Looking for a literary agent is the most ass-backward thing that I've ever done. It borders between idiotic and insane. Let me explain how it works.
I'm Chumbo Newauthor. I have written a book (with all the screaming and crying that goes with that) and now I want to get it published. I have a couple options. I can try to publish online, which works well for some people, but you don't make as much money that way. I can try to send my book to publishers, which very few publishing houses still let you do. Or I can seek an agent. Most people start with the last option.
So, you take your shiny new book in hand. In my case, a gritty crime-oriented urban fantasy novel, and you show it around to every agent you can find, right? Well, there are a lot of genres and tastes out there, and just regular people, agents have very specific things that they're seeking (sometimes to the point that I'm like, dude, you should write that book you want). So I start by filtering for folks who like fantasy. That's a huge genre. Anything that isn't real life is considered fantasy. Occasionally, I find someone that says they want urban fantasy and I get excited, but usually, they just say most genres of fantasy (of which there are tons, remember).
Here's an analogy to represent just how dreadfully silly this process is. Imagine if buying a car worked this way. Rather than you going to a car lot where you can kick the tires and ask about cup holders, you put up a thing on Craig's list that says you want a car. You don't leave a lot of details (something with four wheels and a rad stereo). But, really, you have a very specific idea of what you want. Now the people who have the cars bring them by your house. After looking at literally hundreds of cars this way, people showing you what they want to sell rather than what you want to buy, a sale has still not been made. You still don't have a car, and those poor car engineers still can't get their hunks of shiny metal sold to anyone.
I mention this because an odd thing happened to me while I was looking at agents today. I saw this:
Chris Lotts
The Lotts Agency
*This agent accepts queries
*I handle adult science fiction and fantasy for the agency, and am
currently interested in hard-edged, innovative crime novels and
thrillers, paranormal and urban fantasy, and SF; strong commercial
writing is the most important criteria.
My heart just about jumped into my throat. Here was the first agent listing that I'd read (out of about 100 so far) that not only used the words "crime novels and thrillers" with the words "urban fantasy", they're actually in the same sentence! However, when I clicked on the agent's website, the domain name didn't exist. No way to tell if this was a real person patiently awaiting a manuscript just like mine, or some ghost of a posting from untold years ago that only leads down the internet's darkest and most forgotten back allies of obscurity. I sent him an email anyway.
