It’s now a while since I posted that I was about to embark on the hunt for an Agent to represent Myth Making and I thought I would say a bit more about that whole process.
Ah, and a slow process it is too.
“Why’s that?” I hear you ask. “You just stick them in the post.”
And here is where I tear my hair and shout “NO NO NO!!”
You can’t just go and bung a dozen or so submissions in the post to the first names you find in the Writers and Artists Yearbook. You have to do your RESEARCH first – and that is what takes the time.
Take Myth Making for example, my children’s book aimed at kids aged 10+. Well for starters, not all Agents handle kids books. So why waste my time and theirs sending them something they’re not going to be interested in the first place.
But it goes deeper than that. Once I have an Agent’s name I check them out. Many have websites - a good place to start. If they list clients I check them out on Amazon. If not a quick google should turn up the websites of some clients. This then starts to give me a picture of what sorts of books these Agents handle. Have I heard of them? Who are their publishers? Does my book seem to fit with their lists? Are they a member of the Agent’s Association? And many many more.
All these questions take time to answer, but, once they’ve checked out then at last they go onto my list.
So if you’re an Agent reading my blog because you’re looking at Myth Making and you’re checking me out – then that means I checked you out first :-)
Because of the nature of my blog, I tend to hear from the ones who haven't prepared themselves quite so well, and so it makes a lovely change to hear of a writer doing things properly!
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