09/08/2012
Tess Sharpe (sharpegirl on QT) has signed with agent Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary Agency.
This book was one that kind of came out of nowhere. I’d written the closing paragraph to one of the flashback chapters at the beginning of September and sat on them for a month, trying to figure out the story behind those 57 words. It just snowballed from there until it was a book.
I learned an important lesson with this one. I queried an agent who’d read a manuscript of mine five years earlier. I almost didn’t mention that she had invited me to submit future work because I was sure she wouldn’t remember me or the old manuscript after all that time. One of my critique partners encouraged me to mention it, and not only did the agent remember me, but she remembered details of the old manuscript that I’d forgotten. So even if you think an agent doesn’t have a long memory, sometimes books they reject stick with them.
Be writing something else when you start querying, it’ll be a nice distraction from frantically checking your e-mail.
Also, try to get some idea of what you’d like your writing career to be, because sharing the same outlook on your career as your agent is vital. And if you’re looking at multiple offers, having an idea of where you want to go will really help you make the right choice.