Landing a Literary Agent

by Faye M. Swetky
President

The Swetky Agency

Okay, let's take Publishing Quickie Quiz No. 457.  Answer the following three questions as quickly as possible.

• Question No. 1: The most difficult thing in getting a book published is writing a publishable book, true or false?

Answer: False.

• Question No. 2: The most difficult thing in getting a book published is finding a suitable publisher, true or false?

Answer: False.

• Question No. 3: The most difficult thing in getting a book published is finding a reliable literary agent to represent you, true or false?

Okay, okay.  By now, you're beginning to catch on.  I've set you up.  You see where I'm going with this, and it stands to reason.  After all, I am a literary agent.  But, on the other hand, I'm not out here to blow my own horn.  I'm simply trying to lay out some very basic publishing-industry facts.  Here's how I came up with my conclusions.

Answer No. 1.  More than three million Americans (some estimates are closer to five million) write a book each year .  If writing a book were all that difficult, wouldn't that number be somewhere closer to, say, fifty thousand?

Answer No. 2.  Of those three million books, approximately 150,000 get published each year.  If publishing a book were all that difficult, wouldn't that number be somewhere closer to, say, twenty thousand?

Answer No. 3.  Of those authors who write those three million books and publish those 150,000 books each year, some 10,000 are represented by a literary agent.  About 2,000 of those are represented by a competent literary agent.  Are you beginning to see my drift here?

It's critical that the best writers working today have good literary representation.  More and more publishers are looking to literary agents to act as their front-office filters...the go-to guys that the editors are expecting to sift through many of those three million books each year and funnel to their desks only the cream of the crop.  That's how most editors view the role of today's literary agent--someone to help make their lives easier.

Doesn't it make sense, then, that when you try landing one of those very few coveted openings for literary representation that you put your best foot forward?  Of course it does.  The question, though, is how.  Here are a few quick points to keep in mind when submitting a proposal to a literary agency.

1.) Be qualified.  Have a writing history, and be prepared to show it.  If you have no history as a published writer, you're not ready for literary agency representation.  The lone exception: If you're an expert in your field of endeavors and have a remarkable tell-all nonfiction book to share with the world.  One-book wonders have existed since the beginning of time and need to be taken seriously, but they are not the staple of the publishing industry and never will be.

2.) Check the agency's Submission Guidelines.  Go to the agency's Website, or check Writer's Marketplace or a similar publication to see what types of proposals the agency accepts, and how.  The Swetky Agency, for example, states clearly that it accepts only e-mail submissions within the realm of certain genres, and we clearly define how those submissions should be made. 

Regardless of our best efforts, we still receive tons of queries and sample chapters (and the occasional complete manuscript) via regular mail, and we get plenty of genres we don't handle.  We discard them.  If dozens of writers a week can't take five minutes each to see whether or not we're the proper agency for their work, how can we take an hour or more to review and respond to each and every one of them?  Until someone invents the 400-hour work week, it remains a physical impossibility.

3.) Target Your Introduction.  Don't editorialize by wasting time with meaningless prattle.  You have only a paragraph or two to catch a busy agent's eye.  Do it by starting off with the story, instead of by opening with how much you believe your story is going to change the face of modern literature.  (Besides, we've heard all that before!)  Be concise, and always leave the reader wanting more.  See how much stronger this opening is...

Danielle left high school before she turned 16.  She had to.  She had just killed her father.  Now all that remained in her life was to track down and kill her mother.  It was something that she had to do...before her mother tracked down and killed her!

...than this opening...

I have written a story of a young girl that is both riveting and charismatic at the same time.  It's the story of a high-school student who is forced to drop out of school and run away from home after committing a horrific act.  As a result, she finds herself functioning as both predator and prey.  Unlike most stories, this one is sure to capture the attention of every reader both young and old alike.

4.) Include an Author's Bio.  Don't waste time telling what you think, how you developed your idea for the book, or what your future literary projects are likely to be.  Get to the point:

I'm a full-time registered nurse and a very serious part-time writer with more than 40 short stories and several dozen newspaper and magazine articles published over the past 15 years.  I write a weekly column for the St. Petersburg Times on gender issues.  I am a graduate of the University of Florida with a major in nursing and a minor in creative writing, and I have taken several writing workshops over the past few years.  Can I interest you in seeing more of my work?

That's it.  Total length of query, including author's bio: under 200 words in two short paragraphs.  Anything more would be wasted.

Now, aren't you glad you took the time to read this article?  Think about it.  Not only have I given you a detailed guide for submitting your material to a literary agent, but also I've let you in on an idea for a book that I'd just love to see.  A daughter who kills because she has to.  Hmmm...  Now that has possibilities!

- Faye M. Swetky is president of The Swetky Agency, http://www.amsaw.org/swetkyagency/index.html

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