Jennifer March Soloway is an Associate Agent at the reputable Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
In this interview:
- How to pitch your story to an Agent.
- What’s a query letter? …and how to write one.
- Why it’s important to keep revising, rewriting and resubmitting your story.
- What is the Big Sur Writing Workshop? …and why you should go.
- What do a Toy Inventor Liaison and a Literary Agent have in common?
Listen to ‘Stories Unbound’ Episode 17:
Awesome Links:
Connect with Jennifer on Twitter
Connect with Shawna on Twitter
Music by Ryan Keith and Wes Cepin
Learn More:
Building Your Kidlit Career: Agents
What Do You Think?
Jennifer talked about how her job as a Toy Inventor Liaison was a stepping stone in helping her become a literary agent.
Have you ever done work or learned a skill that seemed totally unrelated to writing or illustrating, but ended up helping you make better art and stories?
Tell us about it in the comments below!
Wow, what a great show!!! I wish she represented illustrated novels because she sounds great to work with. If my current agent doesn’t work out, I’ll definitely reach out to their agency.
The workshop sounds great! Are you going to go do it, Shawna?
A bit of news: I’m now on chapter 3 of writing my (fully outlined and re-outlined) next book. It’s always exciting to flesh out a rough draft. I’ve also been sketching a lot to discover the many character designs.
Anyways, great episode and I can’t wait for the second part.
Hi Scott,
I have a feeling that Jennifer or one of the other agents at Andrea Brown Literary Agency definitely would represent illustrated novels. If it falls in the category of Chapter book, Middle Grade Novel or YA, I think they could represent it for sure if it’s a story and genre they are interested in. You should definitely look into their agency if your current agent doesn’t work out. They are a fabulous agency!
I would LOVE to go to the Big Sur workshop for sure. It really does sound amazing. I’m going to look into it if circumstances allow. You should look into it too! The price is really great for them providing the amazing workshop and all the food and lodging and everything.
So exciting to hear about your book! Keep up the good work!
Hi Scott,
I would LOVE to represent an illustrated novel. I am actively seeking clients and would be thrilled to receive more submissions from author/illustrators!
Best,
Jennifer
Sounds great! I will seriously consider it. I think you sound wonderful to work with. Here’s a link my last illustrated novel:
https://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-Ink-Scott-Wiser/dp/0986355801/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1486597744&sr=8-2&keywords=Vanishing+Ink
I can send you one if you’d like. 😀
That Big Sur writing workshop sounds awesome! But it sounds like it’s more for novel or chapter book authors. Anything there for picture book authors (or author-illustrators?)
SarahLuAnn-
I’m pretty sure Big Sur is for Picture Book Authors too. It sounds like they divide everyone up in groups according to their genres. So they would have a picture book group as well as Middle Grade and YA. Jennifer can confirm this, but that’s what it sounds like to me.
I hope that is the case, because if so I would really consider going. There may be an illustrated novel in me someday, but right now all my ideas are for picture books! I feel like maybe it has to do with where I am in motherhood. Right now I’m reading my baby picture books, so thats whats on the brain. As she gets older (and has siblings…) I think I may become more interested in other areas of kid lit.
Oh yes, in the website it talks about bringing picture book manuscripts. So there you go! Here’s the link to the next workshop coming up in September: http://bigsuroncapecod.com/
Picture books are my favorite! 😀
Hi SarahLuAnn,
We get many picture book authors and author/illustrators at the Big Sur Workshop every year, and we usually have picture book editors, who serve as workshop leaders. For example, Melissa Manlove from Chronicle Books and Sylvie Frank from Simon & Schuster were both on faculty this past December.
I hope to see you at a future Big Sur workshop!
Best,
Jennifer
What a lovely and informative interview. Thank you for sharing! Jennifer sounds like she’d be a wonderful agent to work with.
I found out about the Big Sur Writing Workshop in December so it was too late for that session but I’m hoping next year to apply. It was nice to learn more about what the workshop entails.
To answer your question at the end of the interview…. I always felt that becoming an author or illustrator was out of my reach, a dream meant for someone else. Then, during my final year of undergrad I took a “just for fun” class on kid lit. I loved it! I knew it had to be part of my life. Fast forward five years and here I am, learning all I can in hopes of creating work that children (and adults!) will cherish.
Thanks again for the interview! Can’t wait to listen to part 2!
Hi Kathryn,
Our agency is offering two children’s writing workshops this year: one in December in Big Sur, California, and one in Cape Cod, MA this coming September. I will be at both workshops.
Here’s the link: http://bigsuroncapecod.com/
If you come to either workshop, please come introduce yourself and say hello. I hope to meet you!
Best,
Jennifer
Hi Kathryn,
I hope you can make it to a Big Sur Workshop. It definitely sounds fabulous!
That’s great to hear that just by taking one little class just for fun, it actually ended up changing the course of your career and what you wanted to do. I’m glad you’re on the kidlit path now. Best wishes with your journey!
Hi Shawna,
Great show! I always enjoy listening to your podcast, Stories Unbound! Thank you for your effort and time producing it.
Your guest, agent Jennifer Soloway at Andrea Brown Literary, was very informative and thorough about the specifics of acceptable querying. I am discovering that each literary agency has a different submission process and I wonder if it’s a disadvantage to a PB author/illustrators with a book dummy when agencies only request a PB manuscript? Do you think they would be interested in seeing how an artist interprets his/her story through illustrations? It’s great to hear that Andrea Brown does accept PB dummies.
What is your preference?
Also, how polished should the dummy sketches be? I usually include two finished samples and loose sketches that give a general idea of the sequence of the story and characters, but not too polished because it will inevitably be revised, if accepted. Thanks for your help! Annie
HI Annie,
I am actively seeking author/illustrator clients, and I am definitely interested in seeing how an illustrator tells the story via art. Although our guidelines ask for the complete picture book manuscript text in the body of the email, if you have a book dummy, please feel free to include the dummy as a PDF attachment, along with two or three jpegs of finished illustrations.
Please consider querying me. I’d love to see your work.
Best,
Jennifer
Hi Annie,
Yeah, I don’t like it when agents only want the manuscript and not the full dummy book, because I show so much of my story in the pictures. If they only want to see a manuscript, I usually find a way to tell them that I would like to send a full dummy book as well. For the most part, I find that most agencies, at least the ones I would like to be represented by, will let you send a full picture book dummy.
The sketches in my dummy books are actually pretty polished before I send them out. I revise the drawings a lot, just like I revise the story before I send it out. I like to have the compositions all laid out just how I want them to be in sketch form. I also like to finish a couple of the paintings. When I did this with Brunhilda, my agent at the time suggested a couple changes in the illustrations. So I had to fix a couple of the pages before we sent it out to publishers. And then when we sent it to the publisher I had to tweak a couple things, but for the most part, I was able to use my finished sketches for my finals. So my preference is to have things pretty polished before I send it out. But I know other people who like to send pretty rough sketches. For me it saves time to have things more polished early on in the process.
I hope that helps!
Thank you so much, Shawna.
Thank you for the invitation to query…I did!
Regards,
AnnieZ
I really enjoy this first part of this interview, I can”t wait to hear the second part. Thank you @Shawna and also thank you @Jennifer to shared your experience and all the recommendations because they will be very usefull now and in future.
Hi Miscy,
So glad you enjoyed the episode! Thanks for all your support. I hope this information is helpful to you now and in the future for sure!
Hey,
Brilliant show and so useful, thank you. In answer to the question at the bottom of the page- I actually started working at my local library while I was still at school and I never imagined how much it would influence where I am now…10 years on and I’m still there and …
I also have a question- I live in the UK and I have a feeling that for practical and publishing reasons I should stick to approaching UK based agents, but the number of agents looking for picture book author/illustrators (as opposed to either/or) is comparatively small and I’ve seen so many US agents that I would love to apply to, but don’t know whether I can or should. Would you have any thoughts on this?
Gah, sorry just realised I hit post before I’d finished typing (it was late here, my brain definitely wasn’t working properly!)
Anyway, the first paragraph should have said that working in the library and being around so many picture books, just flicking through them when they came back and reading them to so many kids, I kind of picked up stuff I didn’t even realise I had, so when I started work on my current personal project (a children’s picture book) everything just fell into place.
Sorry just wanted to finish that post off and not leave it hanging!