Thanks J.R.! Starting My Agent Query Spreadsheet
Just giving a shout out my my buddy J.R. Fitch who has been giving me some great leads on literary agents to submit my novel to. Ok, some of them don’t look like good fits but some of them do and I always appreciate the help.
I’ve started to construct an agent contact database to help track my submissions even though I am not quite there yet. I like being organized though.
My database looks like this:
The categories are:
- Agent Name
- Agency
- Interests
- Recent Relevant Sales
- Send (Y/N)
- Date Sent
- Heard Back (Y/N)
- Interested (Y/N)
- Followup
The list contains both loose and hard matches. If an agent says generically that they accept “Fiction” they go on the list. They might not be among the first few batches of queries to go out unless I see that they have recently sold something in the Fantasy genre however. The category that agents through around that bugs me however is “YA Fantasy”. This field is so poorly and broadly defined that I have come to realize that no one really knows what it means and every one seems to have different definitions they opt to go by. But I will still target them as well as Under the Darkened Moon can easily fit into that category under many of the available definitions.
I think that this sort of a list will help me keep track of where my submissions have gone and see if there are any trends in terms of out right rejections versus interest.
Let’s Connect!