AGENTS
In today’s publishing world, competition for attention is intense. Your best bet to see your book in print is to align yourself with an experienced salesperson—a literary agent.
Most publishers don’t accept unsolicited anythings: query letters, manuscripts, or book proposals. Most agents accept everything. Their role in the industry is to serve as Dragons at the Gate. They screen queries and manuscripts to find those with the greatest sales potential, then pass this information on the publishers.
Once you and an agent agree to work together, they approach publishing companies who will be interested in your manuscript. The publisher who receives your manuscript or proposal, since it has come from an agent, will know it’s been read and is deemed to be of value. It will be reviewed much more quickly than if it had been submitted unsolicited.
Therefore, the most obvious benefit of working with an agent is access to publishers. They have their fingers on the pulse of the business, and know who is looking for what. Once contract negotiations begin, your agent becomes the "buffer" between you and the publishing company. They negotiate the best possible terms, look out for your rights, and represent you if there's a dispute. Your agent takes care of the business side of helping you get published, leaving you free to write your next best seller (s).
Your best interests are your agent’s best interests.
(If you would rather try to reach an editor or publisher directly, you can go that route. You still need to write a dynamic and effective query to introduce yourself and your work.)
Despite what you may have heard, agents are not attention deficient. They’re busy. This is why the query letter has become content condensed. Agents have tons of business-related activities in their workday. Regardless of their grinding schedules, they want to read as many queries as possible every day.
Note: One area of slight disagreement among agents is that some want to know how or where you heard of them. I don’t think it matters. When I was a publisher—and allowed writers to submit their manuscripts directly to me—I didn’t care if they’d found my name on a restroom wall. If they had a great manuscript, that’s all I wanted to know.
If you’re suffering from agent angst, relax. It’s easy to find out which agents are looking for books in your genre, who wants queries delivered by snail mail or who wants email queries. Helpful sites that offer information on authentic agents are given in my FREE query workbook (mini version). To receive your copy of this 31-workbook, click here. #7 FREE QUERY WORKBOOK.
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# PERFECT QUERIES