The goal: finding a literary agent who will represent YOU in your author/illustrator/translator career (and not just a single project.) Someone who communicates in a way that works for you and who is enthusiastic about your talent and projects.
So how do you find the agents you're going to query/pitch/approach? Here are seven resources that might help:
1) Narrow down your list of agents by genre at Agent Query: https://www.agentquery.com/
2) Narrow down your list of agents by keyword at Manuscript Wish List: https://www.manuscriptwishlist.com/
3) Read interviews with agents, aggregated at Literary Rambles: http://www.literaryrambles.com/p/agent-spotlight-interviews.html
4) Dig into personal experiences with agents and agencies (on things like response time) at Absolute Write's "water cooler": https://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php?threads/index-to-agents-agencies.352886/
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| Screenshot of Absolute Write's Index to Agents and Agencies |
5) Meet agents at virtual and real-world events hosted by SCBWI, Highlights Foundation, The Writing Barn, etc...
6) Find the agent on social media and get a sense of what they represent.
7) Look at the agent's website for specifics on how to submit, and follow those guidelines.
Good luck!
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
P.S. Thanks to author J.S. Puller for the heads up on Absolute Write Water Cooler, a new resource for me!
Thanks for including Literary Rambles in your list of resources. I really appreciate it. I host agent spotlight interviews with query critique giveaways every month. And thanks for telling us about Absolute Write. I used to check it years ago but then thought it wasn't very active. I'm bookmarking it to start checking out when researching agents.
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