Given that people are pitching and the conference season is in full swing, I thought it might be useful to put some ideas out there on how to tell if the agent offering you a contract is someone you actually want to work with. There are the obvious scammers, of course, and if you are curious about whether an agent or editor is one, you can use the sources in this post to find out about them, but what about the merely incompetent ones? Frankly, I've met a couple at the last few conferences I attended, and I recognized what they were after brief conversations and a tiny bit of research. But identification is almost instinctual for me, so I didn't know quite how to begin explaining it to others.
Luckily, Agent Rachel Vater has answered the question. I urge you to read her post before whooping for joy when you are offered a contract.
Also on point is this post from Jessica Faust at BookEnds with a list of questions to ask a prospective agent.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Good and Bad Agents
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1 comments:
I feel incredibly fortunate that I found a publisher without an agent. It was one of these strange situations where I was looking for an agent, and in the process was told 'send your synopsis there', I did, and next thing I knew the incredibly astute, wise, beautiful, funny, sexy editors at HarperCollins NZ were saying 'send us more'.
I know I still need to find an agent, particularly to get published overseas but it has given me a toe hold on the publishing ladder.
One of you ladies here at Women of Mystery told me about Jessica Faust and it's good to have another agent's blog to read. The more I can learn before I take that next big step the better.
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