Before I started actively looking for an agent a few months ago I thought of all agents as pretty much the same. Now I've finished the research and narrowed my list down to 61 with a top 10 to query first. And the variety of agents in just my chosen field is amazing.
Take their backgrounds. Many have degrees in literature, many of those in creative writing. But there are several lawyers and a scattering of those in very diverse fields - insurance, the navy, just to name a few of the more surprising. Their ages, family situations, ethnicities, and gender orientations varies widely too.
The kinds of works they represent also vary. It's not unusual for them to support several genres of fiction and kinds of nonfiction. However, often reading between the lines you can see they have one or a few areas they like most.
Speaking of "like" one commonality seems to be a great love of reading. Some of them speak of their great excitement when discovering a new writer, especially one with an unusual voice.
Another commonality seems to be a great workload. It's not unusual for them to handle a hundred queries a day and handle dozens of other tasks such as chatting with editors, sending out royalty statements, attending conventions, and so on. No wonder they read a lot of those queries on their smartphones while traveling, eating, and ostensibly relaxing at home.
All this has changed my agent-search strategy. I had intended to write one great query and send out a dozen or more a time, waiting only a few weeks between sending out the next wave. Now I limit myself to just a few, and give those a couple of months before prepping the next wave.
Also, I research each agent in detail, not just depending on their submission guidelines and agency bio. I reason that finding an agent is like looking for a marriage partner; it's intimate and important and may last for many years, even a lifetime. Then before sending out a query I re-read my "perfect" query and see if I need to customize it in some way.
So far I've had five standard rejections, one totally ignore, and one with a "not for me but like to see more." And I'm satisfied with that. I never expected this process to be quick and certainly not easy. And meanwhile I've a new project which excites me, something very different from what I've done before.
Take their backgrounds. Many have degrees in literature, many of those in creative writing. But there are several lawyers and a scattering of those in very diverse fields - insurance, the navy, just to name a few of the more surprising. Their ages, family situations, ethnicities, and gender orientations varies widely too.
The kinds of works they represent also vary. It's not unusual for them to support several genres of fiction and kinds of nonfiction. However, often reading between the lines you can see they have one or a few areas they like most.
Speaking of "like" one commonality seems to be a great love of reading. Some of them speak of their great excitement when discovering a new writer, especially one with an unusual voice.
Another commonality seems to be a great workload. It's not unusual for them to handle a hundred queries a day and handle dozens of other tasks such as chatting with editors, sending out royalty statements, attending conventions, and so on. No wonder they read a lot of those queries on their smartphones while traveling, eating, and ostensibly relaxing at home.
All this has changed my agent-search strategy. I had intended to write one great query and send out a dozen or more a time, waiting only a few weeks between sending out the next wave. Now I limit myself to just a few, and give those a couple of months before prepping the next wave.
Also, I research each agent in detail, not just depending on their submission guidelines and agency bio. I reason that finding an agent is like looking for a marriage partner; it's intimate and important and may last for many years, even a lifetime. Then before sending out a query I re-read my "perfect" query and see if I need to customize it in some way.
So far I've had five standard rejections, one totally ignore, and one with a "not for me but like to see more." And I'm satisfied with that. I never expected this process to be quick and certainly not easy. And meanwhile I've a new project which excites me, something very different from what I've done before.