Wednesday 23 September 2015

Letters to Agents

Letters to Agents: Here are a few useful tips I picked up from listening to agents at the Festival of Writing 2015

Once you feel your manuscript is the best you can make it (and I'm really sick of the sight of mine!), you should select around 5 agents you think might be interested by checking the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook or Agent Hunter online. Make sure your manuscript matches what they're looking for, maybe research agents of the writers you like to read. Above all, follow the submission guidelines.

You need a UK agent, if you're English, so you can both meet and talk in the same time zone. I wondered about US agents, but was told they would think I'd already tried all the UK agents, with no success (the reverse would also apply). You should submit to around 4 or 5 at once, because it can take a couple of months for an agent to get back to you, so a year could easily go by, if you submitted to them one by one.

Your query letter should contain a paragraph of blurb (around 150 words) about the manuscript. It is not a synopsis and you don't have to give away the ending. You should say a bit about the characters and the setting and put in the jeopardy (if there is any). It is similar to a pitch, a way to communicate all the great things about the book.

You should also write a few lines about yourself, dropping in any authors you admire on the agent's list. However, make sure this is genuine. One agent said she kept getting letters saying the person admired x book by a writer she represented, which hadn't actually been published yet!

Don't have a silly email address, as it doesn't look professional. The agent won't want to write to `BooBear@hotmail.com'

Some agents still want written submissions. If that's the case, don't smoke anywhere near the letter. Imagine what it will smell like, when the envelope is opened a couple of days later. Again, one agent spoke from experience and the submission went straight in the bin.

Read out your letter to yourself, so it sounds more natural. It should not contain any boasting (`I look forward to a long and fruitful career with you' or 'I am writing to give you an exclusive first look at the future of publishing...')

Get the agent's name right, say what genre you think your manuscript belongs to, make sure your spelling and grammar is correct, as this is the first sight the agent will have of your writing and if it makes a poor impression, they won't read any further. The (apocryphal?) example given was: `Why does the publishing industry continue to treat me as a leopard?'

One useful piece of advice I hadn't ever considered is that most agents do the reading of submissions on the tube/train/at home etc, ie not when in the office, as their day is spent looking after their existing clients. Most will transfer your attachment to their Kindle, so you should put the title and your name on the attachment, since your email won't be there for reference. And don't make your attachment a PDF, as apparently this format isn't legible on a Kindle. Use Windows.

And when you've done all that, pour yourself a big drink, and press send!


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