Good News! I can now count myself among the ranks of authors represented by an agent! But how did it happen? Well it wasn’t in the commonly accepted way but then, very little about my writing career has happened in the so-called ‘normal’ way. Before we get into how I did it, let’s look at the more conventional approach to securing an agent.
Submitting to an agent is almost exactly like submitting to a publisher, the agency will have guidelines on their website covering such things as cover letters, synopsis expectations and just how much of the book they’ll accept at the submission stage (usually between thirty pages/three chapters up to a limit word-count). It is ever so important, not only that you follow these submission guidelines, but also that you do a little research into the agent themselves. Each agent will have a page detailing first, whether they are actually open to submissions, and second, what it is that they are looking for. If you’re pitching King Solomon’s Mines Pulp Action Adventure it’ll do you no good to query an agent looking for Murderbot style sci-fi. The inherent difference between pitching a publisher and an agent is that an agent has a much more personal element to it, and that’s what works in your favour. Once you’ve researcher, tailored your package and sent it off, you wait. Ideally you want to be pitching eight or so agents at a time and giving them six to eight weeks to respond.
The very nature of the agent/author relationship means that, as an author, you are looking for someone who is going to give you the very best representation that they can, and that’s a whole lot easier when they like your work. The best results are going to come from the best relationships and that works both ways. When you do get an agent they are going to be one of the first sets of eyes to go over your work and, since it is their job to sell the project to a publisher, they’re going to advise you on any changes you could make that will ease/speed that process, call it an initial creative edit pass. The thing to remember is that they know the score. Of course there are limits, there’s creative integrity to consider, but the right agent isn’t going to come close to that line.
But why do I need/want an agent? You might ask. Well, self-publishing is more and more accessible and publicity (through the medium of BookTok and social media) is more accessible too. You can retain creative autonomy and still reach a good audience, the margin is higher for self-pub too. But, if you really want to be seen, if you want your story to go out far and wide then you’ll want to get it into store and that’s where big publishing comes in, and a lot of big publishing won’t even look at a submission from an unrepresented author. An agent is an invaluable key for opening many doors. One day I ‘d like to see Camelot 2050 on the screen, I toyed with the idea of pitching to Netflix (back when they were known for taking a punt on something adventurous) but, they do not accept unsolicited/unrepresented submissions either. An agent is key to this, they have the connections and the know-how.
And see, here’s a thing that confused me for the longest time. I submitted, way back, to a series of agents (I also submitted more recently, but that’s not the ‘how’, not yet). I got refused but invited to submit again later. In my mind this resulted in a ‘Wait, do I have to submit every time?’ notion and guess what? The answer is… sort of. Once you secure representation you sign a contract and Yay! You have an agent however, your agent is not bound to submit every manuscript you submit to them. If they don’t believe the market is ready for a particular piece, or that it’s not ready for the market, they should tell you, this is part of the relationship. However, each time I ask my agent to go out there with a manuscript it is my job to submit it in the appropriate format, I’m not just firing a one-hundred kay manuscript over and saying ‘Look at this!’, there’s a process.
So, how did I get an agent if it wasn’t through the submission/rejection cycle? Well, here’s where the karaoke comes in. Literary conventions inevitably have a social scene, it’s not all panels and trade rooms (although panels can get you in front of agents too). There are meetups for fandoms, book releases (likely to contain agents/publishers) and, at the end of the day, there’s just hanging out in the bar… or maybe the karaoke. See, my partner attends conventions with me and has insisted, from day one, that we do Karaoke, both as a fun way to make new friends, and as a means to get noticed. Luckily I can, at the least, carry a tune. Beyond that it’s how we do it that makes an impression (both having a little performing arts in our backgrounds, we tend to put on a show) so, when we treated the room to a role-swap rendition of Phantom of the Opera it caused a bit of a stir. And this is the important thing about Litcons, it’s a chance to put yourself out there, show the character behind the books, show that you can interact with the audience and market yourself in an eye-catching manner. Sometimes it’s an authoritative voice on a given subject, sometimes it’s an immaculate social presence and, just sometimes, it’s a 6-foot-plus masc presenting weirdo belting out Christine’s part from Phantom.
That was when I first met Laura of the Liverpool Literary Agency and, while this was back at Fantasycon 2023 it certainly struck a chord. When I started submitting E-Rail (the arrangement with the previous publisher having become untenable) Laura was high on my list for querying and, as luck would have it, she stopped by my table at Worldcon24 for a quick catch up and I was able to tell her that E-Rail (a project she’d show previous interest in) was going out for submission. She requested a submission and, not long later, I am signed to LLA under Laura, and E-Rail is going out to publishers whom I would never have been able to reach out to unsolicited. I’m looking forward to a long and successful future with Laura and LLA but right now, we’re in the waiting/working stage where we wait for responses to the E-Rail pitch, and work on the next big thing.
Some stuff down the line might still be self-pub, I’m pretty certain that hybrid is the key to success in these uncertain times and some of my stuff is likely to be either too eclectic or too nostalgic for today’s market. What can I say, I write some for me and some for you and, given the reactions I get from my readers at conventions, it’s a model that’s working for us both so far.
David Cart-Writer 