The secret sauce in this episode is Jennie’s explanation of how she chose agents to submit to, and why it’s hard hard work even if you’ve been in the industry for years. AI cannot do this work—and trust her that she tried—because who represents who and what is ever-changing, scattered information. Want to know how it’s done right, how Jennie approached it and why she’s resisting the easier option (to her) of independently publishing this book?
Then this is the episode for you. And if you’re at this point in your work, fiction or non-fiction… you need to hear this. (And—spoiler—the next episode too.)
Fortunately you CAN. All you need to do is hit the support the podcast button right now, and it will all appear magically before you.
Also below—where to start with comp titles and why they play into your agent selection, why you should batch your queries and just, really, this bears repeating: this matters. If you submit to the wrong agents, or with the wrong comp titles, this process isn’t going to end the way you want it to.
Just a few things we discuss:
What are the comp titles, and why they should almost always have been published within the last 3 years.
Why you should consider how the book is positioned in the marketplace—is it a gift book? A paperback? What kinds of covers do these books have, who reads them?
The struggle to figure out who repped any given book, really—and does this agent represent this TYPE of book or is this going to be the only book/author like this that they rep?
Then the questions continue. Are they open for queries? Have their interests changed? What kind of agency is it, and is it what I want? What do I want them to do for me? It’s more than just—do you love what I do? ChatGPT CANNOT DO THIS WORK.
And how to expand the list beyond agents that represented your comps or your faves—and then how to write that all important, ever changing line of the query: why are you querying THEM?
It’s all in the episode—and it keeps going, into all the Writing the Book episodes, which (because they’re incredibly scary and personal to make, actually—there’s a reason we don’t spill it all to the entire Internet) are for all y’all who pony up to keep the #AmWriting podcast rolling along.
