New York Agent better?

Although most agents are in the vicinity of New York many excellent ones are not. The important things are: does the agent have publishing (editor) contacts, are they a member of AAR, and do they have legitimate sales. Kristin Nelson is in Colorado and there are many good agents in California.

It's helpful, but not necessary. I've worked with a very successful agency that's based in Dallas, TX, and my last agent was from Washington, D.C. The Dallas agents fly to NY about once a month to do meetings. The D.C. one made fewer trips, relying more on e-mail and phone.

Track record is what's important. Some agents make it work just fine from outside NY; some can't.

its helpful but with modern technologies its not necessary - its good to have 'lunch' with editors though but many deals are done by phone, fax, e and snail mail - its not where the agent is but how good they are and how many clients and who they are

Plenty of good agents are located away from NYC. They make regular business trips there, though.

- Victoria

As long as they have genuine track records. That's the most important thing.

- Victoria