Three Tips From A Top Literary Agent

Last week, we were thrilled to host literary agent Jamie Carr of The Book Group for a conversation with Assistant Director and debut novelist Ava Robinson. When Ava got off the phone with Jamie after their first meeting, she knew she’d found her match. As Ava’s agent, Jamie saw Definitely Better Now from its first full draft through several rounds of edits and finally to publication. Last week, they both spoke about the value of an agent who knows how to advocate for your writing, and who is there to support you through the entire publication process.

As one of our guests pointed out in the Q&A, their ease and closeness as agent and author really shined through their conversation, and was reflected in their working process. Jamie even re-wrote the opening sentence of the novel to make it more active and engaging!

If you weren’t able to join us for the event in person, we’re sharing some of the key learnings from the evening below!

1. Yes, query letters are that important:

• Literary Agents like Jamie receive over 40 query letters a week, so take your letter just as seriously as the manuscript itself, and workshop it among writer friends as well!
• A great query letter is able to describe your project at a micro and macro level. Agents want to know what the project is about, and why it’s fresh and interesting.
• To make your letter stand out from the rest, make it personal, polished, and specific to the agent in question.
  

2. Relationships really matter!

• Make sure your agent is someone you can foresee working with for years, and books, to come.
• When signing a new author, agents like Jamie look for vision and talent that will carry over to future projects.
• Your agent advocates for you and your work. So make sure they understand and support your project!

3. Your writing should be exciting to YOU:

• If your project is not fun to work on, it won’t be fun to finish and publish. Before Definitely Better Now, Ava had been working on a historical fiction novel that was a slog to work on. And then she asked herself: “What would be fun to write?”
• Take on a premise that is exciting, fun, invigorating to you to write. That’s the best way to make sure it will be exciting, fun and invigorating for readers, too.

About Definitely Better Now: 

The very last person anyone should worry about is Emma. Yes, hi, she's an alcoholic. But she's officially been sober for one entire year. That's twelve months of better health. Fifty-two whole weeks of focusing on nothing but her nine-to-five office job, group meetings, and avoiding the kind of bad decisions that previously left her awash in shame and regret. It's also been 365 days of not dating. And with her new dating profile, Emma, 26, of New York is ready to put herself back out there.

Except--was dating always this complicated? And did Emma's mother really have to choose now to move in with her new boyfriend? Being assigned to plan her office's holiday party feels like icing on the suddenly very overwhelming cake until her estranged father reappears with devastating news. Icing, meet cherry on top. But then there's Ben, the charming IT guy who, despite Emma's awkwardness and shortcomings, seems to maybe actually get her? Sobriety is turning out to be far from the flawless future Emma had once envisioned for herself, but as she allows herself to open up to Ben and confront difficult past relationships, she's beginning to realize that taking things one day at a time might just be the perfectly imperfect path she's meant to be on.