My agent found me.
It’s true.
I didn’t believe it at first either.
And I am oh, so grateful. Her council, editorial skills, business savvy, and contacts make a huge difference in my budding career.
And I know… it doesn’t seem fair.
How exactly did she find me?
Through two chapters released to The Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2012. As a participant of the conference, I submitted part of my memoir for agents to review.
Sarah Joy Freese found my chapters, and contacted me for the full manuscript.
But why did she find me?
Because people I met along my writing journey told me to work hard.
And I need to be able to say this although it feels a little strange, like a pat on the back or something, but I realize now that I did work hard. I worked hard and long for her to find me.
If you want an agent to find you, here are four things you can do.
1) Write well.
Make sure your writing continues to improve. Read a lot. Write even more. Attend a class. Submit your work for critique. Spend time in the chair, churning out pages. If your writing isn’t at its best, even if an agent finds you, he probably will pass.
2) Build your platform.
Gone are the days of a writer hiding away in an upstairs attic penning the next great American novel. In the publishing world today, writers have to do more than write beautifully. They need to build a following. Want to learn more about this idea? Read Seth Godin’s book Tribes.
Warning: when you begin to work on a platform, you will feel ridiculous. When I started a Facebook author page, I joked with my friends about ‘fans’ liking the newest dirty diaper I changed at home. As a stay-at-home-mom with four children to wrangle, I didn’t think I was qualified to have a fan page, but I did have a goal: to publish a book. So I began.
Other platform ideas: blogging, speaking, writing e-books, the list can get really long and daunting. The important thing is to start, and to remember platform building as an important element to your future in publishing. It needs to grow with your writing skills. You need to be a package deal.
3) Have polished, edited chapters of your current work in progress ready.
Spend time on a couple of your favorite chapters in your work in progress. Make them strong. Hire or ask someone you trust to edit them. Rewrite them. Rewrite them again. Make sure that even if you don’t know every nuance of the book that you have a general idea of the story arc, so that your chapters fit when you pitch the idea to the agent.
My husband and I cobbled together funds so I could pay two freelance editors to work through drafts of my recently published memoir Sun Shine Down. After writing a third draft of the same book, I started to feel like I had something I could show someone with my head held high. Yes, it takes work, and time, but your best work is worth it, and it is your best chance to have an agent ask to see more.
4) Attend writers conferences.
Before attending conferences, I queried countless agents to no avail. I hardly got back a standard rejection email.
I can’t stress enough how helpful conferences were/are to my career. In 2012, I attended Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, and the Festival of Faith and Writing, where I met my agent. Both were amazing experiences. I shook hands with people, passed out and retrieved business cards, and submitted my work for review and critique. While buoyed in my fervor for the written word, I soaked in lessons about the craft and business of writing.
I think every writer should attend as many conferences as they can.
Be encouraged.
If you want an agent to find you: do good work, put yourself out there, be ready at a moment’s notice to submit, and go where the writers, agents, and editors go.
If this stay-at-home-mom, queen of diapers and ruler over tantrums can do it, so can you. I’m rooting for you!
Now get to work. Your agent may be looking for you right now.
*Do you have an agent? How did that relationship come to be? Do tell.
WordServe Water Cooler 