Here's me at a Society Of Authors meeting. You can't move for these recently. This was my third in a month. This, the Comic Creators branch, was done by Zoom, with me in a hotel room in Carnforth using the worst 4G signal imaginable. But I still managed to make a good contribution, feeding back on the Lakes Festival, from which I'd just returned, and sharing observations about applying for agents, about which more below.
The other SoA meetings have been our regular Monmouthshire group, which took place this time in Abergavenny, and Hev & my debut attendance at the Gloucestershire group, who met in Stroud. The Stroud meeting was particularly well attended because we had a talk from an agent. See, I knew we'd be mentioning them again.
Anthony Harwood was the agent who came to talk to us, and he had a lot of helpful things to tell us, about what an agent does and how to approach one. I don't think I really asked much myself, and since he's not someone who deals with graphic novels I didn't touch on that area. But the do's and don'ts of contacting and acquiring agents were very helpful.
So it was that, on Friday Sept 29th, in my hotel room in Bowness on Windermere, I contacted a slew of agents, sending them Richard The Third to look at. I have done this a couple of times before, most recently when I had Midsummer Night's Dream Team out, which I was quite proud of (here are the results of the UK agents mailed in Oct 2020, and here are the results of the mostly US agents emailed April 2020). Well, the old being-proud-of-my-new-book bug had bitten again so I contacted the following agents.
US: Writer's House, Seiss, Greenburger, CAT, Park Literary, New Leaf, Triada (but my email was blocked by them)
UK: Pew, Bent, Caroline Sheldon, PFD, Watson Little, United Agents, RCW, Ki, Soho Agency, Ampersand, Lit Agency, Sophie Hicks, Rocking Chair Books, Miles Tott, LBA, KHLA, Johnson & Alcock, Jo Unwin, Janklow, Holroyde Cartey, Hardman Swainson, Greene Heaton, Dorie Simmonds, Eddison Pearson, Darley Anderson, Christine Green, Bell-Lomax, Artellus, North Bank
As of Oct 10th I have 3 responses from agents. Two polite rejections, and one showing some interest. Let us see how that progresses.
Update: Monday Oct 16th. Whisper it, but I had a very interesting Zoom meeting this morning. Plenty can go wrong between now and whatever happens next, but for the moment... fingers crossed.
Thurs Oct 19th: Feeling very nervous that something will go wrong, having not heard from them since Monday. Let's face it, something always goes wrong.
Update from November: Here's the news I couldn't dare mention back in October, now made more official.
My Books and where to get them:
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) -
Amazon
