How Much Time You Need to Spend Promoting Your Novel

How many agents have you queried? One?

If it took you a year to write your first novel, then why wouldn’t you spend at least a year promoting it? The writing industry is extremely saturated, so finding an agent or publisher is all about persistence.

Kim Liao even suggests aiming for 100 rejection letters every year, because being persistent enough to get 100 rejections will also lead you on the path to getting an acceptance.

I haven’t found an agent for my first novel yet, but chipping away at that dream every day (47 rejections and counting!).

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4 Free Tools to Help You Find the Perfect Agent

Heyo! If you’re looking to get your work published, you already know that you have to go through an agent first.

Here are 4 free tools that will help you to find your perfect agent!

1) Agentquery.com

This is what you want to use to find an agent.

Not sure how to find an agent? Start with agentquery.com. Simply choose which type of genre your manuscript falls under and agentquery.com will instantly pull a list of hundreds of agents looking for your type of manuscript.

It’s super simple to scroll through agents at a glance, or read more about each agent in their profile. Perhaps the most helpful thing is that agentquery.com lists each agents’ requirements and links directly to their website.

2) Querytracker.net

This is what you want to use to keep track of which agents you’ve contacted.

This website is awesome. It has pretty much every agent you could hope to find on the internet. What’s also even more awesome about it is that it allows you to track who you’ve queried, and what their response was.

Before I stumbled across querytracker.net, I was keeping track of all my query letters in excel. I had columns for agents’ names, emails, requirements, what I’d sent them, and their response. Querytracker.net does this all for you in an even more simple way.

3) Twitter #10queries

This will let you see agents critique query letters.

#10queries is a great # to follow on twitter, because agents use it to critique their slush piles of query letters. They’ll usually write a few words about what the query is pitching and tell you what they like and don’t like.

I use it to see what types of things agents are looking for and also what to avoid.

4) Twitter Pitch Parties

This is what you use to get in touch with agents as fast as possible.

During a pitch party, you tweet a one-sentence synopsis of your novel and include a certain #. During the pitch party (often just one day), hundreds of agents will peruse the tweets associated with the # and favourite the pitches that they like. If they favourite yours, it means they want you to email them directly with your full query.

This is the fastest way you can get in touch with agents, without waiting for them to go through their slush piles.

Carissa Taylor keeps an ongoing calendar of upcoming pitch parties on her blog. I suggest scrolling through her list and seeing if there are any coming up that you can participate in.

Happy Writing!

Finished your first manuscript?

killer queryYou need to know how to write a killer query letter!

  • Learn the 3 step process
  • Know how to format your query in a professional manner
  • Read examples of other killer queries
  • Plus tips & tricks to get ahead & more! 

 

Write Your Query Letter in Half the Time with This Ultimate Guide on How to Publish Your First Novel

You’ve finished your first novel, but you don’t know what to do next.

I’ve been in your shoes. The above statement described me perfectly after I’d finished writing my first novel.

I spent months of research, reading blogs, consulting with authors, following & writing agents, and talking with other people who were on the same journey as me.

This free guide is everything I’ve learned about the whole after-finishing-my-novel-and-now-I-want-to-get-published process.

It’s your cheat sheet to skip trying to figure what to do on your own. 

So, check out this free, ultimate guide on How to Publish Your First Novel and learn everything about how to get your first agent that will push you full steam ahead into a bestseller!

The Ultimate Guide on How to Publish Your First Novel

Finished your first manuscript?

killer queryYou need to know how to write a killer query letter!

  • Learn the 3 step process
  • Know how to format your query in a professional manner
  • Read examples of other killer queries
  • Plus tips & tricks to get ahead & more!