Agents, Blogs, and Comments

This time I was not bored and still spent about an hour looking up agents. I go back and forth between being ahead of myself and actually ready. I can't be actually ready, can I? I should at least pursue one more draft, I think, before I write an agent.

The main thing I have learned is to obey the submission instructions. I think I would have done that already, but it was a good reminder. I've always been a stickler for directions.

I'm beginning to think that I may change the design of this blog if only to better feature other blogs. I have all these links that I found today that I'd love to share with you, and there is nowhere to put them so that they'll stay around!

The quest for discovering the agent who represented Shannon Hale's Princess Academy began with Agent Query, a splendid website with a directory of agents from everywhere that represent everything. I discovered Dystel & Goderich Literary Management and their blog. Their blog is proof, by the way, that the template doesn't make the blog; they have over 400 followers - including me.

My journey then took me to Et in arcaedia, ego, the very informative blog of agent Jennifer Jackson. I highly recommend this blog if you want a behind-the-scenes look at the life of an agent. Experience the poorly written query letters (if any at all accompany the full manuscript, of which you only requested five pages) and know what to do better. I love all of her statistics (Emerald!), and I love her site. I think that The Girl With Violet Eyes may fit with her agency very well in genre. Her profile on Agent Query says the following about what she's looking for:

• First love is science fiction and fantasy; always interested in a variety of new projects.
  
• Pioneered the expansion of the agency into romance and women's fiction and continuing to look for more projects in these genres.
  
• She is actively expanding her list in the mystery, thriller, and suspense genres.
  
• Also looking for additional authors of young adult fiction

That fits me pretty well. Ivolet is a type of fantasy, it's romance, it's for females, and it's young adult. It's a perfect match! I'm restraining myself, however, but only barely. Gritting my teeth against the want to dash off a query letter and my first five pages. Though I'm not very fond of my first five pages; they need some work, perhaps. Not a total revamp, but definitely some work.

In the course of perusing Jennifer's blog, I happened upon a comment that led me to The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment, by Matthew Rush. Admittedly, I didn't spend a whole lot of time there, but it looked interesting. It navigates the treacherous world of query letter writing, the good, the bad, and the ugly. That was my catchphrase, by the way, not his. (His is "A clumsy attempt at making some sense of the sinister submission process." That's an excellent one, too.) Time will tell if this blog is either helpful or entertaining (hopefully it's both), but anyone who has over 100 followers has my attention. In a blogging sense.

I never did discover the agent who represented Princess Academy. I guess I could just go to the library and look in the author credits.

EDIT: Someone near and dear to me gave me a comment on my blog. And he's following it. (No, it's not my boyfriend.) He is so amazing.