IT’S RYKA’S BIRTHDAY! Ryka is my mostly Maine Coon daughter, and yesterday her untrimmed claws reminded my nose that they need me to trim them. (My fault, I ignored her gentle “I’m in a really playful mood” hint a few seconds before.) Anyway, she turns two today and we will celebrate with a treat sprinkled dinner and maybe a new toy if I can find a good one.
Beyond that, I just finished (I think) making my agent list, or rather, the list of agents that might be interested in my book and whom I shall query…soooooon.
Whoof. 204. That’s how many I have on my list of potential agents. Granted, many of these are “maybe’s” because they either didn’t say anything specific about what kind of MG or YA stories they like or they said they wanted things that my story has but is not a major element or stuff like that. But there are also several that are very specific and directly describing major parts of my story!
How did I find these agents? Well, back in 2017, I think I did a bunch of different methods. Ranging from using Duotrope, Twitter’s #MSWL with various keywords, Mark Malatesta’s website to learn more about agents and querying, Manuscript Wishlist, Query Tracker, and probably several other things like Writer’s Digest, Publisher’s Marketplace, and of course, the agency/agent’s own website to verify if an agent would be a good match. Another great method is to find out who the agent of your favorite author or author of a comp book (book similar to your book) is and check them out!
This year, I just used Manuscript Wishlist to build my list. It was wild to recognize so many names as I went through 45+ pages. Some of them were on my previous list and really…shouldn’t have been there (Literally I had one with only one note attached that said “Doesn’t want high fantasy.” Why, Nicole? Why would you even write them down to query?). XD Others were people I started following on social media or had just seen their name around a lot when, between 2017 and now, I got bored of editing and chose to indulge in some agent researching. 😀
I also noticed that many of the agents that were on my list in 2017 don’t exist as literary agents anymore! Maybe I dodged a bullet there? Also, I got to see how some have moved agencies or made new achievements since 2017. ^_^ That was kind of special to see.
Now, my next step is to organize. Ugh, I gotta figure out who to query first and second and last (last should be easy. Just gonna throw all the maybe’s down there. Or not. Idkkkkk).
That’s one thing I remember distinctly from 2017. To query in batches. Back then, I queried in batches of 10. The idea there is that if you get only rejections, you can check your query letter or synopsis or first pages to see where the problem is before sending it out to your next batch of agents. They say you should at least get a partial request or personal rejections with every 10 query submissions. Idk if that is solid advice these days, because it seems like the industry may have changed and agents are simply overfull with query submissions. Still, with that idea, you shouldn’t query your top pick agent first. (I suppose you can always query them as soon as you do get a partial request and then nudge them if you get an offer. Idk, I’ve never gotten that far. I am simply trash. :P)
Either way, my first task will be to organize a sort of tier list, pick the agents from those tiers that I will query first, and work on personalizing the query letter toward them. Hopefully this will keep me busy and distracted enough that I can stop refreshing my email to see if my betas are done reading yet. XD
Here’s to the future! Go sprinkle some treats on your next meal. You may not be the bestest two year old cat ever, but you’re still worthy of tasty foodtimes. ^_^ ❤
Edit: After doing more research on the matter, it appears I no longer understand what low or high fantasy is and I’m gonna go set my books and myself on fire so that we can maybe find the answer in the ashes? Is it possible to be…both?
N. K. Valek: Author 