Hello,

I’ve been trying to find an agent for over a year now (yes, I probably should have given up by now, but some encouraging comments from a couple of agents who read the full ms have, unfortunately, kept me going).

I’d like to target some of the newer agents as they are still building their lists, maybe some who have started up over the past year. I bought the WAAYB when I first started looking but obviously my old copy won’t cover the new start-ups. My question is do I spend lots of money and buy the WAAYB again (which, I imagine will only be about 5% different from last year) or is there somewhere else I can find out about just the newer agents – maybe a newsletter or somewhere they advertise ? – any ideas?

Thanks

Livi

P.S. actually, it's probably a year and a half and almost 30 agents tried - really, should I give up? (I've had 3 aborted attempts at new projects so keep coming back to flogging this dead horse!)

That's a difficult one. It's usually a matter of keeping your ear to the ground - reading lots of agents and publishers' blogs and websites, keeping an eye open on writers sites like WW, and make a note of new agents' names when they crop up.
Some might be mentioned on The Bookseller:
http://www.thebookseller.com/


<Added>

As for whether you should give up submitting it, only you can answer that. Have you had any feedback from fellow writers on your opening chapters?
I find it a problem to stay motivated on a new writing project when I'm waiting to hear back from submissions so maybe it's worth putting it to one side so you can concentrate on a new novel, then pull it out afterwards and look at it with a fresh eye. Also the market is very difficult at the moment because of the credit crunch, so it might be worth waiting a few months before sending out a new batch of submissions.

- NaomiM

You could always get WAAYB out of the library. If you take your own copy, you could compare them, and pencil changes into your own copy.

As for giving up, it's so hard to decide, isn't it. I'm sure you're right to let the encouraging comments keep you going, but there is a point where you have to recognise that the message you're getting in total is that this novel in its present form is unlikely to find a home.

As Naomi says, it probably needs to be a decision based as much on what the submission process does to your writerly self, as a realistic assessment of this one's hopes. If you do decide to put it aside, then do remember that there's no reason not to take it up again. You'll learn an awful lot more about everything to do with writing in general and your writing in particular by tackling a new project (even if it takes a bit of pushing yourself to get it off the ground) and you may find you come back to the previous one with a much clearer idea of its potential, and how to get it to fulfil it...

Good luck!

Emma

These have set up in the last year:

Kate Nash (search on slushpile mountaineering)

Isabel White

Jonathan Pegg

Mariam Keen (Whispering Buffalo agency)

Good luck, Livi.

thanks everyone,

I think technology has just gone too far - why did I not think of a good old fashioned library?

As for waiting out the recession, wasn't it forecast to last 5 years?? – I think I may already have felt some of it – pre all the doom and gloom in the news, I sent out my first 15 subs and got 2 requests for full. I sent out my second 15 a good few months into the recession and got nothing but outright rejections – may just be coincidence of course!

Ta

Livi