The Agent Search is Like the Bachelor
After reading Katy's post yesterday about discovering her wonderful agent, I was reminded of a post I wrote on my personal blog back w...
Imagine a reality television show like The Bachelor, only
instead of hot tubs and romantic lobster dinners and quiet conversations on the
settee, the prospective groom has to
trawl through blog posts and mini-biographies and tantalizing bits of
information online. (I know, it wouldn’t make very good TV, would it? But bear with me.) He knows the girls’ names, he knows where
they work, who they interact with, what their preferences are. He knows who says good things about them, how
many people they’ve dated recently, and even how well those dates went. He knows what they say they’re looking for, and what they’re least interested in.
Maybe he met a few of the girls at different parties or at a
speed-dating service. Maybe he heard one
or two speak about their jobs and their interests and how they want a
relationship to work. Maybe he even got
to talk to one once for fifteen minutes about something important to him,
important to a future relationship together.
Now imagine that this Bachelor has to enter into what he
hopes is a life-long committed relationship with this girl, based only on those
few things.
That’s what finding an agent is like.
You can find a lot of information online – client lists and
previous sales and statistics. You can
read “How I Got My Agent” columns in magazines.
You can go to lectures and workshops at conferences, enter query and
first page critiques, try out agent speed-dating, and enter contests like The
Baker’s Dozen. You can learn a lot about
someone online. But can you learn what
that person is really like?
I queried agents two years ago. I made up a list of names based on people I’d
heard at conferences and rumors I’d heard around the lunch tables and bar
stools at those same conferences. I sent
e-mails to my top ten list first – I figured it was better to be rejected than
always to wonder what might have been.
Every time I got a rejection, I sent out another query. And I got a lot of form letter
rejections. I told myself agents weren’t
interested in historical fiction – that it was one of those words that shut
people down immediately, like vampires
or rhyme. But I knew that if what I had was good
enough, someone would pick it up. Just
like there are still vampires and rhyming picture books showing up on shelves.
I had full manuscripts out with a couple of agents when enough
rejections came in to bring me to the end of my researched list. I turned to Talia, who had just gone through
the same process. And Talia does all the research. She suggested Catherine Drayton.
There’s not a lot out there on the Internet about Catherine. She rarely tweets, doesn’t blog and if you
Google her, you get interviews from three or four years ago. InkWell, the agency she works with, has a
stunning client list, however. And so
does Catherine – including Becca Fitzpatrick, Tara Hudson, Lisa and Laura
Roecker , John Flanagan and Markus Zusak.
My first thought was, “She’s never going to want to represent me.”
But I queried her anyway, noticing that her turn-around time listed on
QueryTracker was pretty quick. (and a
quick rejection means another query can go out!)
I was lucky to end up with more than one offer. Including two from my original top-ten
list. Agents I had met personally and
liked both as people and professionals.
I didn’t know Catherine. Knew I
may never get a chance to meet her face-to-face, since she lives in
Australia. Knew she keeps a very low
profile, and I wouldn’t be getting a big, shouty I LOVE THIS BOOK boost from
her in the Twittersphere. From what I’d
learned over the barstools and lunch tables, I knew that a great client list
doesn’t always mean great compatibility.
But neither does a great blog or scintillating personality. And what one person loves and cherishes might
be cited as irreconcilable differences by another.
I was dating blind.
As are we all when choosing agents.
It remains to this day one of the hardest choices I’ve ever made.
And one of the best.
I loved Catherine because of her matter-of-factness. Her dry and rather irreverent wit. And because from the very first conversation
we had, I knew she would never blow smoke.
I love her now for her single-word e-mails, her sage and unflinching
advice and her uncanny ability to call me right in the middle of some kind of
insanity at my house (like, it’s full of pre-adolescent boys, or I’m in the
middle of a writing session and can’t remember what year it is, much less what day,
or my cell phone has decided that my entire house is a no-bar zone). Best of all, she loves my writing, she gets what I’m trying to do and she gets
behind it.
Ultimately, that’s what you want from an agent. Someone in your corner. Someone who is looking out for your career. Someone who loves your writing. You also need
someone with whom you’re compatible – in work ethic and communication and
strategy and stick-to-it-iveness. Those
are all things that are almost impossible to tell from a few blog posts, a bio
and a single phone conversation. So the
best you can do is go with your gut. And
believe in luck. I did.
The Agent
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There is a big part of me that wants very badly to shout DITTO! To the posts that Donna and Katy
shared earlier this week.
They are so right.
Talia has voice in spades. She writes hot boys and kickass
girls. She weaves original, intricate stories together as easily as if she was
tying shoelaces.
Another area in which Talia rises head and shoulders above
the pack is with her skill in writing dialogue. The exchanges she creates
between characters are witty, sexy, characterizing. They are tense and richly detailed.
Simply put, her ear for dialogue is pitch perfect. (I just realized Katy said, this exact thing in her post. See? We all think so, which makes it undeniably true.)
I’ve been known to study her
dialogue. To laugh out loud because of it. To savor it. And I can’t wait
for you all to see what I mean when you read SILVER.
In addition to being a big fan of Talia, the author, I am a
huge fan of Talia, the woman. We Muses are coming up on our fourth anniversary
and so we’ve settled into our roles within the group a little bit. Talia is our
voice of reason. She is eloquent with words, gentle in spirit, wicked in humor,
and generous as a friend.
She brought us together, way back when. Without her, I’d be
missing out on one of the most rewarding parts of being a writer.
It’s such a treat—an honor, really—to be part of this
fantastic achievement of hers.
Congratulations, Talia, and GO SILVER!!!!
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