How many literary agents should i contact

For all you know, they might be finishing up reading your work and will be happy to have the chance to offer you representation. As much as it might be hard to remember, literary agents are people too. They have likes, dislikes, personal interests, and more — and a lot of that info can often be found in a brief online search.

So before you send a query to an agent, take the time to do a little research on them and read any interviews or profiles of them that you can find. That way, your message to them has a better chance of having an accurate personal touch. Plus, it helps to be absolutely positive that your agent is a accepting new clients and b still representing the genre you write in.

This is just a basic form of etiquette. However, once an agent declines an offer of representation to you, you can feel confident querying another relevant agent in the same agency. In contrast, a project synopsis which you should only give to an agent if they request it of you is a more granular breakdown of the beats of your project. For example, you can give information on a chapter-by-chapter basis within a synopsis, but NEVER in a query. With both projects, you should ask yourself: does the agent NEED to know this piece of info?

If not, scrap it. For example, if your real-life experience inspired a work of fiction, this would be a relevant sentence to throw into your email. Otherwise, you should let your project stand front and center, rather than your biography.

Keep your cool, stay calm, and be professional throughout the process. Patience in the submission process and life, for that matter goes a long way. Do you have a tried and true strategy for sending out queries? Any superstitions? Take to the comments! Need help with your book? For my best advice, check out my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter! It helps pass the time. Check out querytracker. Now I have one more concerning query letter etiquette. I initially meant to stick with traditional mail, but now I found an legitimate agent that requires email to contact him. Great model for the email Query. If an agent shows an interest in your work and asks to read the full manuscript, some could ask for a short period of exclusivity but most simply ask that, out of courtesy, you make them aware of any interest shown by another agent.

One thing not to do, however, is to use this tactic as a means of speeding things up. The publishing industry is deceptively small when you begin to boil it down by the number of people working on your type of book, making the chances of everyone at least knowing of one another quite high.

One final thing to avoid: resist the temptation to use the same covering letter to submit to multiple agents. As a writer, are you really not bothered about who acts on the behalf of you and your writing? And then even worse than this is to copy all of the agents in on your email, brazenly setting each agent up in competition with one another and confirming a lack of regard for each of them in one fell swoop.