Hi, everyone, Nicole Zoltack here. As most of you already know, I have been trying to break into the publishing world. First, with ebooks. I have one novel from Desert Breeze Publishing, Woman of Honor, the sequel to come out early next year. I’ve also sold several short stories for anthologies, including one in One Touch, One Glance, as well as three more for release next year.

But this blog post is not about ebooks and epublishing. It’s about the scary world of agents and trying to break into NYC publishing.

During the month of November, I completely rewrote a fantasy YA novel that I geared toward NYC publishing. No, no sparkling vampires, no paranormal creatures at all for that matter. It’s about a teenager girl who wants to become a writer and comes across a magical pen.

With agents, you need to do your research. There are many sites that I recommend you check out before querying, and definitely before accepting an agent’s offer of representation. First, www.querytracker.net It’s free to sign up and you can check out the acceptance rate for either snail mail queries or email queries, as well as comments from other users that might give hints as to the form rejection letter, or if the agent doesn’t respond after two weeks, you can assume it’s a rejection. You can sort agents by genre they represent as well. Second, a similar site, www.agentquery.com Another site that is useful when you are looking for agents to query.

http://www.aaronline.org/ is another important site. AAR stands for The Association of Author’s Representatives, Inc.. Agents that are associated with AAR have agreed to certain guidelines in their agent practices that protect the author. A good question to ask an agent before signing on, is that even if they aren’t a member, if they follow the ethics of AAR.

Before you query, make certain to check the agent’s or agency’s website to have the most up-to-date information. Some agents, such as Jenny Rappaport, aren’t accepting unsolicited queries until after January 2010 (at the earliest). Some require a synopsis only along with the query letter. Some accept attachments, others will delete attachments unread. One I found, does not accept attachments but wants the first fifty pages so I sent those along at the bottom of the email.

With agents, query widely, until one asks for (generally) your full novel exclusively. Then you need to send the other agents a quick email. Also, when offered representation, send another email to the agents, so that they can decide if they want to offer as well. Then you might have your pick of agents.

Another site that I bookmarked about agents is http://sarahockler.com/2008/07/05/literary-agent-offers-dont-settle/ This website includes lots of information about what an author should do, or ask, before accepting literary representation. Before signing, check out the other clients of the agent and where they have published. Also, if an agent asks for reading fees or suggests an editing service, run. Just like with a publisher, money should only ever flow TO the author.

I’m sure there are things that I have forgotten to mention so that’s what the comment section is for.

Btw, I’ve already received several rejections, which is fine by me. I’m thankful that the agents took the time to let me know so that I wasn’t hanging by my email, checking every few hours. I also have to partial requests so it’s not all bad news.