Where to start your agent search

A great place to start is the acknowledgement sections of books you like. I wouldn’t worry about the genre too much because agents change their preferences from time to time. At this stage, you’re just making a shortlist.

The Bookseller lets you look at a selected number of articles for free when you register as a guest or you might be able to access it through a library. Look out for recent book deals.

If you’re active on social media already, then you can usually see authors’ agents from their bios. It’s not possible for everyone but you might be able to attend events to learn more about different agents. I found the Words Away salon, London Writers’ Café and the London Writers’ Club useful for this as they often have agents as guest speakers, there may be something similar in your area. Writing events are also a good place to try. Attending the York Festival of Writing 2017 helped me learn more about different agents and I had a 1-2-1 with an agent there.

Underrepresented writers can also try organisations such as Spread the Word – I was able to get early feedback on my submission package from an agent through them. The Literary Consultancy has a host of useful links to the partner organisations that might be useful.

Some people look at the Writers and Artists Yearbook but I know that the print version of this can get out of date quite quickly as agents move or change their preferences. There are some online services where agent and agency information is collated and updated. I used a paid one for a month or so but it’s no longer available. I do think it’s important to take responsibility for your own information on agents though, things move very fast in the industry so double check everything.

What to look for in an agent

There are some questions you’ll want to consider, which will depend on your personal circumstances and preferences. Here are some things to think about before you start:

• Do you want to be part of a bigger agency or a small independent agency?
• Do they have writers and genres that are similar to yours? How many clients do they have?
• Do they handle rights directly (this includes film, TV, foreign and translation rights amongst other things, but they may work with a partner or subsidiary rather than managing them in-house)?
• Is the agent high-profile and well established in the industry? If so, are they going to be busy with their bigger clients?
• Are they up-and-coming agents and if so, how much experience do they have so far?
• Do they work editorially with their clients and is this important to you?
• Do they represent genres that you might be interested in writing in later down the line (I think this one’s less important because hell, there’s enough work involved in getting an agent and getting a book or two out there before you contemplate switching things up)!
• In addition, it was important for me to choose an agent who represented people like me – that is underrepresented writers. There were a few agents who only seemed to represent a very particular type of author and I knew I wanted someone with a diverse list.
• At a basic level, you’ll need to look for agencies and agents who are currently open to submissions, which you can check on their websites. Sometimes agents temporarily close their lists for various reasons such as taking time off or attending book fairs. You can find out key information from agency websites.

Research beyond agency websites

Don’t rely on agency websites alone. Now there’s probably a thin line between thorough research and stalking here but try to find a few online interviews, social media posts and videos where agents talk about what kind of authors they’re looking for (did I mention the need to double-check their requirements in case they’ve changed recently?) and also what they like to see in submission letters. As I said above, I attended agent talks too but even if this isn’t possible for you, there’s so much info online now that you should be able to get everything you need through the Internet.

All of this enabled me to understand what the agent was like as a person and whether we’d get on at a basic level. It also highlighted that all agents are different. For example, agents understand that you’re submitting to other agents at the same time so you don’t have to mention it in the letter but there were at least two agents who wanted to be told in the covering letter whether the writer was submitting exclusively to them or not. One of the agents mentioned it on their agency website, the other only mentioned it in passing in an interview, so it pays to check a couple of different places to get a feel for what they like.

I hope this is useful for your first step in finding an agent. I know that all of this sounds like a lot of work and well, let’s just say that there was a lot of swearing and biscuit-eating and hair-pulling (mine, don’t worry). But if you’re serious about your writing – and call me Detective Inspector Shah but I’m guessing you are because you’re here reading this blog – then I think it’s worth spending time on this part. It certainly worked for me as I signed with my lovely agent in 2018. You never know, it could lead to a life-changing decision and one which you need to make quite quickly.

Look out soon for part 2 of my series on finding an agent including writing query letters to agents without more hair-pulling than is absolutely necessary. Sign up to my blog and you’ll be (one of) the first to know!

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Here’s a guest post from Virtual Writing Group with a collection of highlights.

Self-doubt affects us all

There were a few questions about how to deal with ‘imposter syndrome’ and the worry that we’re not good enough as writers. Judging by the responses from the authors, this is completely normal and never really goes away. Although this might sound a bit demoralising, Suzanne Ewart has a great way of dealing with it:

Ha! I’m a bit obsessed with finding out famous authors’ stories about their road to publication. It helps so much to know that even successful writers face rejection after rejection and it’s just part of the process. Makes you think, if they’ve done it…

— Suzanne Ewart (@SuzanneEwart1) June 9, 2019

Juggling writing and life stuff is key

The Q&A authors have clearly put a lot of work into writing and continue to do so on their path to publication. They all carve out time between other things including childcare, physical challenges and work commitments. But they were also clear that you have to be kind yourself because guilt will just use up valuable energy that you could be using on writing.

There is no ‘single’ route to publishing

The authors have all taken different journeys on their path to publication. M.S. Clements carefully weighed up the pros and cons of traditional versus self-publishing before deciding to branch out. As she says about self-publishing:

It isn’t the ‘Cheats way out’. You have to look at it as a business. Be pragmatic and understand to do it properly means research, facts and figures. Not at all glamarous. @IndieAuthorALLI have masses of advice. I strongly suggest you start there.

— M S Clements (@MSClementsbook) June 9, 2019

Finding an agent doesn’t have to rely on ‘insider’ connections

Some of the authors were signed up by their agents through the slush pile, though a few had taken opportunities through courses and writing festivals to meet agents (and of course, other writers) when they could. However, Anita Frank’s experience shows that none of that essential:

I was slush pile. Never done comps or courses or 1-2-1s. I subbed to 12 in April and had offers by July. I had officially gone beyond ‘if you don’t hear within 2 months it’s a no’ for my agent when I had the full request, so don’t give up hope!

— Anita Frank (@Ajes74) June 9, 2019

Learning the craft of writing can come from unexpected sources

Although the authors made some book recommendations on the craft of writing, including The Emotion Thesaurus and Reading Like a Writer, they learn from all sorts of sources. As Sally Doherty said:

YES!! Everything I have learnt about writing so far has been through twitter advice, blog posts and through feedback. This is what works for me. Although I do feel ‘naughty’ for not reading craft books.

— Sally Doherty writes 👩‍💻 (@Sally_writes) June 9, 2019

Finding the right kind of beta readers can be a great help

Many of the authors had beta readers during their writing process and found it helped them hone their drafts. They said it was important as a writer to learn to understand what feedback to take on and when to follow your gut. And as Nikki Smith says, you have to find the right kind of beta reader:

I think if no one has read it yet ask someone, preferably published or an avid reader & perhaps start with the first 3 chapters. Ask them for what they think isn’t working & what is – no point if you just get positive feedback as it won’t help in the long term!

— Nikki Smith (@Mrssmithmunday) June 9, 2019

Learning to find the balance between research and story is crucial

The authors who needed to do lots of research talked about the importance of accuracy whilst always remembering that it’s the story that needs to come first. As historical fiction author Carolyn O’Brien put it:

Read, read, read keep a note of what you’ve read, try and verify from another source, repeat! And, eventually, when you feel you’ve repeated enough times, remind yourself you’re writing fiction! (Wow, why is it so much easier to give advice??!!)

— Carolyn O’Brien (@CarolynManc) June 9, 2019

This is just a snapshot of the Twitter Q&A, too see the full conversation, check out the Virtual Writing Group’s thread.

Thanks to Virtual Writing Group for this great blog post and for asking me on the Q&A. There were lots more questions about finding an agent in particular and I’ll be kicking off a series of blog posts about this soon, so sign up to the feed if you want to stay in the loop.

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Write every day.

Don’t worry about writing every day.

Pay attention to daily/weekly/monthly word counts.

Don’t worry about word count, just make every one of your words count.

Show, don’t tell.

It’s OK to tell sometimes.

Bewildering, isn’t it? So does that mean that half the advice out there is wrong?

I learnt through my own trial and error when writing my novel that there are probably as many ways to write a novel (or short story or non-fiction) as there are books in the world. But that’s what makes writing and reading so varied and exciting. I think the only way to know if the advice works for you is by trying it out and deciding whether it fits with the way you like to work – or at least, the ways that fit best around your life and commitments.

So, here are a few of the things that work for me.

Reading Into the Woods
I love Into the Woods by John Yorke. It helped me to understand structure and plot more than any other book or resource. It has lots of fun examples, mainly from film and TV, such as Thelma and Louise and The Godfather, but virtually all the advice applies to writing fiction of all kinds. It explores the structure of a piece as a whole, but also the structure of a scene or piece of dialogue and how to build conflict and tension throughout your story.

Trying to write every day
I found that writing a little every day kept me connected to the story and made it easier to jump back in again the next day. I didn’t manage it all the time. There were times when I felt ill or just wanted to veg out and read or watch someone else’s work all day. I’ve tried not to put so much pressure on myself. There’s no point giving ourselves guilt trips all the time, it just uses up the energy we need for writing, right?

Writing isn’t the only way to ‘write’
I set weekly and monthly word targets to have some sense of moving forward (not that I hit them most of the time), but I also needed time to just let things soak in. It’s the classic ‘in the shower’ moment, when you find your mind is quiet enough to let other ideas come to the fore. So, on those days when I just couldn’t face writing a word, I gave myself time to walk and cook and you know, live that thing called life, and let the story develop in my mind.

What’s on the page is only half the story, the reader does the rest
It’s important to world-build and create multi-dimensional characters, but I learnt that I also needed to leave enough space for the reader to fill in the gaps. If I give the reader every single detail, it slows down the pace and doesn’t allow them to emotionally connect with the story in the same way to them. Which brings me onto my final point…

Show and tell. Tell and show.
This was one of the most challenging things to grasp and if I’m honest, I still wrestle with getting the balance right. But I learnt, particularly during the excellent Jericho Writers’ Self Edit course, that you do need both. There’s a whole ton of stuff that I could write about this, which I’ll do another time, but if you want to vary your pace and get to the heart of a character’s experience, it’s sometimes OK to ‘tell’, or to skip detailing that entire journey on the bus and move straight to the juicy bits of the story.

And one piece of advice that doesn’t work for me…
In many ways, I pretty much ignore the whole ‘Write what you know’. My novel is set before I was born and tells the story of a family that are displaced from the country they call home. Never experienced that before, thankfully. I like writing about what I don’t know. Why? For the same reason that I like to read. To learn about new people, places and experiences.

So what’s the writing advice that works for you? And what’s the ‘popular’ advice that does absolutely nothing for you or your writing? I’d love to know what works for you so get in touch.

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I read many novels about the British immigrant experience including Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Monica Ali’s Brick Lane and one of my favourites, Andrea Levy’s Small Island. But they focused on those who’d arrived on these shores, leaving a single country behind, one where they belonged completely.

It was different for people like my grandparents, the so-called ‘twice migrants’ who had roots in one country, built a life in another and moved to a third! Where were their stories on the bookshelves?

There was also a wider story, one that very few British people seemed to even know about, unless they recalled the news reports from the early 1970s. 80,000 Uganda Asians were expelled by brutal ruler Idi Amin with only 90 days to leave. This story always fascinated me. I’d often wondered, even as a child, what it would be like to leave everything you know and love behind, to start again. When children at school told me to ‘go back to my own country’, I spent a lot of time wondering where my ‘own country’ was? I’d think hard about what my family would do, where they’d go? And decades later, I finally had the opportunity to explore those questions through my writing.

The excitement of knowing my novel Kololo Hill is going to be published hasn’t gone away. And yet, as thrilling as it is, it is nothing compared to a little girl who taught herself to read, who later sailed across a sea, from India to Kenya with a young baby, whilst the lights of the steamer ship were blacked out to protect them from the war raging across the world, that little girl who went onto build a whole new life in a country so different to her own, where she had to learn to speak the language, just like my Nani did. Putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard is not really anything so extraordinary. Leaving one world behind to create a whole new one, sometimes twice over, that’s the truly amazing thing.

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