Waiting on agents

[IceRoadDucker]

I'm a regular but frequent name changer, if that matters to anyone.

My first novel went out for query at the end of last month. So far I have a great success rate - 11 rejections, 3 partials and 1 full. The first partial only went out on 5 Feb but the wait is already killing me! I've been taking the rejections really, really well but I know a rejection on a partial or full will sting.

I'm trying to put my energy into writing my third novel - 48k words in - but I can't write continually and whenever I have a spare moment I'm impatiently drumming my fingers on any hard surface I can find.

No reason for posting this thread except that I need to keep my hands from refreshing Gmail every 10 seconds even though it's way too early to expect replies, I have desktop notifications AND it updates itself automatically.

I think Word is fine - it's just the equivalent of the blank page, isn't it? I thought Scrivener was gimmicky, too and it just meant I fiddled around a lot with it instead of writing something.

CantFeelMyFace, do you touch type on a tablet? I'd struggle to do that, I think.

Competitions are fine but there's only going to be one winner, isn't there? Does anyone still tweet their plots to Curtis Brown? They were doing that on the last Friday of each month - so that's today! It's really hard to put it into just a few words, though.

One thing I noticed when I was submitting in the autumn was how many agents are actively seeking submissions. If you submit to one of them, you tend to hear very quickly. There's no point submitting to certain others as they're just too busy to take anyone new on.

I love Scrivener. The autobackup function alone is worth it. But perhaps Word does that these days.
Anyhow, which software you have is a very tiny part of writing. I don't think it makes any difference at all for the first draft.

Word does autobackup, Countess. (Why do I always want to bow when I say your name?)

Imperialblether, I double thumb type on my mini iPad (I don't think I could do this with the normal sized one). I use the pages app that came with it, opening a new document for each chapter. When I finished editing chapters, I transfer to the book which is in a separate document in the same app. It has a track changes feature which is great for editing and document set up, spell check, word count etc are built in. You can send the document out by email and it will convert it to word or pdf for you before you mail it. You can save into Dropbox too. The great thing is it is portable so I take it everywhere with me and write whenever I can. The other day I was getting the car serviced and did a chunk in their waiting room.

When you looked in the autumn, how did you find the agents actively seeking submissions? I have used the writers yearbook (but it doesn't really tell you who is looking for new authors) and google searches so far. Anyone have any experience of agent hunter? I've joined but not paid the subscription to access all the features. I might do this if my first round of subs draws a blank...

You can figure out who is building a list by what they do. If they get round a lot of writing festivals, do guest blogs, write long posts about what they are looking for, tweet a lot, and are quite new to their agency, they are likely to be looking.

Don't waste money on Agent Hunter or anything else.

I like word in general, though the other day it decided to restore a previous version of my MS from around 2 weeks ago and I lost loads of changes - have no clue what happened :( I had sent new version to my kindle so have changes on there but can't find a way to send it back to docs....grrrr! Why would word do that? I save meticulously. Had also saved to Dropbox and one drive, and the versions there both reverted too. Really bizarre.

Good advice re looking for agents, Countess. Thanks.

It's just a slog going through the lists. These are some I've found:

1 Agent: Zoe Ross - [email protected]

Zoe Ross represents prize-winning debut novelists and exciting new voices across both fiction and non-fiction, alongside award-winning restaurants and food writers, and is actively taking on new clients.

2 Laura Williams is an agent at Peters Fraser and Dunlop, where she has been working since 2011, after completing a degree in Classics at Oxford. She is actively building a fiction list and a small non-fiction list. She is currently looking for edgy literary and commercial fiction, psychological thrillers and high-concept contemporary young adult. Please send submissions via email.

3 Victoria Hobbs at A M Heath (also look at Euan Thorneycroft at AMH)

After 7 years at Toby Eady Associates, I joined A.M.Heath in 1999. In my time as an agent I have taken great pleasure in working with lighthouse obsessives, professional blackjack players, writers of historical adventure, novelists - both literary and commercial - biographers, academics and cooks. Among these there are Sunday Times Bestsellers and prize-winners. I am always looking for new voices. At the moment I am particularly interested in sophisticated literary fiction, high-quality women’s fiction, all kinds of food writing, and narrative non-fiction that reads like the very best fiction – but I will always be excited by ambitious storytelling, in any genre.

4 Jane Judd

The Jane Judd Literary Agency is pleased to consider new projects and novels in a wide variety of general fiction and non-fiction. We are also prepared to encourage new talent with editorial suggestions and comments, when it is a book of serious potential interest.

5 Jessie Botterill at Janklow & Nesbit

She's building up her list.

6 Hellie Ogden at Janklow & Nesbit (don't send to both Hellie and Jessie)

Hellie is looking for series crime, psychological thrillers, commercial women’s fiction, young adult and children’s debuts and accessible, charming literary fiction.

I think Agent Hunter is brilliant, actually, and well worth the few quid. It's very comprehensive - you can search agents by genre, areas of interest, clients, how actively they're seeking new clients... And it links to websites, blogs, interviews they've given etc. It would take a lot of slog to collate that information yourself from individual agency sites, or social media presence.

Hello everyone, hope writing and submitting is going well.

ANY NEWS ANYONE??!!

I'm waiting for agent to get back to me, to see if the MSS is ready for submission to publishers. Gulp. My tenterhooks are on tenterhooks.

The London Book Fair has definitely slowed things down on the reading front - I think most agents wouldn't have read much submission wise for maybe the 2 surrounding weeks so hopefully people will be getting back to you soon.

All going well here, Helmet! Love the bit about your tenterhooks. It's so exciting to think of your manuscript being submitted to editors! Best of luck with it.

I just pmed you, Imperial.

I enjoyed looking at Agent Hunter, but I didn't pay for sub. I would use info here, and google first. Its obviously best if you can match your work with what they are looking for.
On Twitter, there is a Manuscript Wish List thing that authors put out: #MSWL Does tend to be US agents, but there's a few British ones there too. So for example, the first thing that came out was: "Just got a craving for a YA Paranormal Thriller like The Awakening is Sunshine Girl meets Asylum." So if that's what your MSS is (and who's isn't?!) then send it pronto.

Sorry I mean agents put out, not authors!

Imperialblether thanks, that hugely helpful! There are some on that list that I hadn't been aware of...I'm going to tweak queries and send off to a couple next week.

madhairday how bloody annoying! Do you have to actively click save when using Word? My pages thing saves automatically so if I leave the app and go back in, it's all there. I'd be missing great big chunks of my book by misadventure if it weren't for this feature!

Thanks for all the views ref: Agent Hunter, I'm on the fence at the moment but may be persuaded if no luck with the current round.

Helmet no news but I submitted around book fair time so am putting it down to that 😀 The U.S agents I sent to were all hunted down with#mswl-wish they used it more here in the U.K!

Well done to all who've managed to get their foot in the door-it's so heartening to hear 😃

Cantfeel, what genre is your book? I'm happy to look around for you!

Imperial You are so kind-thank you! I've PMed you...

Imperial that's a great list of agents, thanks.
Curtis Brown has always looked like a great agency, in that they're very keen to get new writers. There's a lot of info on their website. I think, if I remember rightly, they have a school for new writers too.

They do have a school for new writers, but it's very, very expensive and you have to live in London. I think CB are keen to get submissions; I don't think they take on a huge number of new writers. I think a lot of agents are terrified that they'll be bypassed and writers won't bother sending them something that might later become huge.

I think I've now mailed every agent in the children's writers' yearbook that wants my type of thing. How long should I wait before bothering publishers?

I don't think there are many publishers that accept submissions from authors, are there, Tiggy?

I don't think there's many.

I think you should just wait until you hear from agents. Hopefully someone will be interested. You should get some feedback anyway, so you'd do better to ask whether you can resubmit to them if you make the changes.

Or just keep writing, keep improving, and when you are sure (from other people's feedback as well as your own assessment) that your new work is at a different level from the last batch, try again.

Some agents don't reply for 12 weeks, and many are still playing catch up as theBologna Children's Bookfair and London Bookfair were almost back to back this year and only finished a couple of weeks ago.

I'd send it to about six agents, then wait to hear what they have to say. If they come up with the same problem, edit it and send it out to the next few. Repeat as necessary