Tag Archives: new books

October 17, 2013 · 1:42 am

2013 so far a year to remember!

As you can tell I don’t post nearly enough blogs to answer questions that come through this website. And that’s because I lead a very busy life. Being an agent means shaking a few trees everyday and constantly keeping in touch with clients and publishers. If you don’t do that you don’t make deals which essentially means you aren’t paying rent this month!! Many people think the life of a literary agent means you make a whole lot of cash and dine in all the best restaurants. That is not accurate for non-agencies. Freelance literary agents like myself have to source clients all the time and go through a lot of hell when it comes to submissions. I opened up my page again this year to see what I would get in terms of people following the rule. And lo and behold people STILL don’t read. How do you expect publishers to read your work if you can’t? I received 4 pitches through the comment section. Guess what. I don’t read pitches when they aren’t submitted properly. And to emphasize this I recently gave an interview in Writers Digest. Here it is. READ IT

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/agent-advice-brian-j-wood-of-brian-j-wood-literary-agency

That being said, I have added some great books to my sold section so far this year including my own- Winter Walk and I will have a separate page for that little item. And no it’s not a sports book. It’s actually poetry. Very good poetry if I do say so myself. And NO I do not sell poetry to publishers for anyone so don’t send me poetry submissions.

However if you like poetry that is a little different, then here is a sample.

http://contraposition.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/and-can-it-be-by-brain-wood/

http://www.madswirl.com/content/poetryforum.html

http://contraposition.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/undercover-boss-by-brian-wood/

Oh yes, and I got married to my publicist Rachel Sentes- http://www.gal-fridaypublicity.com/  So that was pretty exciting. Here is a photo below- so yes it is a busy year.

July 27 2013 at the Beach House in Vancouver, B.C

July 27 2013 at the Beach House in Vancouver, B.C

So what am I doing right now? Well I’m currently in Toronto scoping out new projects and new book deals and meeting with publishers. So if you have something you think that I might be interested in looking at please follow the submission guidelines to the LETTER. ( Read link above again) and perhaps you will hear from me.

Advertisement

Leave a comment

Filed under Agent Services, publishing, Publishing strategies, Social media, Social network, Submission Guidelines, Twitter

Tagged as , , , ,

August 8, 2012 · 9:00 pm

What to do during the summer months

Well, I see it’s time for my yearly blog update. Summer is a quiet time in traditional publishing. For the most part, editors and publishers go on vacation like other business people do, and proposals and manuscripts sit quietly waiting to be read and discovered.  So for the month of July I usually work on proposals, sourcing new clients and I take a few days off to enjoy the sunny weather at the beach  in Vancouver. If you have a manuscript or proposal that you want to send out to an agent for representation, July is the month to do it. That’s when we have the most time to review work and when we are looking for the next big deal.

On that note I would like to reiterate my submission requirements because for some reason I keep getting people submitting to me in the comments section of this blog. If you do that it’s a big fat NO.  It’s really clear on my page  who you need to send your work to, and HOW you need to send it. If I can’t trust you to read that small part on this website, then what makes you think I could sell your book? And if I get one more submission with my name misspelled I am going to have to shut this sucker down. My name is BRIAN- B-R-I-A-N  not BRAIN- B-R-A-I-N. Do everyone a favour- throw out spellcheck and read your work manually for mistakes. If you have an error in the first line of your manuscript – I toss it!

Yes, that sounds cruel, but remember. Agents don’t get paid until they sell a book. And then it’s only 15% . We do a lot more behind the scenes than most people think. It’s not just pitching, selling and doing contract negotiations. We act as a mediator when problems come up, distributors when you need help getting your book in the stores or online, and yes, in some cases a therapist when you need some support.

So this summer polish up your manuscripts and proposals (make sure they are typo free) and then follow my submission guidelines. And who knows maybe we might work together in the future.

1 Comment

Filed under Agent Services, Facebook, Literary agent, publishing, Publishing strategies, Social media, Sport, Submission Guidelines, Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,