Christy English

Finding An Agent: A Potential Website for Aspiring Writers

Thursday, August 20th, 2009 | Finding An Agent, Selling Your Work, The Writing Life | No Comments

It occurs to me that I have not posted anything about how to find an agent in ages. I have gotten caught up in my own recent experiences of selling my novel and learning about the publishing world. All that is a lot of fun, as well as a lot of work, but before she can secure a sale to a large house, a writer has to find the right agent. 

With that in mind, I want to mention a fabulous website called AgentQuery.com.  I’ve attached the link below. It looks like an amazing source for advice on everything from writing a query letter to how to deal with agents once they actually want to represent your work.  Have a look and judge for yourself. If you like the site, please comment on this blog so that others can know you found it helpful.

http://agentquery.com/writer_or.aspx

San Francisco Writers’ Conference: Breaking Through Writer’s Block

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 | Finding An Agent, The Writing Life | No Comments

       I almost did not write this post today. The conference ended only Sunday, and today is Tuesday. I thought to myself, “I need more time to take in all that I learned. I need time to think.” Well, I’ve decided to ignore all that. I have too much work to do on my novel revision to wait any longer. Whatever my thoughts are, they’re going online. Because I was completely inspired by this year’s San Francisco’s Writers’ Conference.

     Just as a meeting of like-minded people is supposed to do, this year’s conference jump-started my work. The revision of my current novel is one that I had been dawdling over; this is a novel that I love, that my agent is excited to pitch in New York. All good things. But since December, I have done little to Princess of France. I have read over it. I have made notes in the margins. I have looked at the notes my agent gave me. I have read over the novel again. Made more notes. Read my agent’s notes another twelve times. Still nothing. I could not see my way clear to making the requested changes, even though I knew that they would add depth and clarity to the novel as it is already written. It was as if I was standing on a road that suddenly branched off in six different directions, and I did not know which road to take.

     Oddly enough, I did not think to ask my main character, Alais, what she thought. (I know this sounds like a case of multiple personality, but to those of you who write fiction, you will understand what I mean.)  As I was sitting in my last class on day three of the conference, I found myself listening to the speaker with half an ear. Not because she wasn’t interesting, and not because she didn’t have something to teach me. I lost the thread of her class because another voice was drowning her out, the still, quiet voice of Alais.

      Alais did not say much. She did not speak loudly. But for some reason, after months of silence, I was finally ready to hear her. I won’t go into details, but she showed me the path out of my dark wood. She showed me the right path to take. That path led not only to a clearing, but to a place where my novel will be deeper and richer for the journey. Alais’ suggestion won’t take much to execute. Another chapter. Maybe two. But it will illuminate the current text and set up claifying additions in the rest of the revision. She has given me a place to start.

       I am certain that being at the writers’ conference opened my mind to hear Alais. Talking with other writers who are struggling with their own work, their own blocks and their own joys. Listening to the editors who are desperate to get their favorite novel accepted by the pub board at their house and the agents who are praying to find a story that lights them on fire, a story that they can be proud and excited to pitch. Being around these people for three days, people like me, who love books as much as I do, people who also sacrifice their time and their lives to the service of this calling, opened me to the voice of my character, Alais, the voice of my muse.

German Pastries in New York

Monday, October 16th, 2006 | Finding An Agent, Uncategorized | No Comments

        I had breakfast yesterday with my agent and her husband at a fabulous restaurant in the German/Viennese museum on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 86th Street. I am lucky enough to have an agent who,  though she lives in San Francisco, is interested in keeping in contact with me, so whenever she is in town, we get together just to talk and catch up. We talk business, of course, but we also spend time getting to know each other better, so that the rest of the year, when we’re reduced to emails and phone calls, we have a better idea of who is on the other end of the line.

       How did I find my agent? This is a question I occasionally get asked by writers who are searching for an agent themselves, or who are at the point in their work when they realize that they might be good enough that someone besides their mom might actually want to read their stuff. Sometimes people are too shy to ask, though, so hopefully if those shy people are now reading my website, the next few entries will help them. Before you read any further, let me say that my only experience with agents is with those who represent fiction.

      Unfortunately, there is no Magic Wand Method to getting an agent. I did not spin around twice, click my heels together and then get a letter from Elizabeth asking to represent me. The good thing is that there is a system that you can use to find an agent. It just takes work and perserverance, which, if you are a writer, are qualities you already have.

       The quickest way to get an agent is to go to a writer’s conference, like the North Carolina Writer’s Conference that is held every year in the fall and spring, or the San Francsico Writer’s Conference that happens every February. (There is still time to sign up for both of these, if anyone reading this is interested. Their websites are http://www.ncwriters.org  and http://www.sfwriters.org)

     At these two conferences, and at many others, there is often a forum where, for an additional fee, writers can “speed date” with agents and publishers, taking five minutes to pitch their novel and to see if the agent/publisher is intertested in hearing more. It is that simple. You sit at a table across from an agent, pitch your book, and then see if they want to read the first fifty pages of your novel. Google the agents and publishers who are going to be at the conference before you get there, see what kind of work they are interested in (chic lit, romance novels, thrillers, etc.). Then when it is time to speed date, go to the agents who represent your kind of work. I know a lot of people at last year’s San Francisco’s Writer’s Conference who had more than one agent asking to see their work. This is the first step: getting them to read the first fifty pages. It all goes uphill from there.

      Now, not everyone has $300-$500 to drop on going to a writer’s conference. And though this is the quickest way I know of getting an agent, it is not the only one. It is not how I got mine, for example. For just the cost of postage, you can find an agent who will take your work to publishing houses and get it read. You don’t have to spend money on a conference. Though if you have the money to spend, I recommend it highly. The classes alone are worth the price of admission, and the experience of being around other writers who are in the same boat as you are is priceless.

     The way I got my agents, and I have had two agents over the last four years, is by writing a strong query letter, then sending it out to multiple agents who represent my genre: historical fiction. Writing a good query letter was the hardest thing  I ever had to learn. It is one thing for me to sit and listen to my characters tell me a story for hours on end. That is a pleasure. It is quite another for me to think about how to sell that novel, how to break it down into elements that would hook an agent, and later hopefully a publisher, and eventually seduce someone into buying the novel. It’s like trying to sell your child. “Let’s see, Joey has blue eys, blond hair and a sunny disposition.Won’t you take him home with you?” When I started trying to sell my work, it was a daunting prospect. I could give a synopsis, but what did that really tell an agent? There a hundreds of books written everyday. What makes mine special to anyone but me?

    The best source I found to help me look at my work (my heart’s blood, my time and tears, my children) as a commerical enterprise was Donald Maas’s book on selling ficiton, namely Writing the BreakOut Novel. Another good one is Katherine Sand’s book, Making the Perfect Pitch. Both of these books are available readily on Amazon.com.

      Anyone reading this who is facing the horror of trying to sell their work, please know, it is not that horrifying. It can be done. People do it everyday. We can walk into Barnes and Noble and see that. The shelves are full of people who have succeeded at what we are trying to do. They have their books in print. And so will we.

Nail Biting is part of the Process

Monday, October 9th, 2006 | Finding An Agent, Selling Your Work, Uncategorized | No Comments

  Needless to say, writing is hard. Not just the sitting in the chair and getting down what the Muse gives you, which is hard enough. (Though a joy, too. Please Muse, keep the work coming…)

   It’s also hard to sell the stuff. Once you get an agent, then you have to wait. You send the manuscript, finally revised and finished (for now) and it disappears into the hands of editors, who may take as long as six months or longer to pass on it. I haven’t sold anything yet, so I can’t tell you yet how long it takes to sell something.

    So you wait and you wonder. That is where I am now with my current chick lit manuscript. It is going into the hands of an excellent editor, and who knows how long it will take to hear anything, good or bad.

    But I am in this for the long haul. What else would I do? I find that writing is as necessary to me as breathing. That may change someday, and then I’ll do something else, but I hope not. Even if I end up 95 years old with a desk full of unpublished manuscripts and 15 cats, the journey is worth it. Even the wondering. Even the nail biting.

     Because I get to look into my character’s lives and live there for awhile. I get to hear their stories first. And that is a privilege, one that I can not see myself relinquishing.  An honor that I have no intention of laying down, whether I sell 100 books or none. I love my work, and that ultimately is why I do it.

    Love leads you to strange places, into the wilds, where no one else can go but you, where you have to walk alone. But I am glad to go there. Even when my nails are all bitten off. Who needs a good manicure anyway?