Querying across 'The Pond.'

[Paul Whybrow]

Some of us are currently in the wearisome process of querying literary agents and publishers with open submission windows.

I've emailed queries to 36 agencies, so far, but will be seeking out more. I've only approached British agents in this tranche of submissions, but when I chased after 160 agents in 2015, I included 20 in the U.S.A. These were all agencies who already handled well-established and newly published British authors, and who said they welcomed approaches from foreign writers.

Their response rate was better (more polite!) than British agencies—quicker too, with 18 of them rejecting my query within two months. The most rapid rejection came within 10 minutes, from an agent in New York who must be insomniac as it was 3:00am there. It made me think that I'd lobbed a dead rat over a neighbour's hedge and he'd flung it back my way!

Do any of you submit across The Pond?

 

[Emurelda]

I haven't started yet but i will have to as there are only 40-50 agents in uk that specialise in Children's.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Definitely!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Everything is across the pond for me. I have submitted to US and British agents, and a few in Canada. I've never had anyone come back with, "sorry, we don't take submissions from you lot."

 

[KG Christopher]

I am going to limit to UK / Irish agents. For the simple fact that I assume at some stage I shall like to have a face to face with someone. At that point, I think it would be more convenient to be in Europe.

Most Spanish, Swiss and French agents don't take submissions in English, only for established authors looking at foreign language rights.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I won't worry about the face to face aspect. It's best, I agree, but Skype could take the strain and sufficient unto the day.

 

[KG Christopher]

I won't worry about the face to face aspect. It's best, I agree, but Skype could take the strain and sufficient unto the day.

I just have a feeling that when I am standing up on stage, accepting another literary award, I will be able to say something like...

'And my agent, Dicky Thomson...I have to thank him for believing me...' Don't think I will be able to go on boozy sessions in Bloomsbury, discussing my 'art' with a skype agent?

 

[Katie-Ellen]

That would be fun but I'm a miserable old crone, just want to do the biz.

 

[Quillwitch]

For me UK is across the pond.
Like @Paul Whybrow I have also noticed differences. In my own humble opinion I feel that UK agents, though nice and mostly polite, they seem to have an "it´s this way or no way" or one size fits all kind of thinking. It´s like they have some sort of template you need to follow. And if you are already famous, you will almost certainly get a contract.
( mind you, I write for children.)

Through Twitter, and some children´s writer´s associations I have been able to talk to some agents from the UK and some from the US. Two UK agents actually have seen a bit of my writing and have given me positive feedback, and though one was very excited about my writing, she wanted me to make immediate changes in my text even though she had only read pg. 1. She liked my work very much but thought it didn´t exactly fit the market as it was. But then I sent something in and it took months for her to answer because well, she was busy. Which I found odd, since she really seemed to like it.

There was a group of agents I had been talking to and they had agreed to take me on, as long as I went through some workshops through skype, and I was pretty excited about it, but then when they realized I was from Mexico they said forget it, no go.

And then there was a third agent who was interested in reading my work, but then I got into a row on twitter with an author and she actually blocked me from her twitter. Yikes! ( I thought her author had blatantly copied a Canadian author´s work).

In the US I find it´s a little more laid back, and they approach it as a business, more than a "club" which was what I felt in the UK. So, if a US agent is on twitter they are pretty much available to speak to. Many agents have twitter, fb, blog and whatnots where you can easily read about what they are looking for, who they work with, how they work, etc...which makes things a little bit easier. I am also under the impression that US agents are more involved.
BUT--that being said, the competition in the US seems to be huge!
I feel as though in the UK ( as I said before) they seem to have a certain template, a certain expectation of what they are all looking for. Like they all went to the same school and are looking for the same thing. Whereas in the US they are more open to seeing new things, experimenting, etc.. as long as it sells!
Recently I have seen a change in the UK market with this idea of being more inclusive, which has been going on for some time in the US now. Hopefully, this will bring change.

There also seems to be a big difference in what exactly they are looking for. Readers are definitely different on either side. As I am a big fan of UK writers, my first choice has been to publish in the UK, but if we´re honest, there´s more money in the US market.

 

[Emurelda]

Where do you begin to find agents in the US? Which site is best. I have a list from my Writer's handbook but there are many more I don't know about.

 

[Quillwitch]

Where do you begin to find agents in the US? Which site is best. I have a list from my Writer's handbook but there are many more I don't know about.

Yes, there are, @Emurelda ! I´ll tell you what I did. I googled best children´s book agents, US. And there are lists of that- 10, 20, 50, 100 etc... And I went over them and decided on which ones I liked and made my favorite 20 list. I follow them all on twitter and from there i´ve decided which ones really resonate with me. I´ve also checked out the agents that agent some of my favorite authors. American authors are very busy on the web and you´ll find them just about everywhere--youtube, facebook, twitter, tumblr, blogs, etc...There is a hashtag called askagent on twitter I like.
You can also google best agencies in the US and those always have a children´s section. There is a blog called kidlit something or other and she follows lots of agents.
It´s taken me a while. And by a while mean years to actually ten agents I think will be interested in my work.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Where do you begin to find agents in the US? Which site is best. I have a list from my Writer's handbook but there are many more I don't know about.

You can also subscribe to Writer's Market (How to Get Published | Top Online Writing Resource - WritersMarket.com). There's also Writer's Digest, which I subscribed to for a year or so. It was useful for the agent lists and for helpful articles, though eventually the spam e-mail they send got irritating (and they're decidedly a for-profit venture--they'll sell you everything if you let them).

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Like Robinne, it's all across the pond for me, and as said elsewhere the number of Agents in Australia has dropped to probably about only 6 for all of fiction, but if you want say someone who takes murder/mystery, then it's only 2! So I will have to submit to the UK and USA now, which I must start doing given I've exhausted the 2 possibilities.