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So I've got a question for you guys, which technically I suppose I already asked.
I always see people discuss how you should go through a list of agents and pick out your top choices and the ones most likely to want your stuff. Thing is, I can't figure out how on earth people figure that out. I do have a few "top choice" people for myself, but those are either people who have blogs I read regularly or just someone who has what looks like a good combination of "What I'm looking for" listed somewhere.
What gets me about the process is that I know absolutely nothing about these people. Sometimes they'll give a sentence or two saying what they want, sometimes they'll just give genres. Even when someone says, "I like humorous novels," or "I like character driven stories," or whatever, how do I know that my opinion of what that means is the same as theirs?
The only thing I could even think of would be to read books agents represent and try to pick the ones most similar to my own, but there are hundreds of agents, and I certainly don't have the time to read through books represented by all of them to see which ones are similar, and even in that case don't some agents turn down authors on the basis of, "I already have a book like that?"
I always see people talking about their top picks, or having narrowed a list down to just a few agents, though, and I really would love to know how you do it. I've been working on a list for my current WIP and I feel kind of the same way about it that I felt last time I made my list--that there's no way of knowing who might be a good fit and the best choice would just be to send to anyone doing my genre and letting them decide.
I always see people discuss how you should go through a list of agents and pick out your top choices and the ones most likely to want your stuff. Thing is, I can't figure out how on earth people figure that out. I do have a few "top choice" people for myself, but those are either people who have blogs I read regularly or just someone who has what looks like a good combination of "What I'm looking for" listed somewhere.
What gets me about the process is that I know absolutely nothing about these people. Sometimes they'll give a sentence or two saying what they want, sometimes they'll just give genres. Even when someone says, "I like humorous novels," or "I like character driven stories," or whatever, how do I know that my opinion of what that means is the same as theirs?
The only thing I could even think of would be to read books agents represent and try to pick the ones most similar to my own, but there are hundreds of agents, and I certainly don't have the time to read through books represented by all of them to see which ones are similar, and even in that case don't some agents turn down authors on the basis of, "I already have a book like that?"
I always see people talking about their top picks, or having narrowed a list down to just a few agents, though, and I really would love to know how you do it. I've been working on a list for my current WIP and I feel kind of the same way about it that I felt last time I made my list--that there's no way of knowing who might be a good fit and the best choice would just be to send to anyone doing my genre and letting them decide.