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Thursday, July 1, 2010

Keep The Agent Focused

Here's a little Q&A email from a reader.  Thought it might be of interest.
Q. My manuscript caters for young adult/ mature children, so I've found a good children's literary agency. However, my genre varies, as I also write horror, thrillers and occasionally plan to attempt philosophical drama. If a children's/young adult's agency is willing to represent my first work, will they be willing to represent such radically different genres? Should I even bother to query these genre specific agents, or should I look for a more general one?
A. In my experience, agents have little pea brains, so it's best not to distract them with too much of your magnificence.  One letter = one message seems to work best.  You can add a general statement about your other works, but keep the focus on your Y/A book.  If all goes well, and your horror/vampire/fantasy book needs representation, maybe your Y/A agent will help you find the right person to rep that project too.
Anyone else want to chime in with an opinion?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Agree -- deal with finding an agent for the first book. Once you have an agent who wants to represent you, THEN you have a conversation about your other work. They very well may be willing to rep you on everything, or they will decide to rep you on just the one book if the others will be vastly different. But until you have an agent on board with that first project, then I wouldn't even worry about the rest.