Searching for an Agent

 

There are five major publishing houses in the United States. Within each of those publishing houses are many, many imprints, or subsidiary publishers. If you want to have a book published by any of these, you must go through a literary agent. With the very rare exception, major publishers will not deal with individual writers.

So, while I am awaiting comments from readers of my memoir, I am researching literary agents/agencies and their specific requirements. So far, I have created a spreadsheet of 28 agents or agencies that accept memoirs and that I think are approachable. I used a couple of websites to find these.

• AgentQuery.com 
• Association of Author’s Representatives 

I found the second resource to be the most useful.

Each time my search lead me to a specific agent or agency, I went directly to that website and researched some more. It had to feel like a good fit.

It is not important to find a local agent as submissions are handled electronically. Most agents seem to be on the East Coast, followed by the West Coast.

Quite a few of the agencies recommended reading How to Write a Book Proposal. I purchased the 5^th edition, which is by Jody Rein with Michael Larsen and am organizing files of general materials frequently requested by agents so I can pick and choose according to their specifications. For example, some of my file titles are Author Bio, Targeted Audience, What Makes My Book Stand Out from Others, and Chapter Summaries. Agency websites often have general information on book submissions as well.

While agencies usually require a great deal of information (I’m estimating 40-60 pages), I also need to be able to create some type of introduction that will convince the agent within the first paragraph or two that my submission is worth reading. I don’t mean that they want 40-60 pages of my actual memoir; instead, they mostly want support material to convince them it’s worth their time.

So, I will have my multiple general files on which to draw, but each agent seems to want something different, so I will regard my files as resources from which I can draw information. It will be important for me to read and fulfill the exact material required by each agent. This can be found on their individual websites.

Wish me luck. It is a lot of work, so I know I will have to remain dedicated to the process.