TRANSCRIPT

Literary agents and literary agencies, just like publishers, have their own preferred method of querying. Some want manuscripts pasted in the body of emails. Others use QueryTracker. And complicating this situation even more is the fact that guidelines continuously shift. Before you submit your manuscript, you need to do this: You need to visit EVERY literary agency’s site to make sure you’re up to date on their guidelines. And this process is so time consuming and so tedious and I like wish there was a way around this. But, unfortunately, I don’t know of one. So while you're checking out each agency's website, here's what you need to look for:

First, is the agency accepting unsolicited manuscripts? At times, agencies get so overwhelmed with submissions that they simply stop accepting unsolicited manuscripts and only accept them through referrals.

Second, is the agent you want to query accepting manuscripts at this time? Just like the agencies as a whole, individual agents may stop accepting manuscripts at certain times.

Three, is the agent you want to query accepting picture book manuscripts? An agent may be open to children’s books – but not necessarily picture book manuscripts. Or, many agents only accept manuscripts from author/illustrators.

Four, does the agent accept manuscripts via QueryTracker or email? And for those who don't know, QueryTracker is an online resource for helping authors find agents. It also acts as a portal through which agents can receive manuscripts. So just FYI when using QueryTracker to submit your work, you’ll be asked to fill in several form fields with your name, bio, contact information, query letter, manuscript – as well as some of the items I talked about in a previous video, including audience, pitch and synopsis.

To give your manuscripts the best odds possible, be sure to respect the submission guidelines of each agency and each agent.

Thank you so much for watching. If you got any value out of this video, like it, subscribe to my channel and share the video with other aspiring picture book authors.