Tag: literary agents

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What Files You Need at Your Fingertips While Querying

The art of querying is hard to define. The exhausting process of emailing multiple agents asking for representation for your book in order to become a traditionally published author means you have to be a queen of preparation. With many literary agents and their agencies asking for various documents to support your plea, there is a way to make sure you have everything at your fingertips to make the process a bit easier.

Query

The letter that’s usually around 400 words and fills one double-spaced page is the main component of the process since it tells the literary agent what your book is about. The secret is to describe your book in the way you would want to see it on a dust jacket: What would pull in the reader cruising bookshelves? That’s the mindset for the quintessential query letter. Successful examples can be found on The Writer’s Digest.

Synopsis

The synopsis describes the story in a longer format up to three double-spaced pages.

Brief synopsis

The brief synopsis can be a page-long or 500 words. Sometimes, literary agents ask for this version instead of the full synopsis.

First 10 pages

The first 10 pages paired with the query is the most common materials agents ask for. Both need to do the job to attract the agent also known as the most important reader who can connect you with a publisher. Because these pages have to do some heavy lifting, it’s good to start with action full of tension to magnetize the agent to the point where they ask for materials. And what exactly is action varies from genre to genre, such as a literary fiction piece may not have an eye-popping event happening in the first 10 pages, but the tension is already building up at the very start.

First three chapters

The first three chapters can be requested by an agent in lieu of the first 10 pages. It’s good to have these pages ready in a separate file. Most agents expect the first three chapters to be around 50 pages. This can be categorized under partial manuscript request if the agent asked for them after receiving the first round of materials, e.g. the query letter and first 10 pages.

First 50 pages

The first 50 pages is another alternative amount of pages agents ask for instead of the common 10 pages. They should be ready in a separate file as well. Like the first 10 pages, there needs to be the right dose of action and tension to pull the agent in. With a longer sample, this may give you more room to attract the agent unless they stopped reading at the 10-page mark. This counts as a partial manuscript request upon an agent’s reply.

First five pages

This is one of the rarer requests, but some agents want the first five pages in order to read quickly and go through queries faster. The opening line and pages should deliver a punch up-front to get the agent hooked. For an easy copy-and-paste job, these pages can be in their own document.

Full manuscript

Of course, have your full manuscript ready to go. Certain guidelines on how to put your name and title on the double-spaced document varies with, for example, putting just your last name, title, and page number in the right-hand corner.

Most literary agents want a combination of the above with the query letter being the most important and the first 10 pages being the most common amount of materials to be initially requested. The industry standard has become pasting the materials inside an email to an agent due to the fear of virus-containing attachments. So preparing all the above in separate documents and putting them in a single folder on your desktop will allow you to query and respond to agents faster.

Keeping the font Times New Roman at 12-point in the document will leave that same style in your email when you copy and paste. Sometimes, changing the style within the email may make your writing appear wonky. Indentations may be off, but in the document 0.5 indent in tabs is standard for manuscripts and will help solidify the style in the email as well.

For a full manuscript request, most literary agents want the actual Word document or PDF file to be attached to an email (now they trust you!) or submitted through a portal like the Query Manager that conveniently allows you to see updates to your query.

Even after putting in all that work in researching the agents and submitting the documents they requested, there is still a high likelihood you’ll never hear a response. Sometimes, agents say on their websites and social media accounts that they welcome follow-up emails, and those may never be answered. More agents are straight-up saying if you don’t hear anything from them, then it’s a no.

Authors are usually advised to query 6 to 8 agents at a time, in case one says yes. Then it’s a 6- to 8-week wait for a response, if one gets back to you. Most agents say it’s time to take a look back at your query, first pages, and full manuscript if you haven’t received a response from an agent after 50 queries. But there are well-known authors like The Hate U Give‘s Angie Thomas who said they queried over 100 agents before hearing a yes, so there’s no rule on when to stop and if you should stop querying a book.

The best advice is to send materials like the query letter and full manuscript after it’s gone through multiple edits, either by you, your beta readers, and/or a hired editor. Many aspiring authors don’t go the paid editor route and wait to paired with one through their literary agent and/or publisher in case of different visions clouding (and extending) the work process.

On the other hand, the writers who do hire a professional editor before querying may have a stronger chance to attract an agent. Misspellings and grammar mistakes, incorrect or misleading context, and other issues glaring in the first pages will turn an agent away faster. And you shouldn’t feel pressured to accept edits you feel take away from your work.

Despite the stressful process, making sure all your items are formatted properly and ready to go whenever you want to query an agent is paramount to succeeding in the query game. A no gets you closer to the agent who will say yes.

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what's lit

Literary Agents Who Accused Another of Racist Act Start Legal Defense Fund

Photo by Life Matters from Pexels

Days after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, the city exploded into protests. An argument on whether or not to call the police when civil unrest becomes destructive exploded between literary agents and now has led to legal action.

Red Sofa Literary Agency owner Dawn Frederick tweeted May 28 on a now-deleted Twitter account that she called police on alleged looters during a night of unrest in the Minneapolis area.

Another literary agent Beth Phelan, who works with the Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency and the Twitter pitch party #DVpit creator, tweeted that Dawn’s actions were “disingenuous and gross.” As agents began to quit from Red Sofa Literary, the business was mentioned throughout book Twitter with the allegations by other literary agents, authors, and prospective authors. Now those agents who helped those tweets go viral have received cease-and-desist letters.

Beth; Laura Zats, founder and literary agent of Headwater Literary Management and co-host of the award-winning Print Run podcast; Kelly Van Sant, a former Red Sofa Literary agent who resigned over Twitter; and Isabel Sterling, young adult author of These Witches Don’t Burn and the upcoming The Coldest Touch, said they all received cease-and-desist letters from Dawn’s defamation specialist lawyer, Marshall H. Tanick of the Minneapolis firm Meyer Njus Tanick.

From the letter posted on Twitter by Laura, Dawn is requesting the group stop accusing her of racist acts and being racist, remove all tweets related to the accusations, and “prepare and post a corrected statement indicating that she did not make any racist or other improper statements, casting aspersion on her, her character, or her reputation.” Laura added in a subtweet that Dawn had told her to “back down” when an agent threatened legal action against her over sharing a link.

The group started “A Bookish Legal Defense Fund” GoFundMe page to pay for their legal costs and wrote their own letter. Their lawyer is J. Remy Green, a partner with New York firm Cohen & Green, who also specializes in defamation. The fund has $15,000 out of its $75,000 goal with over 400 donors as of June 18, a week after the fund was created.

The definitions between protestors, rioters, and looters and the overall situation have been disputed like in previous periods of civil unrest. YA author Kimberly Jones had a viral video interview earlier this month where she explains the reasoning behind the differences of who’s participating in the unrest and why they’re participating.

Dawn posted an apology in a letter on Red Sofa Literary’s homepage on May 30.

I’m deeply sorry for anyone I hurt with this careless action.

 

The authors and agents who may now question whether or not we share the same ideals have every right to feel this way. My actions were tone-deaf and the product of my own privilege—even if they were unintentionally so.

Book Twitter kept buzzing about the sincerity of the apology days later while authors like Foz Meadows who worked with Red Sofa Literary in the past shared their issues with Dawn and the agency. Dawn is closed to queries and three other agents still work at the agency.

The social media battle happening across industries and circles around the civil unrest has led to plenty of cancel culture, but book Twitter is moving fast with its cancellations.

Another literary agent, Marisa Corvisiero of Corvisiero Literary Agency, also received backlash for representing The Maze Runner author James Dashner, who had been accused of sexual misconduct and was dropped by his literary agent at the time in 2018. After agents also began resigning over Twitter, Marisa let go of all her agents, according to an internal email retained by Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America’s Writers Beware.

Last week, the National Book Critics Circle lost more than half of its 24-member board after 15 members resigned over drafting a statement in support of Black Lives Matter. One board member, Carlin Romano, called “the full benefits of white supremacy and institutional racism” and “white gatekeeping had been working to stifle black voices at every level of our industry,” as the statement read, “absolute nonsense,” according to photo screenshots from Hope Wabuke, a Ugandan-American author who suggested making the statement and eventually stepped down from the board.

The National Book Critics Circle wrote in a statement that it would delay its awards to focus on diversity efforts.

“The NBCC Board is committed to reimagining the entire organization and restructuring in a way that modernizes the NBCC and demonstrates a clear commitment to racial and social justice. We will not move forward as an organization unless we have met the ideals we aspire to.”

 

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what's lit

Agents Resign After Red Sofa Literary Owner Calls Police on ‘Straight Up Looters’ in Minneapolis

Photo by Milan Dobrić on Unsplash

As the death of an unarmed Black man killed at the hands of police in Minneapolis sparks protests, a local literary agency owner is being criticized for notifying police about so-called “looters.”

Literary agents who worked at Red Sofa Literary Agency, located in the Minneapolis twin city St. Paul, have been announcing their resignations on Twitter and letting aspiring authors know their queries may go unanswered due to owner Dawn Frederick’s actions. It’s in response to the uprisings in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities over the death of George Floyd, who was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes on May 25 to place him in custody for alleged forgery.

On May 28, Dawn said during protests she called the police to alert officers to what she viewed as looting and property damage.

The people who did this had busted the doors and many people were running out with items in their arms, jumping back into their cars, and hightailing it off the block. It was straight up looters.

Please note: there were NO protestors present. Zero protestors.

She continues in her statement on the agency’s website that she’s participated in protests in support of Black, Indigenous and People of Color. She also added she’s “incredibly saddened” by George Floyd’s death, especially since it happened in her city.

Having seen people get arrested when protesting, I’d never under any circumstances call the police on someone for protesting. That goes against everything I do when it comes to honoring (and participating) in protests.

But her fellow literary agents disagreed as they were still resigning as of Saturday afternoon, the height of protests across the U.S. marching in solidarity over police brutality. Kelly Van Sant, Amanda Rutter, and Stacey Graham shared their resignation letters on Twitter. According to the list of agents on the website, Dawn and Liz Rahn, who hasn’t tweeted in weeks, may be the only ones left.


Abby Jimenez and Barb Curtis are two authors who expressed they’ll be leaving the literary agency along with their agents. Some aspiring authors announced rescinding their queries to and contracts with the agency. Beth Phelan, the creator of the #DVpit Twitter pitch party for aspiring marginalized authors, shared the story to her 23,800 followers that may have helped it go viral on book Twitter.

She and other supporters quote-tweeted the agents who resigned and asked their followers to assist them in finding another job.

Dawn has owned Red Sofa Literary since 2008, according to the agency website. Her experience shows her dedication to the local literary community with being a co-founder of the MN Publishing Tweet Up and a member and teaching artist of the BOD for Loft Literary. Book editor Jake Klisivitch stood in solidarity with Dawn but received backlash on social media for his support.

Her Twitter account @redsofaliterary doesn’t exist anymore after sharing her reasons for calling authorities amid the protests; the agency can be found on @TeamRedSofa.