Congratulations on finishing your book! If you're looking for a literary agent to represent your work, here are a few suggestions on getting started:
- Look in the back of books you love and that are a similar genre to your own manuscript. In the Acknowledgements, most authors always mention their agent so this is a useful way of getting an idea of which agents might be interested in looking at your work
- The W&A Yearbook is a great resource for finding all of the agencies in one place, but that's not to say that the internet - and all the free information it contains - isn't an equally important tool! Every agency has a website and most agents have individual profile pages. The onus is on you as the writer - the person who knows their story best - to do the necessary research on agents. Create a list of agents who you think would be a good fit
- Submission documents: for fiction, most agents will ask you submit the first three chapters of your novel, a covering letter and synopsis
- Targeted submissions: don't email every agent on your list all at once. Best practice is usually to submit in small batches, between 5-7 agents (this is not a fixed number!) at a time. This is because you may get feedback, which could help improve your novel before sending it out to other agents.
Hi Suvendu,
Congratulations on finishing your book! If you're looking for a literary agent to represent your work, here are a few suggestions on getting started:
- Look in the back of books you love and that are a similar genre to your own manuscript. In the Acknowledgements, most authors always mention their agent so this is a useful way of getting an idea of which agents might be interested in looking at your work
- The W&A Yearbook is a great resource for finding all of the agencies in one place, but that's not to say that the internet - and all the free information it contains - isn't an equally important tool! Every agency has a website and most agents have individual profile pages. The onus is on you as the writer - the person who knows their story best - to do the necessary research on agents. Create a list of agents who you think would be a good fit
- Submission documents: for fiction, most agents will ask you submit the first three chapters of your novel, a covering letter and synopsis
- Targeted submissions: don't email every agent on your list all at once. Best practice is usually to submit in small batches, between 5-7 agents (this is not a fixed number!) at a time. This is because you may get feedback, which could help improve your novel before sending it out to other agents.
Useful articles:
What Should a Covering Letter Include - https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/what-should-a-covering-lette…
https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/why-do-agents-only-want-to-r…
https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice/things-consider-preparing-su…
Best of luck!
Clare
W&A Admin