Find the Right Agent

 I know that one thing you should never, ever do on your blog is talk about your dream agent. After all, what happens if you query an agent other than her, who then reads your blog and realizes that you’d actually much rather have someone else? For that reason, I’m not going to talk about dream agents. I just want to talk about agents in general to get at the big question: what do you look for in an agent?

I know for unagented authors, sometimes it can seem like just getting any agent at all is a huge thing, so you don’t really care which one. Some days I feel like this: I just really want an agent. But on other days, when I’m being sensible, I realize that I’m young, and finding the right agent who’ll work with me for the rest of my career is going to be really important.

Here are a couple things that I really want in an agent:

- They should be hands-on. I want an editorial agent. I want them to care about helping me make my book as good as it can possibly be.

- They should share my values. This means that I don’t want an agent who reps erotica, or who mainly reps paranormal, or who wants me to amp up the sexual content in my stories. They don’t need to be Christian, but I want them to accept the religious views in my stories.

- I want to get to know their other clients. I want some of their other clients to be ones who I respect; I’ve read their stories and I’ll be proud to be connected to them through the agency.

- They should sell to big presses. Now, I don’t mean exclusively or anything, but it’s my dream to sell to one of the big six, so even if I don’t get there right away, I want that possibility.

Those are all of them that I can think of off the top of my head. Now, how do I find out whether an agent fits these criteria?

- Follow them on twitter. If an agent is hands-on, they’ll mention stuff about editing client manuscripts, or they might outright call themselves editorial in a twitter chat.

- Follow their blog. Their values will come out that way; I probably don’t want an agent who swears a lot. Also, someone who has a lot of sketchy book covers at the side of their page… nuh uh.

- Read the acknowledgements sections of my favourite books and see who their agents are. Look at the lists of authors on the website; if I don’t recognize any, I’ll normally forget about the agency.

- Go to their website and look at the list of books to see if I recognize any (I mainly read books from big presses). Check out their recent sales and look up the books to find a publisher.

These four suggestions are great ways to get to know agents to see if you really want them to represent you. There are lots of great agents out there who are amazing at what they do, but just not right for me. I’m not saying you should be too choosy, but it does pay to do your research.

Over to you, my readers. How is your Great Agent Hunt going? Any tips for finding agents to query? What do you look for in an agent? 

A Day in the Life of a University Student: Famous Author Moment

This is section two in my miniseries, A Day In The Life Of Me. My bad bus luck story was the annoying part of my day. Now comes the extremely awesome part.

As you will know if you read the previous post (if you haven’t yet, go read it—or skim it—and then come back) I ended up getting to campus in plenty of time for my first exam, psych. My friend was already there when I arrived, sitting right by the front. Normally we sit second row, so I was a bit confused by this, but she said that she sat so close because she wanted the prof to know she wasn’t cheating. Paranoid much? (JK, she’s a lovely person. <3)

Next to me on the other side was a girl who looked a bit familiar, but I couldn’t quiet place her. I started talking to her, just a friendly, “Nervous about the test?” kinda thing, and she pointed out that we’re actually in the same English class. From then on, our conversation went something like this.

Me: So, are you an English major?

Her: Yep. I’m looking to go into publishing.

Me: Seriously? Me too!

Her: That’s awesome! See, I really like to write—

Me: You write? Me too! Like, YA?

Her: Yeah!

*We talk for awhile about books and queries and stuff like that*

Me: Have you heard about inkpop.com?

Her: Yep, I have an account.

Me: How long have you been on?

Her: About a year and a half.

Me: So, um… do you remember Because You Laughed?

Her: Yeah, the short story. Didn’t that make top five?

Me: *points to myself* Yep, it did.

Her: Hey, wait, did you write that?

Me: *nods*

Her: I’m gonna hug you now. J

*We hug*

*I feel like a famous author*

*The prof says it’s time to start the test*

So, that was my pretty exciting first famous author moment. Well, not really, but you get the idea. I think it’s pretty cool that this random person who I just started talking to on a whim had actually read my story. Also, it must have made enough of an impact on them so they still remembered it two years later. I know that Because You Laughed has over 550 comments and there’s obviously a lot of people who’ve read it and haven’t commented, but it’s still weird to actually meet one of those people.

Needless to say, this conversation made me pretty happy and totally made up for any grumpiness that my terrible bus luck could have caused. It was an awesome thing to happen right before the test. The only bad thing is, I have no idea what this girl’s name is. Hopefully I’ll see her in English class tomorrow so I can prove that she’s not just some illusion that my delirious brain made up… 

Author Interview: Jeyn Roberts

Jeyn Roberts, author of Dark Inside was an inkpopper, but she found her publishing contract through a more traditional route and now has a three-book contract with publisher Simon and Schuster. Jeyn is from Vancover BC (yay! Another Canadian!) and she earned a degree in psychology and creative writing at UBC. For a quick synopsis of Dark Inside click here, and then scroll down to read the interview with Jeyn. (and make sure to check out the important links at the end, where you can pre-order Dark Inside so you'll get it right on the November 1st release date)


What was your inspiration for Dark Inside? Dreams. When I was a teenager I started having repetitive dreams about a world in which there was this gigantic evil. I still have them every now and then. And some of the scenes in the book are from actual dreams. 

How has your life changed since getting the publishing deal? In some ways I'm a lot less busy, in other ways I'm more busy! I'm a full-time writer now which is amazing. And I get to work from home which is great! My cats are thrilled to see so much of me. 

Is Dark Inside a stand alone novel? If not, how many more can we expect? Dark Inside is the first of three books. I'm currently working on the second one which will be out seven months after the first. 

I've heard you travel a lot. How have these experiences helped shape Dark Inside? I do travel a lot and it has helped my writing in many ways. Not only do I get to see everything but I'm allowed to learn and understand different cultures. Also, I take the same route every year that Mason takes in his book. I drove through the mountains a few weeks ago and kept thinking "Oh, that's where Mason did that" and "That's where he met Chickadee!" It was quite a funny experience. 

On YAtopia you called Dark Inside somewhat of a horror/dystopia... but not really. In what ways does it fit those genres, and how is it different? I always view dystopia as a something that takes place in the future. eg: Hunger Games, 1984. Dark Inside takes place in the present so that's why I don't like to fully categorize it as dystopia. It's a scary book so that's why I consider it horror. But there's also some romance and lots of drama. I think it really takes on a genre of its own. 

Is there anything you'd like to say to aspiring YA authors? Be patient and never give up. Becoming a writer is a long journey. Enjoy it. Learn to accept and give criticism. Don't be so hard on yourself. Remember, every author starts at the beginning. No one starts out with a blank page and writes a masterpiece.


Important Links


Amazon.ca
Amazon.com
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Facebook Fan Page

How to Get Published

Now that I'm immersed in blogging and tweeting and chatting with authors on inkpop and all that stuff that authors do, it's hard to remember a time when I didn't know any of this. Just five years ago, I had no idea how to get published. It almost seems laughable now, but I didn’t know what an agent was, or how to query, or what an ARC was, or pretty much anything about publishing. The thing is, all this information is hidden away on book blogs or in sneaky places on publisher’s websites. 12-year-old me was absolutely clueless.

I remember asking my mom how to get published and she went and asked on a Yahoo group. I excitedly waited for their answers, but when the responses came in, they were all the same: ‘It’s hard.’

That was all. There was no information about how to get published (other than the suggestion that I should try to get short stories published in magazines first). They only told me it was hard.

True. Getting published is hard. It’s been five years since I decided I wanted to get published, and I’m just as un-published as I ever was. The only thing that’s changed is that now I do know how to get published. Now, this information I’m going to share is fairly basic so most of you will already know it all, but in each case I’ll share a couple links to helpful websites so you can go farther than just my blogposts.

Step to getting published:

1.       Write a REALLY good story

2.       Get feedback
3.    Revisions

4.       Query Agents

5.       The Agent sells your book

For the next three weeks I’ll concentrate on steps 2-5. As for step one… I’ll spend a little bit more time on that. According to the poll in the sidebar, writing tips were the favourite kind of post on this blog, so they’ll be a lot more of those coming up. Any post on writing is going to have something to do with step one: Write a REALLY good story. That can’t be emphasized enough. Without a good story, you’ll never receive helpful feedback. No matter how good your query, you’ll never get an agent. Even supposing you got an agent, it won’t sell to publishers.

For next week, let’s assume you’ve already got a fairly good story. Then you need to get your story out there, and be willing to accept feedback.