I'm going to interview my agent for my blog, mostly because I'm struggling for blog ideas. I want it to be as useful as possible for aspiring authors. So, if you could ask an agent anything, what would it be?
Oh, well that puts a wrench in my plans to woo her, make her marry me, and publish my book as a wifely favor.
I'll ask her 1. What makes a query stand out and 2. What makes her fall in love with a book How's that?
What's she tired of seeing? What would she love to see in a query? I'm struggling to think of original questions...
1. Where is the line between "nobody writes this, cool!" and "nobody reads this, I can't sell it"? 2. How niche is too niche? 3. Can you please explain exactly what "New Adult" is, what does and doesn't fall into this emerging category, and give some examples of common mistakes made by people who think they might be writing this new thing?
4. What are you suddenly seeing a lot of that hasn't filtered out into the market yet? Is there an emerging "next thing" that's going to become the new version of Vampire/Werewolf premises or Dystopian YA?
How do you feel about genres that are harder to classify? Sure it's fantasy/sci-fi/horror but it can't be pinned with commonly known subgenres (ie: historical sci-fi, epic fantasy)
Hey actually, maybe you could post your query here so we could see what you did right cause you landed an agent after all!
I second all of these questions and I'll add one more: How would you want someone to approach you with a niche book? Do you want to hear that it's a good, unique, interesting story or do you want to hear about the market segment I think it fits in or what?
YES! I'll second that one. Good call, @peachalulu . We all get hammered with tricks to catch an agent's eye, etc. But that's only the first step. Once they start reading your MS, they'll make a judgement call at some point. Either to keep reading—and maybe offer you representation—or to quit and send a rejection notice. So ...what makes them quit?
Sorry for the long delay (though anyone querying needs to get used to long, long, looooooooooooooong waits...) but I've finally got the blog up! https://annakaling.com/2016/06/30/agent-qa-amanda-jain-of-inklings-literary-agency/ Questions are included from: @A.M.P. @peachalulu @Mckk (note her manuscript wishlist is here so I didn't ask that) @Commandante Lemming @doggiedude I put her contact details in the post if you want to query her, but note she doesn't represent fantasy or sci-fi which counts most of this forum out. She's looking for historical, mystery, romance and women's fiction. My other agent (don't ask but I have two) DOES like both sci-fi and fantasy: http://inklingsliterary.com/Michelle_Johnson.html There are already a bunch of interviews with her on the web if you Google.
