Friday 4 March 2011

Friday Wonder Ponder #2


Another week; another awesome adventure.

The past few days, apart from doing a little soul searching, I've been researching agents. The time for my novel to hit the stage is almost here and I want to find the best, most stupendous person to help it win the competition.

AgentQuery is a comprehensive tool that makes the search so much easier. You can define your fields by genre, name and agency -  trust me, this website is a definite MUST for your bookmarks.

Here I stalked perused the profiles of many agents in my genre (some from big agencies like ICM and WME), and have a clear idea of who I am going to query. Naturally, I have favorites, but I also have an absolute dream agent. His name is Steven Malk of Writer's House. I queried him over three years ago and he emailed me back within fifteen minutes. The answer was yes! At that moment my expression resembled that of Calvin in the above picture, but with bulging eyes. However, I never sent him the full he requested. Now I know many of you who read that raised your eyebrows. And I know you're already shaking your head and saying "You just don't do that." Guess what: I'm aware of it. Shortly after that my life took a hectic turn and I got caught up with school, work and an accident that landed me in the hospital for six months. I honestly forgot and I was deeply sorry. So, about two years later, I queried Mr. Malk again. I explained the matter in detail and instead of ignoring it, he sent back an email stating, in short: "I completely understand. I am not accepting new clients at this time, but you can send me a query and a partial on (date redacted) and I would be glad to take a look."

Yes people, this is my guy. I know what I did was wrong, and under normal circumstances I don't do that, but he understood the situation. That is a good person, and, I must say, it would be an honor to work with him.

This brings us to the question of the week: Who is your dream agent/agency and why?

5 comments:

Michael Di Gesu said...

Hey, T.D.

I read your comment on Jen Daiker's blog and thought I'd hop over and visit.

I agreed with what you'd said.

I see you're an HP fan and I just happen to be at Wizarding World in Orlando.

I have several pics posted and thought you might be interested in checking them out.

click onto my pic and it will bring you to my blog.

I bet you'll be busy this weekend with your super hero stuff.....

Michael

T.D. McFrost said...

Thank you so much for stopping by!

I love Harry Potter to death and I'm so jealous you get to go to Hogwarts.

I also love your blog and I'm definitely going to be hanging out there often, so look out for me. :D

p.s. This weekend will be nothing but chores for your superhero pal. I have to pay the villainous rent, fly to a remote island to visit relatives I despise and hit the gym to work on my superhero physique. Don't wanna look flabby in that spandex. (LOL)

Tabitha said...

Well, my dream agent is my agent, Andrea Cascardi. She is smart and savvy, knows the business, and has an amazing editorial eye. Plus, she signed me a year and a half ago, and, even though we haven't sold my book yet, she's still as enthusiastic about it as she was on day one. If not more.

Sorry for the gush-fest. I sometimes get carried away. :)

Anonymous said...

I love AgentQuery. That's where I found my agent.

I know some people who obtained representation after meeting agents through conferences, but when it comes to online searching, that was the website for me.

Tabitha said...

Have you tried Query Tracker? They also have a zillion agent profiles, and you can keep track of all your submissions on the site. Plus, you can see average response times, and the percentage of requests the agent has made. I used it, along with Agent Query, when I did my agent search and loved it.

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