Write On: Can You Dig It?

The Shoveler: He shovels well. He shovels very well.

It’s a bit ironic that while everyone is finishing up school, I’ve been digging into my own homework.

I may have morphed from writing silly reviews of bad movies to sincere novel-length fiction (although “morphed” may not be the best word to use – it’s not like I came out of a cocoon), that was really only the first phase. The next phase in this fantastic journey is to get some representation.

Granted, I don’t really have to get an agent. There are plenty of publishers that accept unsolicited material, and self-publishing is an affordable way to go -- something I know from personal experience. The thing is, I promised myself that I would make a real, wholehearted go at it with this project. If I’m going to chase a dream, I might as well go big, right? Besides, if I start thinking about how I don’t have to get an agent, I could then argue about how I don’t have to write this blog or write much of anything or bathe every day or wear pants with zippers. It’s a slippery slope.

So, where does one get a literary agent? Google?

Well, I guess that would work. I just did a Google search for “literary agent” – you know, for science – and I got a mix of articles about how to find an agent (as if they’re leprechauns), data bases (at least one I recognize as legit) and big box agencies (at least one of these looks legit, too). I also received a link to image results for “literary agent,” which largely consists of people smiling in front of a book shelf.

 

Oh, did I mention that Google came back with 37,900,000 results? Yeah, that’s not going to be very efficient.

Instead, I went out to Publishers Marketplace, which is a big ol’ online market for publishers, editors, agents and more. I put in some vague criteria for my agent search (while my story has the set-up of a mystery, I don’t know that it fits neatly into that genre – just one thing I could use an agent to help me sort out)  and dug in… to build a spread sheet of possible agents to query. Because even from that list of results, there were plenty of agents to scratch from the list: agents who specialize in nonfiction, agents who aren’t accepting submissions right now, agents who are specifically looking for diverse voices -- something I wholeheartedly support but, as a middle-aged straight white guy, doesn't help me get my story published.

Then I got myself a copy of ye olde Writer’s Market, a famed annual tome that is kind of the same thing as Publishers Marketplace but specifically targeting writers and in book form. I grabbed a fistful of sticky notes and built out my spreadsheet some more.

Finally, I swung by Manuscript Wish List. I forget how I heard about this site, but it’s essentially a place where agents and publishers can post about the kind of stories they wish they had sent to them. I had feared that this was largely a Twitter thing – I’ve gone this far Twitter-free and am NOT AT ALL eager to dip into those waters – but the site has some handy search tools. I even had results come up for “90s missing war vet.” Imagine that.

As it stands, I’m at 65 agents and counting. It’s true that I can submit to multiple agents at the same time, but 65 at once would be just a bit over the top. No, I’ll have more research in front of me… but this post is long enough, so we’ll talk about that next time.