The Search for an Agent

I've been putting rather a lot of work of late into researching agents to which I can submit Hedge Witch, my first completed novel. I've also been putting quite a lot of work into the relevant query letters and covering letters. I've had something of an epiphany about the whole process. This is probably completely obvious to everyone else, but I've only recently grasped that a submission to an agent or a publisher should be a piece of creative writing.

I don't mean that it should be made up. I mean that it needs to be carefully worked to achieve a desired literary effect. Just as, say, some dialogue in a novel needs to be honed to engage and inform the reader, so a submission should be crafted with its intended audience in mind. It needs to be given the same care and attention as the novel it is attempting to promote. Because, if it isn't, the agent might never even get round to reading the actual deathless prose.

One problem I've had is that there's a lot of contradictory advice out there as to what makes the perfect submission. Some want simple statements of fact, whereas others want something a bit more blurb-like for instance. This is where you need to research individual agents and find out what each wants. But how do you do that? How do you get to know their tastes and preferences if meeting them all isn't an option? This is where the internet is invaluable, of course. Most agents have some sort of web presence, and often this will contain a profile of each individual and what they look for. This information is golddust. Some agents are very switched on and use Twitter and blogs and the like, so you have the chance to really find out about them. It does seem that agents in the USA are much more likely to be blogging and tweeting, but there are UK agents doing so too.

At the other end of the scale, I should say, there are agents who don't even have a web site. They obviously know what they're doing but I don't begin to understand the thinking behind that. No web site? In 2009? Nope, can't grasp it.

I've also been having trouble with the descriptions agents provide about themselves. Hedge Witch is, if anything, a fantasy novel. Partly high fantasy and partly urban fantasy (and partly other things), but predominantly fantasy. I mean, I hate pigeonholing it like that because it's so restrictive, but I accept that's the way the world works. But it often isn't clear whether an agent would be interested in seeing it. Does "general fiction" cover fantasy? Does "commercial fiction"? Some agents will say "no SF" but not mention fantasy, and my guess is that they are including fantasy under the umbrella of SF (which is fairly weird). Some, by the way, even say "no Sci-Fi". Don't they know no-one has seriously used that term for, I don't know, decades?

Some agents, meanwhile, talk in terms of age groups. They say "children's books only" without any explanation of what that means. Pre-schoolers? Teenagers? Perhaps Hedge Witch is "young adult" (YA) because it's, you know, got magic and stuff in it. But lots of YA fiction is purely real-world and lots of "old adults" read fantastic fiction. Such as, well, me!

Ah, 'tis all very confusing. Still, with careful research and carefully crafted submissions, I'm hoping to get somewhere. Wish me luck!