Ten Top Tips to Finding an Agent - Benjamin Scott's Guest Blog

by Addy Farmer

Benjamin is the Writing for Young Adults online course tutor for Oxford University Continuing Education Department. He teaches creative writing to a range of groups, schools and organisations. As well as pursuing his own writing, he is lead author on the Star Fighters series written under Max Chase for Working Partners. He runs his own private critique and editing service and is honoured to be one of the four editors for this year’s Undiscovered Voices. Website and Twitter: www.benjaminscott.net and @Benjamin_Scott

Having just signed with my agent, Gillie Russell at Aitken Alexander, I’m delighted to share with you 10 tips to help you with your agent search. I can’t promise to make it faster, but there are several things you can do to make it easier to find that agent willing to champion you and your work. My own achievement on taking my writing journey that bit further is still sinking in, but it’s a delight to know that I’m now sharing the next stage with my agent.

1). Join SCBWI. As a former ARA, I bet you think I might be biased, but the truth is I wouldn't have come this far without the support of some great friends, making some brilliant contacts and having access to amazing advice which being a SCBWI member brings.

2). Get involved. It’s not just a matter of joining and hoping good things will come to you. I say this as someone who lives over two hours from London and gets back after midnight from any evening event in the capital. Grab as many chances as you can to meet people and participate as much as possible.

It’s true, the more you put in, the more you get out.

3). Welcome friends who will encourage you to push your work further. I’ve been blessed to find some great critique partners. If you’re really lucky, they’ll hold off telling you to send it out until they genuinely believe your work is ready and then give you a massive shove to send it out. I’m a huge rewriter and it helped to have someone say it’s time I sent it out and stopped avoiding the submissions process.

4). Live in the moment. Celebrate all concrete achievements. Don’t worry about things you have yet to achieve or problems that don’t exist. Creative people can be easily distracted by the shiny baubles of the future, but grasp onto the future too tightly and those glass baubles can break and hurt. A question I try to live by is “What if this is it?” What if today, this hour, this minute is it? Am I going to appreciate and love this moment? Am I going to be grateful for my achievements however modest or am I going to feel bad because I haven’t won a Carnegie yet? What a thrill to have at least tried and got this far. I have no guarantee that I’ll get any further in publishing than this (although I plan and hope to do more - much more) but if this is it for me then I want to go to sleep with a smile on my face and have sweet dreams. I want to write without worrying about the future.

More friends on a journey

5). Remember, it’s a numbers game. In a book on job hunting I co-wrote years ago, we made the point that applying for jobs is a numbers game. The fewer jobs you apply for, the lower your relative chances of being hired. The more companies that know you’re looking for work the higher the chance one of them will take you on. Publishing is a numbers game too. It comes down to luck and subjective evaluation.

Even if your book is a perfect bestseller-in-the-making just as it is, the more people you offer it to, the higher the chances someone will say yes.

6). Write more than one book (but not in the same series). I’ve stolen this advice from Sara O’Connor who told a SCBWI Masterclass that the only way to double your chances of selling work to an agent or editor is to write another book – on a different topic. I was pitching a 7+ series called Eureka Evans: A Disaster Waiting to Be Discovered, but I had a YA fantasy up my sleeve called The Summoning of Freiya Rolandson. My query letter only mentioned Freiya in passing, but my agent was keen to look at both projects. Two different books make two different opportunities – you double your chances.

7). Delete the R-Word from your vocabulary. I’m serious. Promise never to use the word Rejection again. You’d think as people who take care with words we’d find a better way to describe the phenomenon of an agent/editor deciding not to devote their time, energy and emotions/money to the book we sent them. The R-Word comes with too many connotations. As much as I can see the analogy between publishing and dating, rejection is not an easy word to feel neutral about, let alone positive. It’s also too personal. A pass from a gatekeeper is about the text and them, not about us as writers/people and them. Instead, I offer you the more neutral suggestion of a project simply being ‘passed on’ – that’s all it is. It simply wasn’t a fit this time around.

sometimes the fault lies with the stars

8). What was that about feeling positive about being passed on? Impossible, right? Like duelling scars in Bismark’s Prussia, I regard each pass is a BADGE OF HONOUR. It’s a rite of passage. Let’s face it, few, if any, writers get away without a single agent or editor passing on one of their books at some point. If it was all right for J.K. Rowling or William Golding to have had work turned down then I see it as a personal Badges of Honour to have at least had the courage to send my best work out and see how it fared. Somewhere inscribed on these imaginary badges are the words Perseverance vincit (Perseverance conquers). Each Badge of Honour is a personal invite to try again as Samuel Beckett wrote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

J.K. never gave up on Harry

9). Stagger your submissions and plan for the long haul. This is just practical planning really. Draw up a list of all the agents who represent the work you’re sending out and draw up a list of potential editors too. As an agent advised at a SCBWI Agent’s Party a while back, if you apply to editors and they all pass on your project then there’s nothing an agent can do for you – the well of opportunity is dry. However, if all the agents pass on your book then there’s a whole load of editors to approach.

I found the way that worked best for me was to send out one query a week (and therefore hopefully one submission a week) to ensure no matter whom passed on my work I knew what to do next: just follow the plan.

10). Send a query first and start a dialogue before you send a submission. I like to know that I’ve got the right email address and that the agent has some sense of me and my project before they receive a manuscript or sample. Time is hugely precious and an informative and to the point query often gets a quick response that a submission. It goes without saying always be polite and always be patient.

Thanks so much, Benjamin! This is such good advice from someone who knows. 

Just Because Social Media is a Tool Doesn't Mean You've Got to Be A Tool Too.

By Candy Gourlay

Social Media is not the way, the truth and the light. It is a tool. Just a tool.

Just because it's a tool doesn't mean you've got to be a tool too.

I added someone I didn't know on Facebook the other day. He was already friends with several of my writing contacts. He declared himself an author so, fair enough, I thought.

Immediately I got a message - not a private message, but a message on my wall. 'My new book Title of Book, is now on Amazon ... it's about ... etc etc'

By posting on my wall, he was promoting his book to all my contacts. I deleted him immediately.

And then I felt guilty.

SCBWI Agents' Party 2013 - or 'how to make someone fancy your book'

by Addy Farmer

Hear what the lovely writers' agents said at the SCBWI Agents' Party 2013. It's all about the love ...

Vicki Le Feuvre of Darley Anderson
Hannah Shepherd of DHH literary agency
Emma Herdman of Curtis Brown
Sallyanne Sweeney of Mulcahy Associates



So, once the crammed masses had settled down, we listened and learned...

Here's what all those agents want. It's easy.
'Brilliant story, fantastic characters and a great voice.'

Got all three? Then sub away to any of the agents who attended the Agent Party...

BUT wait! Take a step back, a deep breath and a firm grip on your running trousers and ask yourself - are you sure you're ready? Let's take a closer look at what those agents said...

How NOT to start a story and other introductions

Sallyanne said do not use 'loads of alarm clocks' and get rid of all that panicky exposition. You're the one in charge, you can let the story reveal itself gradually. As we all know, sometimes it's best to start at the second chapter.

Emma talked of 'cover letter frustration'. To anybody who is in doubt about how to address a female agent... use Ms or first name. Make a small effort and it's not difficult to find the right person and spell their name properly.

For your own sake, 'no generic subs!' Tailor it to match.

Everybody agreed that multiple submissions (although The Blair Partnership prefers exclusive subs) are fine but be up front about who you've subbed to.

Vicki was firm in her starting no-nos
'No mirrors and no weather and be careful of prologues.'
Prologues can be used as 'info-dumps' and this WRONG. A prologue can establish a world, a prologue can even be chapter one because it is something out of the timeline of the story e.g. Harry Potter.

When is a Work-in-Progress ready?

Emma said that the book should be complete! Not just the first three chapters and a synopsis. If an agent reads something and gets excited about it, she will want the rest of it NOW and not when you get round to completing it in six months time.

Do yourself a favour and resist sending in your work before it's complete because if nothing else, 'there are so many others who have finished the whole thing.'

Sallyanne pointed out that you should treat the remainder of your story just as you would the first three chapters - the shine should extend to all of your work!

Ask yourself - do you love every piece of your book? Are you ignoring the annoyance you feel with those floppy flabby passages or the thin, twiggy words? You've got to love all of this work because as all our agents said in one way or another,

If I take something on, it's got to be something I absolutely love.

Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester - love is blind?

The Synopsis
What's the role it plays and who reads it?

No synopsis is necessary for picture books. For longer work,

All the lovely agents agreed that they were more interested in the actual writing and that they,want the first read to be the reader's experience

The synopsis should be as short as possible (less than one side). You should treat it as a check to see where the story is going and that means including spoilers. Tell the story as straight as you can and try to reflect the genre and age.

Oh, Heathcliffe! Oh, Cathy!

How Quickly do you Make up your Mind?

Title - no
First sentence - no
First paragraph - no
First page - probably.

It's like seeing someone you fancy... you know if you don't fancy your book.

It can't just be sellable but it has to have a voice which sings. As well, it can't just have a voice, it also has to be sellable. Then again, all our agents were keen to let us know that they were with their clients for the long haul. Emma worked for three years on a book with a client. Then she subbed and sold it!

Romeo, Romeo - wherefore art thou, Romeo?

Top Tips

Sallyanne said

Write the story you want to write and not to the marketplace

Hannah said

Be persistent and be wary of jumping at the first agent because you need to get on with them

But most of all, remember that agents are human beings too. Emma always wakes up thinking,

Is there anything good? It's never a chore.

They actually want your story to be brilliant. Do your best and make sure that you can't do any more.
So, now you're good to sub. Good luck (that helps too) and remember it's all about the love. What else matters?