Who and Where?

I sat down to begin writing a fresh query letter for my romantic-suspense novel Sunk, but changed my mind. Mostly because I am in a procrastinating kind of mood. The process of trying to be concise, yet detailed, witty, yet professional and all those wonderful things that make up the three to four crucial paragraphs of your query, felt daunting on this Sunday evening.

So that will be tomorrow.
Today, I decided to look for who and where I will direct this perfectly crafted missive (once it's perfectly crafted).

The resource I like to use to find agents is AAR - Association of Author's Representatives. This is the professional organization for literary agents. They have extensive guidelines to become a member, and that is good for you. If they are on this list, you should feel good about sending your work to them. Plus, when you go on their website and look at the list, you will see that each agent states the types of books they represent (non-fiction, fiction, mysteries, romance, etc).

If I find the name of an agent that indicates they are interested in my genre, I go to their agency's website to get a better feel if we are a good fit. Checking out what other books they have represented in the past is a great way to see if your book would be of interest to them. There is no sense in wasting your time or theirs if they do not represent your type of work.

So after checking out a few different agents on the AAR website, I decided to look more closely at Jenny Bent from the Bent Agency. She states she represents mystery, romance and paranormal. Sunk is primarily a mystery but has some romance and a touch of the paranormal, as well. Next, I looked to see what her submission requirements are from her website. Everyone has their own, you want to be very careful here and give each agent exactly what they want. In this case, it is a query letter and the first 10-pages.

So now I know the who and where. Tomorrow I will work on the what.

P.S. Look to the right for the link to AAR's website

P.S.S. Joining organizations like Romance Writers of America (if you are a romance writer) and attending writer's conferences are great ways to make contacts and meet agents face-to-face.