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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Question for the Group About Agents

Hi, All. Deb asked me to post a question here since you've all proven to be excellent resources.

"My pastor and I are collaborating on a religious book that we believe will have a very large, worldwide audience. We do not want to self-publish. My pastor has a divinity degree and will do the writing. I have extensive experience as an editor and will edit the ms. We live in upstate NY and would like to hire an agent that works with religious publishers. I have more than 100 titles in print but they are all in the education market, and I do not know anything about the religious marketplace. I'm turning to the group because the Web is crawling with "agents" who are really people wanting to help a person self-publish."

If you have any info for Deb, or can point her in the right direction, please comment directly to the post. Deb gets your responses faster if you do that rather than replying to the email and waiting until I can forward it to her.

Thanks for your help,
Laura

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

First off, never ever go with an agent who charges money. Agents take between 10 and 15% of the profit of your book--any agent who asks for money up front is a scammer.

QueryTracker.net is the place to find literary agents. From the home page, click on "Literary Agents", then select "Nonfiction--Religion and Spirituality" from the drop-down menu. It looks like there are 203 agents in this category. Research the agents and create a list of agents you'd like to query.

When your manuscript is complete, write a query letter and send it to the agents you've researched. Since it doesn't sound like you've written the book yet, I'd shelve the idea of an agent for the present. It's easy to get excited about querying and become impatient when it doesn't come together quickly. I've been through querying, and I can vouch for the fact that it's best to take your time rather than rushing to query. Ultimately, if you have a great, well-revised manuscript, you'll find the right agent for your book.

Karen S. said...

Reputable agents who work in the religious book world are Rachelle Gardner (blog at http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/); Chip MacGregor (http://chipmacgregor.typepad.com/) and Greg Johnson (http://www.wordserveliterary.com/aboutgreg.html).