The Agent Game

You may not remember this, but this is not the first time we've queried. Our first attempt was nearly a year ago and it did not go well. We've rewritten a lot of our manuscript since then, and hopefully that will help this time around, but aside from that we've realized we need something else. Something different. A Query Strategy.

The Agent is a wily opponent. A powerful opponent. They can destroy our queries with the touch of a button. They can destroy our manuscripts with a shrug. And they can destroy our dreams with a yawn.

They also know kung-fu.

It would be stupid to go up against The Agents without a strategy. That's what we did last time, and we got our asses handed to us. So this time, we have one. And here it is.

One of the biggest mistakes we made last time was that in hindsight, our choice of agents had a complete lack of diversification.

That didn't make any sense, did it? Let me explain.

In the world of finance (which is, unfortunately, my day job), diversification is extremely important when putting together an investment portfolio. The idea is that you don't want to put all your money in one stock, because that stock could all of a sudden go into the crapper and you'd be left destitute (cough, RIM, cough).

Diversification means you spread your money around into unrelated stocks so that if something bad happens to one, you're not totally boned. "Unrelated" is important here. Spreading money around into GM, Ford, and Chrysler doesn't help, because if one company goes down, it's likely the others will as well.

Still with me? Cool.

Here's who we queried last time: Janet Reid. Suzie Townsend. Steve Barr. Kathleen Ortiz And Sarah Heller.

All of them are already established. All of them already have famous clients, with best sellers. All of them are already big names.

And another thing, something that's not obvious from just staring at their names. Half of them know each other. Janet, Suzie, and Kathleen are friends. And because they're friends, they probably have similar tastes in books. So if you think about it, if one person rejects us, likely the other two will as well. Which is exactly what happened.

So the answer? Diversity!

Thanks, Benetton. Your message hides the fact that this picture makes no sense.

I've written previously about how great the Twitter machine is, but a nasty side effect of Twitter is that you end up finding people who all know each other. Hence, there's a danger that the agents you find tend to have similar tastes.

So this time around, for each round of queries we send out, we're going to build the lists using two criteria:
   1) Agents must like different types of books.
   2) Only half will be established agents. The other half need to be relatively new.

That second point is important. Our manuscript is, to say the least, a little bit risky. It is, after all, a story about a fifteen year old girl who keeps dying in horrific ways, over and over again. I have a feeling we'll need agents who are newer. Agents who don't already have a huge portfolio of best-selling authors. Agents who are willing to take a chance on something weird.

So that's our strategy. How about you? Do you have a querying strategy?