Sending work to literary agents.

[kazzaasks]

Does anybody have experience of this? Is there any advice you can give? Do agents prefer the first three chapters or so – or would you say send the entire novel?
Thanks

[johngammon]

You can get advice on this kind of thing in the Writer's and Artist's Yearbook or the Writer's Handbook, both available at your local library. My experience tells me they're all different. Make sure there's a synopsis - because they're probably only going to read one or two pages - as well as a covering letter telling them a bit about yourself and a stamped addressed envelope. They're not interested in literary merit etc - they're only interested in what they can sell to a publisher.  If they can't sell it they won't take it on. Also bear in mind that it's probably going to be read by some 21 year old bluestocking down from Cambridge whose doing a badly paid secretarial job in a squalid office in order to get into publishing.

I'm do think though that this is all a very olde fashioned set-up, and the literary world is very vulnerable now.  I believe soon publishers, agents, the producer of Start the Week etc are all going to be scratching their heads wondering why no-one's going into Waterstone's any more - rather like the editor of Punch must have felt when he saw a copy of Viz! for the first time...

I haven't got an agent up to now and the whole experience of selling my book has rather depressed me, and I'm someone who worked in book publishing for several years and thought I knew the score.  I was particularly ticked off after one experienced, well known London agent wrote to have a go at the font I'd used.  The same woman would have probably written to Charles Dickens attacking his handwriting.  Bear in mind though, that you only need about two people to like your book in order for it to get bought - one agent and one publisher - so it can be done.  Luck has a lot to do with it at every part of the process, but try not to get disheartened.  Books get published every day - one of them might as well be your one.

[johngammon]

One other thing - I used to work for HarperCollins as the "new manuscript editor" myself, in charge of the "slush pile" of unsolicited manuscripts.  Out of the 60 or so books I had to deal with every week, about 95% were absolute garbage, by which I mean they had no merit literary or otherwise whatsoever.  A considerable number of such books seem to be written by people who've never read one.  This is fair enough, since many books which are written by people who don't read books get published. Out of the other 5%, quite a few were well written but not commercial, or at least HarperCollins wouldn't think they were commercial which was the same thing.  The books that do get published come from a very small proportion of that 5%, so you may not be competing with as many unpublished books as you think.  Anyway, good luck! 

[kazzaasks]

That is most helpful thanks.  I'm not looking forward to the barrage of hard rejection letters but alas we must have a dream!