How To Get A Literary Agent: A Step-By-Step Guide To Finding Representation For Your Novel Or Nonfiction Book

If you’re new to the publishing industry, literary agents can seem kind of mysterious. The task of getting a literary agent to represent your nonfiction book or novel can be a daunting experience. But fear not! Writer’s Relief is here to demystify the process of getting a literary agent. You’ve got questions; we’ve got answers. Whether you’re new to the game or a veteran, you’ll find something useful in our Writers Tool Kit!

Everything You Wanted To Know About Getting a Literary Agent But Were Afraid To Ask

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Are You In A Good Position To Submit To Agents?

Before you begin submitting, it’s time to start establishing a persona for yourself as a (soon to be) successful, published author. If you start thinking about your author platform AFTER you submit, then you’re going about the process of getting a literary agent backward. It’s a tough biz. Before you start querying agents, be sure you’re the “complete package” as an author. These articles will help:

Special Considerations: Genre, Market Forces, and More

When it comes to submitting to literary agents, certain genres have particular “rules.” Be sure you take any special considerations into account so you can nail your submissions!

Where To Start Researching Literary Agents

There are many ways to identify the best literary agents for your unique books. But we’ll warn you: It can take a long time! We’re happy to offer our tips for finding literary agents who are right for your book. But if you’d rather be writing than researching literary agencies, Writer’s Relief can help. How Writer’s Relief Can Help You Find A Literary Agent

Write Your Query Letter

Writing your query letter for a novel or nonfiction bookOnce you know the market, have prepared a complete book (or proposal), and identified your marketing niche in the publishing industry, it’s time to start writing your query letter! We’ve written many articles about penning query letters that can help grab the attention of literary agents. We’ve helped many of our clients get literary agents (and book deals!). When you’re ready to get started on the query letter that you’re going to send to literary agents, read this: Query Letters: Everything You Must Know To Dazzle Literary Agents With Your Book Query.

After You Send Your Queries To Literary Agencies

The waiting game begins… Literary agents tend to take a while to respond to unsolicited submissions. But use your time wisely! Instead of twiddling your literary thumbs, research more agencies, build your Web presence, and prepare your strategy to respond to agent requests.

Rejections From Literary Agents

We love rejection letters. Seriously. Why? Because if you’re NOT getting rejection letters, it means you’re not submitting often enough. Even well-targeted submissions can be regularly rejected due to forces beyond a writer’s control. These articles will help you deal with rejections from literary agents—and get fewer of them down the road!

How Writer’s Relief Can Help You Find A Literary Agent

Writer’s Relief has been helping creative writers submit their novels, memoirs, and nonfiction books to literary agents since 1994. We compose query letters, proofread and format submission pages, AND research the best literary agents for a given book project. Our clients have ranged from promising new authors to best-sellers and award-winners. Here are our basic packages:

  • Full Service: Our most inclusive package. We take care of everything for you. This is as low-stress as submissions get. Authors by invitation only.
  • A La Carte PLUS: Everything that comes with our standard A La Carte service, with the bonus of query letter writing.
  • A La Carte: Let us research and target the 25+ agents who are best-suited for your unique book. We do the research, you do the rest.

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Closing Notes

This page has been a labor of love to help do-it-yourself authors. We hope you’ve found it helpful in your search to find a literary agent for your novel or nonfiction book! If you liked this page, let us know. And let your friends know. We like to support the literary community—and we need to know that our efforts are helpful. recommend this page about literary agentsPlease take a moment to like, share, email, tweet, or stumble this page!  And if you’d like to repost any of our articles, you can! Just contact us for details. We wish you all the best in finding a literary agent. Let us know how we can help!

 

 

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