how I got an agent | Kimberly Pauley

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Agent-y news (i.e. more on “how I got an agent”) & other stuff (like China!)

Posted on March 24, 2010

So I’m finally free to announce the news I’ve been trying to keep to myself (mostly successfully). I’ve got a new agent — Larry Kirshbaum of LJK Literary Management. Honestly, there wasn’t anything wrong with my old agent. She was perfectly nice and lovely and I’d happily recommend people to her. But after talking with Larry and meeting with him, we seemed to really click.

In the continuing saga of “how I got an agent” this goes under the heading of coincidences and juxtapositions. So, remember how I was interviewed on NPR by Margot Adler (squee!)? And Margot loved my book? Well, Larry happens to live in Margot’s building and was riding the elevator with her one day. She told him about my book and how it was her favorite out of all the vampire books she’d read (75 at that count). So he checked it out. And he liked it. So he sent me an email to ask if I had an agent.

Let me stop and tell you a bit about Larry here. He used to be the CEO of Time Warner Books before he started an agency. He was named the 2005 Publishing’s Person of the Year by Publishers Weekly. He’s worked with James Patterson and Dean Koontz and Nicholas Sparks and Donald Trump and all kinds of other authors that I can hardly imagine saying my name in the same sentence with. There’s more, but that gives you a hint.

So even though I was overall happy with my agent, I thought I at least ought to give the man a listen. He came out to Chicago and we went to dinner (I have to give a plug for Phil Stefani’s 437 Rush here…it was awesome AND the maître d sang opera!) and talked. And we clicked really nicely. He read some of my new stuff (like the book I’m working on now) and I just really felt we connected and were on the same page (and no, that’s not a publishing pun…okay, maybe it is).

So I made the big decision to switch agents. Which is not something I’d ever thought I’d be doing. Honestly, you get an agent and you’re just so HAPPY to have one you want to do a dance. I never thought I’d be switching unless we had serious creative differences, which we didn’t.

Anyway, I’ll still be working with Tamar on the rights for the first two books (she’s still working on selling foreign rights on Sucks to Be Me and Still Sucks to Be Me), but all the new stuff will be with Larry, provided everything works out okay. And I think it will. I’ve got a good feeling about it.

In completely other-ish personal news, I’m going to China. It’s official today since the Chinese Consulate granted my visa (whew!). We’re going to be in Shanghai for two weeks, so if you don’t see a lot of blog posts or anything through the first part of April, that’s why! I also (obviously) won’t be able to check my PO Box either, so any bookplate requests will have to be taken care of after we get back.

There will, of course, be pictures.

And now for something different…how I got an agent

Posted on December 8, 2009

by Kimberly Pauley

I’ve been promising to write this post for some time, though I’d like to start off with a disclaimer: This information will in no way help you at all.

There. Now that we’ve got that out of the way.

Before you get an agent, you look on with wide-eyed wonder at those writers who have one wondering who waved a magic wand. Or maybe just in bitter jealousy. I suppose it depends on you.

Anyway, here’s how I got one (Tamar Rydzinski of the Laura Dail agency). First, I wrote a book. (Doh!) Then I started querying agents that I’d researched as possible good fits based on what they repped and on recommendations from author peeps that I knew (I knew quite a few from all my years of reviewing and interviewing them). I queried a total of about, erm, maybe 8 or 10 agents in my first batch, including Laura Dail, who had been recommended (and introduced to me) by the awesome Sarah Mlynowski.

They all said no. For the most part, they all liked my writing okay but to some it didn’t speak to them because they liked vampire novels that were traditional horror-ish stuff. And some just didn’t think vampires were an easy sell. I should note that I wrote my book in 2004/2005 before Twilight came out and was querying before it came out and during the early Twilight days before things went insane. And, darn it all, right when I first started querying, a bunch of new vampire books cropped up. Laura considered it the longest and gave me an encouraging no and said I should send more stuff in the future.

Well, I was talking with Terry, a writer friend of mine and she mentioned that her editor at Mirrorstone was looking for paranormal YA. She introduced me and Mirrorstone considered the manuscript for a good long time (not complaining, just saying). They ultimately decided to buy it and I signed all the contracts and stuff myself. No agent.

Then (much later), my book came out. An author friend of mine who had gone to work as an editor/development dude at a large book packager (okay, THE large book packager) liked Mina’s voice. He emailed and asked if I would be interested in working with them on a middle grade novel, possibly a series. It was an interesting idea and while it wasn’t *my* idea, I thought I ought to at least investigate it. But there was no way I was going to do that without an agent. Book packaging contracts are notoriously convoluted. So I emailed Laura and explained the situation, etc. and they agreed to represent me.

The book packager thing fell through (they decided they wanted a guy to write the series in question, and while there are many things I can change about myself, that just isn’t one of them), but lo and behold, I had an agent. Tamar works with Laura.

Nothing overly romantic or earth-shattering, but there you go.

I still actually have no idea how the agent thing works in many ways since Tamar hasn’t actually repped a book I haven’t sold myself (she did the contract stuff on the sequel, but didn’t have to present it or anything like that — I really still just worked directly with my editor on that). They’ve handled all the foreign contract stuff on Sucks to Be Me, which is good (because it is totally confusing). So I’ll have to report back after I actually finish my next book and actually get to work with them for real.

See, I told you it wouldn’t help you at all.

P.S. And there’s more! Read on for the continuing saga of how I got an agent (and then another one)