I always send as short an email as possible and i've had positive responses this way. One even said they weren't really looking for new clients at the moment as they were a small agency, but send us 20 pages or so and we'll have a look.

So, again, speaking for myself, i find emailing first very useful for several reasons.

Casey

That goes straight back to what I said, that they'll just ask for you to send a sample in the traditional manner. Which is fine if you get a response, but if you don't it will leave you frustrated, wondering whether they got it, didn't, are ignoring it, don't want to hear... etc.

Has anyone ever turned up at an agency in person, say, in fancy dress or with a supporting brass band?

Get the feeling we aint gonna agree on this one, Colin

I email, having read an interview with a well-known agent who said to always do this. It has saved me from wasting my time by submitting 3 chaps to agents in the WAAYB who accept unsolicited submissions but who are currently overwhelmed. And if they say submit anyway, well at least it might give me a name, some sort of reference.
Each to their own, i think we all find out what suits us best by trial and error.

Maybe sending an outrageous e-card would be more effective.

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The last bit was a joke, BTW!

Last time I tried submitting anything; a few years ago now (but hope to do so again soon), I tried a dozen or so agents by phone, just so I could ask for a name to send my stuff to. In every case, I was told to follow the standard submission guidelines. When I pressed for names, in every case they said just address my submission to the “submissions department”.

This leads me to believe that, in general, there is a pool of anonymous ‘first readers’ that trawl the slush pile for submissions good enough to be read by an editor. In that case it really doesn’t matter who you address your cover letter to, if it later makes it onto his/her desk they’ll take a look at it.

Of course I might be wrong, or this might only apply to the larger agencies.

Grinder

I think that's true. Even if you have an agent's name to put on the letter, they get far too many to do the first pass themselves - my agent gets 1,000 a year adressed to her personally, quite apart from what arrives addressed to the submissions department.

The only exception is if you can honestly say that someone in the trade, who the agent will know and who knows your work, has suggested you get in touch. That tells the agent that, in a sense, you've already passed the first filter, and it will be read. You have to avoid making it sound as if that friend-in-the-trade read it in the professional sense and rejected it, though.

Emma

<Added>

addressed

'who the agent will know and who knows your work' is crucial; otherwise the agent will think it's just a dinner-party suggestion. But if you're friends with a sci fi editor who read your historical romance and said she thought it was worth finding an agent for, that'll get it read properly.

Hmmm. Maybe i am wasting my time with emails then? I'm not sure now. Sigh. Is ANYTHING to do with getting published straightforward?

Casey

No.

But I'm not sure it matters. If it's good enough, it'll get through anyway. Contrary to how it sometimes feels, agents don't want to miss good work, and it can be a good idea in an email, or good writing on paper, that first tickles their fancy and gets them to look properly. Miss Snark would say 'Write. Write well. Query widely,' and the rest of it doesn't matter much.

I suppose for myself, I feel that all agents accept paper, but not all accept email, so I do paper. But ultimately, yes, I don't think which you do is the thing standing between you and literary (or commercial) stardom.

Emma