The Snarking of the hunt

That’s “hunt” as in the hunt for a literary agent to represent your work and advocate for you with editors, and “snark” as in Miss Snark, whose site should be a bookmarked daily stop for any writer trying to make headway in the publishing business.

There’s plenty of discouraging information out there about the odds against finding an agent, and then finding a publisher. So I’m happy to see Miss Snark debunking one oft-heard factoid about the impossibility of finding an agent through over-the-transform queries. The ones that go into the slush pile, which is mined only with great reluctance.

Well, here’s good news: agents see that slush pile as a potential gold mine, and they go prospecting in it regularly. but you don’t have to take my word for it:

Fully half my clients came over the transom (not literally, although there was that one girl . . . Penelope? Perspephone? Phaidra? . . . one of those) and when I started up, more like 85%.

One of the smartest most successful agents I have had the privilege of guzzling sake with says “there’s gold in that there pile” and refuses to even use the word “slush”. I look at her sales record and I pay attention to what she says.

Every time I talk to Kristin Nelson, another very smart VERY savvy agent, she talks about how she reads her submissions and finds people there . . . I’ve found more clients via the transom then I have from contests, and conferences.

The only source that comes close to the transom is referrals. Publishers or editors or clients who gave my name to people who write well provided me about half my client list right now.

Of the last five books I sold, three were from transom clients, two from referral.

I scored my first agent through an over-the-transom query. It was, if I may so say, a thoroughly professional query tailored to the agency specifications as listed in Jeff Herman’s guide. You don’t need me to tell you the guidelines: any bookstore with a halfway decent reference section has plenty of guidebooks for writers. If you don’t know them, start today as your first step on the long, difficult path to becoming a published writer.

But you may need me to remind you that these specifications are meant to be taken seriously. You don’t like writing synopses? You think including the first fifty pages won’t give an adequate representation of the book? It doesn’t matter. Get yourself to do it.

Because the guidelines are meant to remove barriers, not create them. This is how the agent wants to see things. If you follow the format, the agent then moves directly to your work. If you don’t, the agent thinks “pisher” or something worse and your work goes unread.

You’re too smart to let that happen. So do your homework and make your query presentable.

And take heart. The work will be read.