Dream Agent

I hesitate to call this blog post what I am. I’ve heard many writers use this phrase and I’ve read posts about those that sign with their dream agents. The last time I queried, I didn’t give much thought to my dream agent. There were some agents that I loved, some that I liked, some that I wished I could find out more about, but there was never that one that I wanted more than any others.

When one of my critique partners started emailing me about her dream agent, I had to ask her who it was. She emailed me the name and I got to researching. Turns out, her dream agent sounds perfect for her manuscript for so many reasons that I can’t put here. I could see my CP and that agent sitting down together, cups of coffee in their hands, talking for hours on end. I can picture that agent loving my CP’s MS. Does that mean my CP will get her dream agent? I don’t know. I hope so. Still, it’s got me thinking.

I haven’t started researching agents for my newest MS so I don’t know how many agents out there might sound perfect for it, but often I think that I don’t have a dream agent. I’ve queried on and off for years with two different books and haven’t had an overwhelming success (obviously, since I’m not represented/published). There are some days where I think that any agent who likes my MS and wants to represent me would be amazing.

Part of my problem is that every time I research an agent, I think that agent could be THE ONE. She likes to do this or he’s a fan of that TV show or this sports team. She’s represented these books that I love or he says that he’s actively seeking what sounds exactly like my MS. This is good for me because I’m never crushed when I get a rejection. (Okay, that might be a little lie—I’m always some degree of crushed when I get a rejection. What writer isn’t?) It’s also good for me because it means I never fail to find some personal note to put in the query that’ll hopefully attract the agent’s attention. Of course, it’s also bad because it means there’s never that one agent that I can call my dream agent.

I feel like it’s expected that every writer has a dream agent. For you writers reading this, is it expected that you have a dream agent? Do you? What does it mean if I don’t? What if I’m going to be so thrilled when any agent represents me that it won’t matter if I’d pegged him/her as my dream agent from the start?

I’m saying all this before I’ve researched YA science fiction agents. There could be one agent that I want more than any others…but what happens when that agent rejects me? How do writers feel when their dream agents don’t want their books? What if they queried those agents first? Where does that leave them? I’ve never read posts about the writers that get rejected by their dream agents so I don’t know the answers to any of these questions—I’m just putting them out there.

I have no answers in general about the dream agent idea, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep thinking about it as I get closer and closer to polishing my MS and to the time when I’ll query. Who knows—maybe I’ll find a dream agent and that agent will want to represent me.