SHOUT it out! Agents, Agents, Agents!

[Rick Collins]

Any advice on landing an agent? I've been at it for a year and I'm getting discouraged. Here's a review I received recently. Chief Louise Consola, the chief of police for the idyllic town of Beaumont, Massachusetts, must unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of one of her best friends. As she unearths clues, it becomes clear that her friend’s death is part of a terrible secret that has been kept hidden for decades. Can Louise put an end to the evil that ravages her town and still protect those who have carried the secret? And can a town ever be washed clean from its terrible sin? (Summary via Amazon) A Run of a River by Rick Collins is a suspense novel……BOY is it !!! I’ll admit I didn’t read the summary of the book before I started reading it and quite frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered. Reading the little summary about the book does not, in any way, shape or form, prepare the reader for what they are about to get lost in. And when you start reading A Run of a River you are going to be completely lost in the story…..so much that everything around you will no longer exist. As long as the book is opened and you are reading the words, you will be under a spell. There will be no stopping it’s powerful hold on you until you get to the end, close the book and sit back. You are hanging out in Beaumont Massachusetts, a small town, with Police Captain Louise Consola who after the events of one day her town and her life are turned upside down. On the day long time baseball and basketball boys coach, Jack Monroe, is labeled a town hero and given the key to the city by the Mayor, a close friend of Louise and her husband commits suicide. As Louise and her husband Hank try to come to terms with Ken’s sudden death, Hank is in a car accident that turns out to not be an accident. It seems that a lot of people in this little town are hanging on to some deep, dark secrets that are starting to destroy them. Hank is carrying around a lot of guilt after Ken’s suicide and it puts him in the hospital. The Mayor is also hiding a lot of secrets that could destroy him and everything he has built of himself. While Louise tries to help her husband, she learns that some of the secrets if they came out could destroy her town. She is torn between doing what is right for the town but bad for it’s residents or turning a blind eye and letting things slowly destroy the ones she loves. Readers will be on the edge of their seats reading A Run of A River. Rick Collins writes in such a way that you will feel like you are right there along side the people in this small town. You will feel like you are caught in this web of secrets with them and will feel for Ken, Hank, Mickey and the rest of the boys coached by Jack Monroe. You will want to see justice done and stop the pain that is like a black cloud over Beaumont. And you will be in complete shock when you see how things turn out !!!

 

[hulagirl]

Have you tried searching for agents on QueryTracker and Manuscript Wish List (MSWL)? Also, Jessica Faust of Bookends Literary has many YouTube videos full of wonderful advice. She also has a blog on Bookend's website that has lots of great advice and information.

Getting an agent is really hard because literary agencies average thousands of queries every month. Agent Sara Megibow says she gets about 25,000 queries a year and out of that offers representation to maybe 5 to 7 new clients. That's the kind of odds we're up against.

After 3 years of writing, writing 8 novels, taking numerous writing workshops, and sending out around 300 queries, I finally landed a contract with ?The Wild Rose Press for a historical romance. There are publishes like TWRP that accept unagented manuscripts. I had sent out 51 queries on this manuscript and it got rejected 50 times. TWRP was the 51st query. The agent I queried just before querying TWRP responded with advice on why my heroine was unbelievable and how I should rewrite her. I started to follow this agent's advice and after 9 pages of rewriting, I realized my heroine was no longer the person I wrote and loved. So I sent that rewrite to the trash. TWRP liked my heroine just the way I'd written her.

 

[Leslie]

We also have pitchfests three times a year or so. Our next will be in October. You can always pitch your story there.