For your new literary agent

When searching for a literary agent, some people think about only their query letter. But usually agents ask for more.

Synopsis

These are not always the most fun, but they do point out your plot right off the back. Does it all flow together? Does it make sense? Is there a spot where it may be slow? The agent will be able to see through it.

Spend a little more time explaining the beginning more than the rest but make sure to hit your novel’s key points. You won’t have space to put in all the sub plots or so in. These are typically one page single spaced or two pages double spaced. Pay attention to which an agent asks for.

Sample pages

Agents always know the number of pages that want for sample pages. This could be from the first five pages to the first three chapters. Make sure these are the most polished pages ever. You want a gripping beginning to hook them in.

Author Bio

Some agents (though rarely) will ask for an author bio as well. Even though it’s small, make sure this still grabs and catches the agent’s attention.

Anything else an agent has asked you for? Gotten a response from an agent before? Leave a comment below!

7 thoughts on “For your new literary agent

  1. I submitted my book to a number of agents before I got published, all the points above are valid, but the work must stand on its own two feet. Agents are only human and are likely to be impressed with courtesy as much as anything else, particularly if your work is a borderline yes.

    And watch out for the sharks (vanity publishers!), anyone lavishing flattery on you or your work, or asking for money is best viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s