1. Use Publishers Marketplace
Publishers Marketplace is one of the most authoritative websites in the world of publishing news and updates. The site has archives on tens of thousands of book deals going back over close to two decades. For $10 you can get a 24 hour pass to search the site. You can also take out a membership at $25/month. This will give you access to:
- A comprehensive databases of agents, editors and deals.
- Daily listings of new book deals
- An archive of over 150,000 deals from almost 20 years.
- News from the publishing industry
- Track bestsellers
- Post rights news and offerings, where agents, editors, and other licensees can view your projects.
- Follow the rankings of any title at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as cross-check automatically against the major bestseller lists.
2. Use Manuscript Wish List
Manuscript Wish List is a free service that was started to make agents more accessible. Besides the website, they also have a podcast and online classes. You can follow their hashtag, #MSWL, on Twitter to keep up to date with posts on agents looking for specific types of manuscripts.
3. Use Query Tracker
Query Tracker is a free tool that lets you do very refined searches for the sort of agent you are looking for. It enables you to search a database of over 1,600 agents, to keep track of who you’ve sent a query to and to find out information on an agent’s typical response time, reply rate, number of positive responses vs negative responses they’ve given, etc. This data is collected from input by Query Tracker’s users, whom the site says number over 100,000.
