These are my notes from the ‘How to find an agent’ workshop held at Capclave. The class was capably taught by author AC Crispin.

Crispin noted that she thought Jeff Herman and Rita Rosencrantz’s book ‘Writers Guide to Editors and Agents’ was superior to ‘Writer’s Market,’ because it had a more extensive questionnaire. She suggested however, that if we could afford it, we look into purchasing an account on Writer’s Market because they have a searchable database.

She noted that the site www.agentquery.com provides free services.

Synopsis– should be single spaced, with an extra carriage return between paragraphs. Needs to be written in present tense. You may need to have several different synopses for different agents. If the agent asks for a short synopses, it should be 2-3 pages; if they do not specify, it should be 4-5 pages. Chapter-by-chapter synopses are much longer; each chapter deserves 1-2 paragraphs.

Crispen suggested that authors find agents by looking in the forwards/afterwards of successful novels that are similar to the one they’re working on. (She noted several times that “real agents” don’t advertise, but that authors often thank them by name. Make a list of 20 agents, then look them up in Herman’s/Writer’s Guide. Send out 10 queries a month.

If you get no positive letters from the first batch of queries, change the query letter.

Elements of a query:

Business letterhead

1st paragraph: Mention how you came across their name (networking, etc); Mention length, genre, and title.

2nd paragraph: Soundbyte. Punchy pitch/sketch– 2-3 sentence max. SHOULD NOT BE A SYNOPSIS. (She’s a chimp, he’s the Pope– they fight crime!)

3rd paragraph: List credentials. Writing sales are the most important. Life/Experience and Education are secondary credentials.

4th paragraph: Professional goodbye.