Submitting novellas to agents

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TaylorNapolsky
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Submitting novellas to agents

Post by TaylorNapolsky » September 24th, 2011, 2:41 am

I have a novella that I was going to put out independently as an ebook. But I hate the upfront costs involved. I was thinking about trying to get an agent, using this novella. My question is, do people get agents based on shorter works, like novellas? I always thought the query process involves novel length manuscripts, but I just wanted to get this cleared up.

If the answer is yes, that sometimes it is acceptable to query with a novella, does anyone happen to know of any agents who would be open to this? Or can anyone point me to a site that might lead me in the right direction?

I've never queried for an agent before, so I'm kind of in the dark! And thanks in advance for the help!!

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HillaryJ
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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by HillaryJ » September 24th, 2011, 3:51 am

As a rule, no, agents are not looking to sign a client and invest their time and effort for a novella. The market for traditionally-pubbed novellas is small, and I would guess it's almost obsolete for debut authors.

However, if you believe the novella to be of publishable quality, there are some publishers who accept non-agented submissions. Most are electronic only or electronic first. A few have POD capability or print some of their books.

Best of luck.
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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by TaylorNapolsky » September 24th, 2011, 3:29 pm

Thanks Hillary,

Do you know what publishers accept non-agented submissions. Or non-agented novellas. I read that more and more publishers don't require an agent for you to submit. But anyway, can you by any chance point me in the right direction? Like a link or something that has a list of publishers?

Thanks again! I appreciate it!

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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by cheekychook » September 25th, 2011, 1:08 pm

Hillary is correct that most agents won't even consider repping a debut author based on a novella, but there are lots of e-publishing options.

What is the genre of your novella? And the word count? Some genres are better represented in e-publishers right now than others. If you tell me the genre I'll let you know if I'm aware of any e-pubs open to subs in that category or can at least point you in the right direction.
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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by TaylorNapolsky » September 25th, 2011, 4:33 pm

Hi cheeky,

Thanks for your reply! The genre for my novella is adventure/low fantasy.

It's around 17,000 words.

Thanks so much for the help! Even if you just put me through to a website that lets me find out about various e-publishers, that would be great. I'm going to start frequenting the Absolute Write forums, because I heard they're really helpful for this kind of stuff. Thanks!

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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by cheekychook » September 25th, 2011, 9:12 pm

Okay, I'd recommend starting by scrolling through a list like this one:

http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/epublishers.html

or this one:

http://www.fictionfactor.com/epublishers.html

They offer a brief description of what the company publishes and almost all of them contain links that will take you to the company. Check other books they publish and read their submission guidelines. ALWAYS (even if it's a company you've heard of) check out ANY company you're even considering working with on Predators and Editors:

http://pred-ed.com/peba.htm

Occasionally a publishing company won't be listed at P&E, so if that happens definitely check them out other places. (Absolute Write is a good place to go, but for many companies you'll only find info from the first year or so they were in business---no idea why, but comments tend to drop off after companies have been around unless they do something really weird.)

You can also check out bigger e-publishing names like Samhain (mostly romance, but they do other genres, I believe) and Tor/Forge.

Not sure on the word count guidelines for your genre, but I work with a major romance e-publisher and for them 17,500 is the cut-off for what they consider a "novella", because they have a shorter work category called a "quickie". E-publishers will often have a series of lengths that they accept (novelette, novella, short novel, novel, long novel) because they often vary their prices by word count and their readers get used to getting a certain length story for a particular price. I've seen places that take short works beginning at 7k, so 17k should certainly be within at least some places' guidelines. Those companies that do both e-pub and print will likely put something in your contract about "this may be included in a print anthology at some future date". They will often wait until they have x-number of similarly themed stories to group together and then put them into one collection.

Good luck with your search. Let me know if you have other questions (I looked into e-publishers quite a bit before I decided to go with the one I work with and I'm working with a small press as well).
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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by TaylorNapolsky » September 26th, 2011, 2:53 am

thanks cheeky! that was all very helpful. I checked out your blog too. Congrats on selling three books. wow that is awesome! So you must have an agent and everything, right?

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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by cheekychook » September 26th, 2011, 10:13 am

Thanks for the congrats. :)

No, I don't have an agent. I spent almost a year trying to get an agent for my novel (you can see all my stats on the rejection stats part of this thread viewtopic.php?f=7&t=910&start=210#p42693) but, although I had some interest, I never got an offer. In the meantime I wrote the sequel and a novella and started subbing to publishers (small press and e-publishers). I accepted an e-pub contract on the novella, then a small press offer on the novel (and, within a month the sequel), and have since contracted another novella as well (co-written with a fellow Bransforumer). I haven't queried an agent since March, when I started subbing to publishers. At this point I have no reason to pursue and agent---I'm happy with the companies I chose, I was able to negotiate my contracts the way I wanted them, and I currently have nothing new to send an agent (I've got to work with editors from both companies to make sure the three coming books are polished and ready to go by their release dates).

Agents are still the only way (barring miracle or awesome family friend) to get your work to the really big publishers, so if that's what you want in the future then an agent is the way to go (when you have a full length work done). However, finding an agent is not an easy task (for a variety of reasons, many of which don't have to do with writing), and agents don't have the best odds of selling a book by a debut author. There are lots of other options available to writers these days, including small press, e-publishers and self-publishing---all of which seem to be gaining in popularity and credibility. The larger presses still dominate the best seller lists, but the smaller companies' books now find their way there as do some self-published books---and it's changing every day. Given that no matter where/how you publish, writers are now expected to do a lot of publicity/marketing for their book, and that small press/e-publishers/self-publishing generally results in a book being released quicker, it's preferred by some writers. It's really a question of what you want, what your priorities are, although, if you want an agent, there's no way to guarantee you get one.

For me, personally, although I initially thought I wanted an agent, I'm very happy with the way things happened regarding my books. My novel is somewhat genre-crossing (it's women's fiction, but it's told over 50% from the male MC's pov, which makes it atypical, and it has a heavy romance theme, but does not at all fall into the confines/definition of a romance novel) which would have made it very difficult to place with a large press (as it's seen as a "risk"). Even if an agent had taken a chance on it, odds are they would have had a hard time getting a publisher to take a chance on it too because, particularly with debut authors, they like books that fit neatly in one genre. I love that the small press I signed with actually appreciated how my novel was genre-crossing---they "got" why, for my particular story, it had to be told that way. I also love that I get to keep my original title (which rarely happens at bigger companies) and most of all I love that my release date is less than a year away (14 months from when I signed my contract---it's usually well over 2 years at larger publishers). So, I'm thrilled with the way things worked out (even though I busted my butt querying agents for a very long time, thinking that's what I wanted).

You never know how things are going to work out until you start trying different things. :)
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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by TaylorNapolsky » September 26th, 2011, 2:57 pm

cheekychook wrote:Given that no matter where/how you publish, writers are now expected to do a lot of publicity/marketing for their book,
Yeah I expected that. I don't even mind doing promotion. It's just the upfront costs of self publishing that bug me.

But your last post was very helpful! I think I'm going to try to find a small press or e-publisher to put out my novella, like you did, and then I have this longer novel that I was thinking I would try to get an agent with. I don't know if I'll be able to find an agent, since you said it's so hard. But I figure I might as well try, since it's a full book, and maybe if I can get my novella out that will make me not such a 'new author'?

does that sound like a good plan??

thanks!

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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by cheekychook » September 26th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Yes, that sounds like a good plan. It's always a good thing to be able to tell an agent that you have something published, especially if it's doing well. I can't tell you how much it impacts agents because I didn't personally query any after I got my novella contracted. I lucked out in that I got an offer on my novel shortly thereafter. The irony, of course, is that by the time I had writing credentials that would possibly have swayed an agent to take me on I no longer needed an agent. Lots of people do start out with small presses and then go on to get an agent later, and get bigger deals. Others start with small press and decide to stay with them. And, lately, writers who were with publishers have jumped ship and decided to self-publish (either new works or previously published titles that have reverted back to them rights-wise). As with anything else, I think it's good to keep your options open and to know what all your options are. Sounds like you're exploring possibilities and are on the right track. Good luck and be sure to keep us all posted!
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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by TaylorNapolsky » September 26th, 2011, 7:15 pm

cheekychook wrote:The irony, of course, is that by the time I had writing credentials that would possibly have swayed an agent to take me on I no longer needed an agent.
Ha
cheekychook wrote:Lots of people do start out with small presses and then go on to get an agent later, and get bigger deals.
I don't know if that's even irony. It just seems to be the way the world works. People are always willing to help you out once you don't need a hand anymore.
cheekychook wrote:Lots of people do start out with small presses and then go on to get an agent later, and get bigger deals.
Well, hopefully we can both pull that off! You're certainly much further ahead than me!

I read that link you posted, to the statistics for the agents you submitted to. That whole thread was very informative.

Thanks again for the help and the encouragement!

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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by cheekychook » September 26th, 2011, 8:08 pm

This is the kinda thing I meant that you have to look out for:

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2011/09/t ... press.html
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Re: Submitting novellas to agents

Post by TaylorNapolsky » September 27th, 2011, 3:03 am

Yeah that one sounds bad. I guess I'll just have to be really careful and patient

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