So what else have I been doing while neglecting this site.
Hmmm... Revisions. Revisions. Training for a half marathon. And oh yeah, did I
mention revisions?
Moment of truth here peeps, I did a small round of queries
last summer (ten all together) and had three requests for fulls. Amazing, I
know. But alas, they all passed. Don’t cry for me Argentina because that
inspired me to join a writers group, where I found two amazing critique partners,
Alisha and Astrid. Then I joined another writers website where I found a third
critique partner and beta reader, Mizi and Jennifer. And somewhere along the way
I discovered that a friend wanted to get back into being an editor. I didn’t
even know she did that previously, but she wanted me to be her first gig.
SWEET! You women are fantastic! Thank you for telling me what sucked, and for
putting up with all my rewrites. New title, new scenes, and now told in multiple
points of view. Basically, it’s a whole new book. To those agents that passed,
thank you for giving me the motivation and opportunity to grow as a writer.
Now that we’re all caught up, we can get to the point of
this post: I’m submitting again!!! My query, or as I like to call it, “this
evil thing designed for the soul purpose of making writers cry” is nearly
finished. Same goes for the equally hellish nightmare aka synopsis. Now I’m on
the fun task of researching agents. No joke there, I do enjoy this part.
I write YA. According to a website that I absolutely love
and wouldn’t be where I am today without it: www.querytracker.net , there are
375 agents listed with them that rep YA. Uhhhh... damn skippy, that’s a lot. So
I’m currently researching them, which is a fine line of digging and cyber
stalking to find out whom among them is:
A: Open for submissions.
B: Interested in topics that exist in my book (jeez YA covers
a lot)
C: I can see working with this agent for many years.
I know it’s not a long list, but that is what I look for in
regards to the agent, not the agency as a whole. That list is longer ;)
A is a no brainer. Why query someone who is closed?
B stems from a mistake I did last year. After many hours
researching and developing an agent-crush (if that is not a thing, it should
be) I submitted to an agent and after two weeks of “Oh, was that my email ping?”
*opens email* Not him *sigh* I stumbled on an interview he had just recently
gave that offered a more in-depth look at what he is/isn’t looking for. Three
of the things on his “isn’t looking for list” were in my story. I stopped
getting excited for my email reply from him and ate lots of ice cream that day.
Now, when I find an agent in that mass of 375 that I have an agent-crush on (I’ve
found a few) you bet your sweet cheeks I’m doing everything I can to NOT go
through that again. I may even email the top three just to be on the safe-side.
C is because I want an agent I can trust and feel
comfortable with and won’t groan when their name comes up on my phone or email.
If at any point during my research into your agency, you, your blog, and
whatever else I can find, you’ve made me laugh, you’re in my dream team and I
will be submitting to you soon.
So what do you do to decide which agent/agency is right for
you? Is there something you think I should be doing that I’m not?
Thanks for reading and remember, If/when you uncover
something embarrassing about an agent like photos of their cat’s birthday, good
research is when you say, “aww cute” and move on. Cyber-stalking is when you
comment on it in the query.
TTFN and I promise not take such a long hiatus,
Laurie
