We all have our favorite websites for gathering information on agents and/or publishing. Here are a few that I’ve found to be the most helpful:
1. ‘Preditors & Editors’ http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/ Probably the most complete listing of agents and publishers on the net. Great tool! It flags agents/publishers that have indications of sales, or who for one reason or another are either “recommended” or “not recommended” by the web site.
2. ‘Absolutewrite – water cooler forum’ www.absolutewrite.com/forums/ Use the Bewares and Background Checks to find out the goods on suspect agents or publishers. A repository of good information based on the experiences that writers have had with both good and bad agents.
3. ‘Guide to Literary Agents’ www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/ I use this site mainly for its New Agency Alerts, but there’s also Q&A with agents on what they’re looking for…
4. ‘Agent Query’ www.agentquery.com/ This site is very similar to the site run by the AAR, but for whatever reason I tend to use this one more. I guess it’s because this search includes agents that aren’t members of the AAR as well as those who are.
5. ‘Ralan’ www.ralan.com/ Great place for market updates – which publishers are accepting queries and what they’re looking for. Mainly contains the smaller, independent publishers – good for someone like me who’s trying to break into the mid-market list.
6. ‘AAR’ www.aar-online.org/mc/page.do The association that sets the standard for the ethical behavior of agents – the ‘Association of Artists’ Representatives’. This is the best place to look if you must have an agent that is member of the AAR.
7. ‘Publisher’s Marketplace’ www.publishersmarketplace.com/ This is a great place to see what’s going on with whom. I “browse” the member pages for agents and publishers (sort by date) to see who is open for queries.
Please let me know if you have other websites that are particularly good. Until then, keep typing and keep trying. J/W
