your own country? So that you can go do some book signings at your local B&N?

If my book wasn’t available in my local book store, but it was available in every book store across the USA or UK or Australia…etc, etc. I would be freaking ecstatic. Don’t compromise on the quality of agents or publishers, keep them in the professional and “commercial” range with established track records, but don’t limit yourself to within your own borders.

That’s just my opinion. There may be a host of reasons why I’m wrong—if there is, I ‘d love to hear them.

going back a long way on post from you, but do you know who reps Kenneth Oppel? Thanks.

Becca C. · Mar 4, 2011

Not every book is going to work in every market, though, is the thing. I'm in Canada, and I wrote a novel where most of the narrative takes place in Arkansas. The issues that character faces, that make up most of the plot, are very southern-states oriented. I'm targeting US agents because the book would do better in the US market than in the Canadian market, which tends to be small press/local/literary kind of stuff.

AlishaS · Mar 4, 2011

writegirl said:
going back a long way on post from you, but do you know who reps Kenneth Oppel? Thanks.

This is as seen on querytracker, Who reps whom section. Though not sure how accurate it is (sometimes they can be a little outdated)

Kenneth OppelSteven Malk - Writers House
Steven Malk of Writers how reps Kenneth Oppel

writegirl · Mar 4, 2011

Hey, thanks, Alisha. You rock!

querying agents abroad?

Annmarie09

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Old Hack

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waylander

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Libbie

Worst song played on ugliest guitar

Annmarie09

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profen4

bluehippo

Annmarie09

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writegirl

writegirl

Becca C.

AlishaS

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writegirl