Who to contact?

I have written two old-fashioned adventure stories (think Johnny Tremaine), both historical fiction about a youth caught up in major history. Though not exactly coming -of-age, they certainly show the boy growing and changing, becoming more radical (for his time) as life serves up some major lemons.

I queried about eight agents about the first book, receiving a lot of impersonal rejections. I admit my query could stand some work, and I did not include sample pages unless they were specifically asked for. But now I am stumped, because there are not that many agents who are looking for YA historical fiction. I am not sure whom I should contact next.

I found the books extremely rewarding to write, so I could just put them aside, but I really want to do a thorough and better job of querying. Since the books are so old fashioned, just stand up yarns with interesting characters and plenty of action and tension, my beta readers (all adults) have been quite enthusiastic. The stories illuminate history as well as bringing alive interesting characters, which is why I think they are YA. They may actually be more appealing to adults, because there is an essential seriousness underneath the story telling. They deal with oppression, prejudice, the iniquities of the class system, greed, and friendship. Witness to Treason is about the gunpowder plot, and To Virginia is about the first voyage to Virginia in 1607.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

moondance said:

This may be your problem. If your books are written in an 'old-fashioned' style, using a lot of narrative telling rather than showing, then you will probably find agents and publishers reluctant. However, it does sound as though your query is the problem, since you haven't had many people actually look at your writing.

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I didn't say my telling was old fashioned. I said the story was an old-fashioned adventure.

My main character grows from 14 to 17 over the two books.


I couldn't find any recently published adventure books--lots of fantasy and edgy coming of age stories, but nothing recent similar to mine. I looked for it in trying to see who might want to publish my work. I will ask for librarian help, though, which I have not yet done.

Thanks, and I am following up on the agentquery site. I am satisfied that my new query for Witness is as good as it can get, but I have not yet worked out a query for To Virginia.

blackholly said:

I could be wrong, but your books sound more like middle grade than YA, even given the age of the protagonist. It's a difficult distinction to make--there are some articles like this one that are somewhat helpful:

http://www.write4kids.com/feature6.html

But the best way to decide is to read some of the historical fiction out there for middle grade and for YA. For YA, you might want to look at some recent historical books like M.T. Anderson's amazing OCTAVIAN NOTHING (which just won the National Book Award and was a Printz honoree) and Laurie Halse Anderson's FEVER 1793.

For middle grade, you might look at a book like Heather Vogel Frederick's THE VOYAGE OF PATIENCE GOODSPEED and the Newbery-winning A SINGLE SHARD by Linda Sue Park

You might also want to look at the way those books were described to consider how to pitch your book in your query. Good luck!

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Thanks for the link and the reading suffestions. I shall locate the books and look at them.