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Last night Agent Queryhosted a chat with agent Joshua Blimes of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

What a great chat. The AQ members brought lots of great questions to the table and Joshua took his time to answer each question thoroughly. Somehow, he still managed to answer over 40 questions during his hour in the spotlight. Wow.

He said he loves to discover a new writer and that often a new writer has a raw talent that needs to be honed. What, we aren’t perfect by the time we get accepted? Dang. And I’ve learned so much in the past year! Good thing I don’t mind learning! However, one of the biggest problems he sees in new writers (he having read thousands of first pages in his 20+ years in the publishing business) is that “while some who are good just can’t focus on how they need to advance the story”. I’ve been there! In fact, that is something I’ve dedicated the month of October to working on! I’m on the right track! Yay!

Keep posted for information on other upcoming chats.

Tags: agents, online chats by Jean
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On Tuesday, October 7th Agent Query will be hosting another agent chat. If you are free at 8pm Mountain time (10pm Eastern), join us. I will be moderating the chat as usual and it should be an informative and great time.

Our guest will be Joshua Blimes, owner of the JABerwocky Literary Agency. Although he’s not looking for romance (or at least not between book covers), his advice will be informative for writers of all genres.

Joshua has been running his own agency for 14 years and has more years of experience int he publishing world than you could shake a stick at. He is very aware of the changes happening in the publishing world and his advice is, “You may be told, and it may even be true, that it’s harder for new authors to break into the business these days. But that can only be true to a limited extent, because everyone needs new authors, and they have to come from somewhere. Established authors stop writing or their sales decline. Some of the new authors launched a year or two ago will turn out now to work. We all need to look out for our tomorrow. But it’s never going to be easy.”

If you want to have the chance to ask an agent a question, join AQ, if you haven’t already–it’s free–and join the chat on Tuesday.

Hope to see you there!

Tags: agents, online chats by Jean
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Everyone keeps going on about Miss Snark. For those of you who do not know, she is a literary agent. Or was. Maybe still is. Anyway, she has a blog that went on for years and is revered in the online writing world. Of course, I had to check it out. I read some of her later blog posts. And I didn’t get it. People would go on about her again. So I’d go back. I still didn’t get it. That’s not to say that I didn’t understand her. I just did not get the appeal. Then again, when you go to her blog, the last posts are about her retiring. So, uh, yeah. Kind of late place to come in on things.

When once again her blog was recommended to me through other blog comments, I dutifully followed the link. Yet again. This time I had a plan. I scrolled down until I got to her archives and then I did some random clicking. Oh, look at that, a question that I sent to ‘Ask Daphne’. Hmm. Maybe I have been missing something. Another random click or two. Ta-da. Something I did not know and did not even think about in order to think about.

Dead agents. That sounds brutal. What I am getting at is this: what do you do if you have an agent who is dealing with the royalties from your past projects and then poof! they are gone like last week’s cut flowers. In this case the agent was a solo. (They were the agency.) So then what? How do you get your royalties? They go to the agent’s estate and the estate then is to get their percentage of the royalties and send you the remainder. Eventually. But what about any further dealings with the old projects? Yikes! Do you get a new agent for that? Can you get a new agent for that? If the agent isn’t a solo, it is simpler as I assume the agency has a contingency plan and they take care of things. Easy as pie. (Unless they go belly up. In that case, oh brother!) What I learned, I suppose, is that an agency isn’t always ‘just’ an agency if there is one person behind it. Something to look into when you sign that literary contract. What is their contingency plan? Sort of morbid, but worth bringing up in conversation.

Oh and thanks Miss Snark. I guess I judged you wrong (several times). Oops.

Tags: agents by Jean
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Last night’s AQ agent chat with Michael Bourret of Dystel and Goderich Literary Management was fabulous. In one hour he succinctly fielded over 40 questions! We had over 47 lovely, ever-so patient guests who really made moderating this chat a dream. Thank you to Michael for taking time at the end of his busy day and thank you to all our wonderful guests who came armed with brilliant questions (many of which I had been wondering about myself).

Michael rocked it!

And we all only got a little bit crazy towards the end. But I think it could have been the cake I was serving.

Anyway, I learned lots and managed to keep all the balls in the air. Go cowgirl!

Now I get to read the transcripts and see what really happened! Keep posted for information on September’s upcoming chats.

Tags: agents, online chats by Jean
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It always comes back to patience, doesn’t it?

In Jackson Pearce’s chat the other night, she touched on patience. Patience to wait before sending out your ms–make sure it is good as it can be. Listen to your crit partners. Make those changes. Wait. Look at them again, then send. Look for those pitfalls. Fix them. Keep listening to the feedback, keep distancing yourself from your work.

Keep plugging!

Join us for the agent chat with Michael Bourret tonight. 8pm eastern.

Tags: agents, authors, online chats by Jean
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There will be an agent chat on AQ. Be there or be square! Or at least left out in the cold, dark night.

Who: Literary Agent Michael Bourret of Dystel and Goderich Literary Management

What: A friendly chat where he answers aspiring writers ever so eager questions.

Where: Agent Query Connect Chat area. (It is free to join, so go for it!)

When: Monday, August 25th at 8pm eastern

Why: Do I really need to tell you this? If so, go watch some TV instead. I mean, come on! An agent answering questions and letting you into the deep dark secrets of publishing! Well, maybe I can’t promise deep, dark secrets, but well, a girl can dream…

How: Join AQ and enter the chat at the appointed time. I’ll be there to instill calm in the chaos. 

Looking forward to it. See you there!

Tags: agents, online chats by Jean
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I survived!

Of course I survived you say. I was only moderating an online chat with a literary agent.

It was great. And it was so high speed. I totally didn’t need that mocha beforehand. Mental note: no caffeine before chats…

Tina Wexler of ICM was great. She did a great job of succinctly answering the pile of questions launched at her for an hour by eager writers. I wish I could say that I recall the questions and replies, but honestly, I can’t. I was so busy queueing people up for their questions and trying to keep track of everything that I swear I only read enough to gather whether the question had been asked and whether the answer had been given. And even then, I screwed up a time or two.

When the transcripts are available, I will sit back and take a peek at what really went on.

With people jumping in and out of the chat, it was a challenge to keep things going and on track and make sure everyone got their chance to ask something. Some people even got to ask a second question, so all is good at the end of the day.

So how many quests did Tina have? Well, at one point, I looked up and saw that we had 33 writers logged on. Wow. I would say that it was a success and that AQ’s bid for online domination is well underway. Now if only my head would stop spinning…

Tags: agents, online chats by Jean
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Join me, the AQ Crew, other writers and literary agent Tina Wexler of ICM on June 26th at 7pm Eastern time on the Agent Query Connect website. Tina will graciously be answering questions and I will be graciously moderating the chat. Pretty cool, eh? Best part: it’s totally free! (We only ask for your soul and you don’t need that anyway!)

Here is a bit about Tina blatantly taken from the AQ site:

“Tina Wexler is an agent at ICM, representing writers in both the children’s and adult marketplace. Prior to joining ICM, she was with the Ellen Levine Literary Agency/Trident Media and the Karpfinger Agency. She is from southern Maine, holds an MFA in poetry, and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband.”

What exactly is she looking for?

“On the adult side, I am looking to acquire narrative nonfiction and up-market commercial fiction. I’m particularly interested in popular science, food (not cookbooks), pop culture, memoir, religion, art history, women’s issues (however defined), and modernized retellings of popular myths and legends. On the children’s side, I’m interested in young adult fiction and middle grade fiction. I love mysteries, adventure stories with boy appeal, coming of age stories, tall tales, and paranormal fiction. Specifically, I am looking for a witty story about an astrophysicist who has troubles finding her Mr. Right–I think his name should start with an ‘M’.”

Okay, you caught me, I added that last sentence.

Come join us online on Thursday June 26th, or visit the post afterwards–I’ve been told the transcript from the chat will be available. Does it get any better than this?

Tags: agents, online chats by Jean
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