UK literary agents who specialise in science fiction and fantasy

Hi, I'm new to SFF Chronicles.

I just finally finished a draft of my novel that I'm satisfied with. I've only sent off to John Jarrold so far (no response). The slight worry I have with my story is that the first three chapters (which are the ones most often required by a prospective agent/publisher) are not representative of the book in general. The best explanation I could come up with is its like the Wizard of Oz, and the third chapter ends just before Dorothy actually wakes up in Oz (not sure which chapter Dorothy does go to Oz in, I've only seen the movie).

BTW the book I've written is not one of these Wizard of Oz/Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe type stories, but I feel you do need to read four chapters to get an adequate representation (which is why John Jarrold appealed to me as he asks for six).
 
Firstly, if you haven't had a response from John within a day to say he has it, there's a good chance it's been spammed (he has a pretty aggressive filter.) Certainly, he let me know when he received mine, recently, and gave me a good idea of turnaround time.

And then, I suppose, the age old question springs to mind - have you had it read by others? At least other writers, ones that you admire, and not just friends and family? I know it's a cliche, but I definitely sent mine out too soon the first time, and burned a lot of bridges with agents who I'm not able to query again.

Finally, does your query reflect the structure of the novel? Regardless of whether the first 3 chapters are different from the rest, they're the three you need to pull people in with, and if you're not sure they're doing that job - which it kind of sounds like you mightn't be - then they might need revised? It's just most agents will need to be hooked before chapter four - they really need to be at least interested in the first 1000 words (I'm being generous, btw) to read on.

Just some thoughts. Otherwise, John takes one of the largest samples of work. Most ask for either three chapters, ten pages, five pages, or just the query. Some don't read past the query if it doesn't hook. Depressing, isn't it? I'm turning into a right old Eeyore. :(

Oh, yeah, hi; welcome. :)
 
Hi not3bad, and welcome to chronicles. :)

As for the submissions process - it's always a good idea to submit a sample of your work to a critique group to shape things up, and then see if you can get an editor to look at them - find out what sort of errors you might need to correct.

It's usually easy to see pretty quickly the level of competence of the writer within a few paragraphs - if they show issues, no one is going to slog it out to read chapter after chapter, so the length of MS submitted isn't really an issue.

If JJ hasn't got back, and you think he hasn't got it, it's probably an idea to double check your quality as above - that way you're not wasting your time submitting something you're not happy with.

Of course, you could have submitted something top notch, but it may be helpful to check.

Hope that helps. :)
 
springs said:
Firstly, if you haven't had a response from John within a day to say he has it, there's a good chance it's been spammed (he has a pretty aggressive filter.) Certainly, he let me know when he received mine, recently, and gave me a good idea of turnaround time.
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Hello and welcome.

John took two weeks to reply to mine, but he did apologise for the delay.

I've just had a very helpful rejection from Meg Davis, Ki Agency.
 
Hi Springs, Brian, and prizzley, thanks for your responses. I have submitted my work to a manuscript editor who gave me some fairly positive comments. She was actually more worried about the ending than the beginning and advised me to sharpen it up a bit, which I have done.
 
I've sent my query to John Jarrold twice, from two different email addresses (not all at once, of course). He has never replied, not even when I emailed to see if he received the manuscript (as per his website). I've given up on him. :(
 
Has anyone tried the Agent Hunter website? Is it really too good to be true for £12 a year?
 
Zeno are "currently open for a short submissions window," since 26th June. They got back to me pretty quickly, ie within two weeks.
 
Well, it wouldn't be entirely shooting myself in the foot, since they're UK agents. I would just have to remember not to move there in the future. :)
 
prizzley said:
Has anyone tried the Agent Hunter website? Is it really too good to be true for £12 a year?
Click to expand...

My agent was slagging it off on Twitter for getting a lot of stuff wrong and not fixing it when a correction was sent
 
Just to say the literary rejections website have a lot of agents now and many of them do sff. (In fact, loads of agents rep it. If they don't actively say they're not looking for it, then they consider it. Limiting yourself to sff specialists really narrows the field.)
 
springs said:
Just to say the literary rejections website have a lot of agents now and many of them do sff. (In fact, loads of agents rep it. If they don't actively say they're not looking for it, then they consider it. Limiting yourself to sff specialists really narrows the field.)
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Yes, I've just made a list from Literary Rejections - 38 good candidate agents and 30 possibles (US and UK). I might post them up when I get a chance.
 
Don't forget about the AW list of SF/F agents - getting pretty long now
 
Hello,

I am new here and have been looking for an agent for my superhero sci book. It seams superheros are big news and with all the reboots my story is different. I wrote part 1 of 63,000 words and then wrote part 2 of 70,000 words. Part 3 is in a draft. I wrote my story so it could be easily made into a movie.

I sent out 20 about query letters and used a hook and even bated it. Some were rejected and some never answered. I have been looking through this site and there are a lot of interesting comments.. I will be looking at some Canadian sites to see if I have better success than than the USA agents.

If anyone has any ideas please send me a message.

Thanks for listening

Ralph
 
Um, I'd suggest you get to 30 posts and pop your opening up for honest critique, and hold off subbing more until you have that. Then, if there are quality concerns, you'd be able to address themselves.
 
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