Davis Wager Literary Agency

419 N. Larchmont Blvd., #317, Los Angeles CA 90004. Phone: (323)962-7741. E-mail: timothy@daviswager.com. Web site: www.daviswager.com/. Contact: Timothy Wager. Seeking new and established writers. Prior to his current position, Mr. Wager was with the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, where he worked as a reader and associate agent. Established: 2004. Represents: Nonfiction and fiction.

How to Contact: Query with SASE. Submit Author Bio, short synopsis for fiction, full book proposal and outline for nonfiction. Query via e-mail. No fax queries. Actively seeking: "literary fiction and general-interest nonfiction."

Q. I recently parted ways with my agent after a few years of representation. As I move forward, do I tell a prospective agent that I previously worked with another agent?  If I am fortunate enough to find another agent, do I send copies of the publishers' rejection letters so there won't be a duplication of effort?

A. "Absolutely, and you should be able to speak to what did and did not work in the relationship with your former agent. Candor is the best policy; it prevents most misunderstandings and can even lead to a more creative and productive agent/client relationship. Most agents will want to see where the work has been submitted. It is possible, depending on the agent's clout and access, that previous submissions won't matter to him or her."
      - William Clark, founder of Wm Clark Associates; printed from the 2007 edition of GLA.

Q. In a novel synopsis, how much should you go into detail about a character in terms of their backstory and past?  I want to keep my synopsis short, as you suggest, so I don't know how to approach this.
      - Angela

A. Simply because of length, you will need to keep backstory to a minimum. But info needs to be in there, sure.  Try and squeeze in as much as you can.  Start by combining sentences.  "Following an injury that derailed his hopes of playing professional football, Jack hit the bottle hard, and had trouble getting to all his dead-end jobs on time."  With this sentence, I'm trying to squeeze in lots of info.  You don't have to give the agents much more detail, because they know that detail is in the manuscript itself.
      This brings up another point.  Don't let your synopsis nor your pitch be bogged down with character names.  If you meet an agent in person and pitch her, throwing out all kinds of names in the pitch ("Sally," "Colonel Byrd," "Billy Bob," "Randolph Inky the Clown Guy," "Officer Shane Matthews") will more than likely leave her very confused.  Stick to the basics.  Use the name of the protagonist, the antagonist and the love interest in a pitch.  If a cab driver enters the story briefly, call him "the cab driver."  Don't say "Etienne, the French cab driver who's hard of hearing and loves a good joke."  Even that little unnecessary tangent can affect your pitch.
      Synopses are longer than pitches, so you have more time to mention characters, but avoid their proper names if you can.  What you want to avoid is an agent reading your synopsis and seeing a name, then backtracking to refamiliarize herself with who exactly this character is.

Reminder: Newer agencies are golden opportunities for new writers because they're likely building their client list; however, always make sure your work is as perfect as it can be before submitting, and only query agencies that are a great fit for your work. Otherwise, you're just wasting time and postage.

Max and Co., a Literary Agency and Social Club.

115 Hosea Ave., Cincinnati OH 45220. Phone: (201)704-2483. E-mail: mmurphy@maxlit.com. Web site: www.maxliterary.org. Contact: Michael Murphy. Seeking new and established writers. Prior to his current position, Mr. Murphy was with Queen Literary Agency. He has been in book publishing since 1981. His first 13 years were with Random House, where he was a vice president. Later, he ran William Morrow as their publisher, up until the company’s acquisition and merger into HarperCollins. Established: 2007. Nonfiction areas of interest: Humor/Satire, Memoirs, narrative nonfiction. Fiction areas of interest: literary.

How to Contact: E-queries preferred. Include brief synopsis, author bio and sample writing. Actively seeking: narrative nonfiction, memoir, literary fiction, humor, and visual books. Does not want to receive: genre fiction nor YA and children's books. Recent Sales: Down and Out on Murder Mile, by Tony O'Neill (HarperCollins);Family Sentence, by Jeanine Cornillot (Beacon Press); Hero of the Underground, by Jason Peter (St. Martin's); Familial Ground (Princeton Architectural).

Alice Pope, editor of Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market, has posted two incredibly awesome posts in the past week regarding a new literary agency: Greenhouse Literary, a new agency with a focus on children's/juvenile writing.

Post Number One: Submission info for Greenhouse Literary.

Post Number Two: An interview with Sarah Davies, agency founder.

Don't miss this great opportunity to learn more about a new agency!  Way to go, Alice!

Reminder: Newer agencies are golden opportunities for new writers because they're likely building their client list; however, always make sure your work is as perfect as it can be before submitting, and only query agencies that are a great fit for your work. Otherwise, you're just wasting time and postage.

Want more on children's writing?

• Examine Great High-Concept Hooks for Children's Books.
• New children's agent seeking submissions.
  
• How to write picture books for kids.
• Buy the kids writers' bible: the Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market.  
• Interview with kids agent Joe Monti of Barry Goldblatt Literary.
  
• Read a successful young adult query: "Wake" by Lisa McMann.
  
• Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.
  
• Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.
• Want the most complete database of agents and what genres they're looking for? Buy the 2010 Guide to Literary Agents today!

Recently, I've addressed a few questions about agents and submissions that have no definitive answer. (For example: Can you resubmit to an agent if you've retooled the work?)  Alas, today's topic is similar in the fact that the only true answer is that there is no true answer.

Q. Can you submit to multiple agents at one agency?

A. It all depends.  First of all, this question is most relevant when considering querying larger agencies.  Let's examine two big ones real quick: Writers House and Andrea Brown Literary.  Both have plenty of reps, and both have a firm rule that if one agent turns you down, you can't query the agency again - period. 
      Then there's FinePrint Literary (see Janet Reid interview below), where you can indeed query one agent if another one turns you down.  A simple way to know for sure is to simply call the agency's main line and hope someone picks up.  Anyone on the phone should be able to answer the question easily enough.
      In my mind, the overall answer to this question leans toward "no." I say this because agents, naturally, will pass on work to one another in the office if they think "I don't like this but maybe Cassie will," etc.  It doesn't make much sense to simply dismiss a query if they think a coworker may actually take it on.  The best hope you have is to write a strong query.  If the query is weak, then an agent may dismiss it quickly and forget its existence.  If the query is strong, an agent will recognize the good writing but acknowledge that perhaps the subject matter isn't their forte.  That's when a query can get passed around the office.
      Greg Dinkin of Venture Literary had this to say: "Yes, you should contact the other agent. However, you should definitely let the agent know about your previous dealings with the agency. Agents don't like surprises."
      Not the most thorough answer, but it's a question that needs to be addressed.  Anyone had personal experience with this?

Robert Brewer, one of the editors of WD's awesome poetry blog (Poetic Asides), is inviting writers to e-mail him poetry-related questions that he will answer on the blog.  Simply e-mail your questions to robert.brewer@fwpubs.com and put "Poetic Asides Poetry Question" in the e-mail title. Take advantage of this! Robert is a published poet who knows what he's talking about.

It's been too long since I mentioned Kevin Alexander's This Writer's Life blog, where he muses on writing, and basically just makes me laugh all day long.

In mere days, I'll be walking the hilly streets of San Francisco, and presenting at the San Francisco Writers Conference.  I will be speaking on how to get your freelancing career going, and how to write an awesome query letter.

Nob Hill in San Fran

Here is a good place to again mention other upcoming conferences where I'll be presenting. If you have a chance to make it out to one of these conferences, do so.  They are all top notch.

CNU Writers Conference, Newport News, VA, March 14-16

Northern Colorado Writers' Conference, Fort Collins, CO, April 4-5

League of Vermont Writers' Spring Session, Rutland, VT, April 19

Northeast Texas Writers' Organization Writers' Conference, Camp Shiloh, TX (northeast of Dallas), April 25-26

Writer's Digest Books Writers' Conference, Los Angeles, CA, May 28
      The granddaddy shindig of them all!  This conference takes place just before the huge trade book fair BookExpo America, so we always have a slew of amazing editors, agents and authors presenting and taking pitches.  Last year, we had 60 agents and editors at perhaps the biggest pitch slam of all time.

Agents and Editors Conference (Writers League of Texas), Austin, TX, June 20-22.

Reminder: Newer agencies are golden opportunities for new writers because they're likely building their client list; however, always make sure your work is as perfect as it can be before submitting, and only query agencies that are a great fit for your work. Otherwise, you're just wasting time and postage.

She's not exactly brand new, but I just learned that Pippin Properties has a new(er) agent: Samantha Cosentino, who joined the agency this past year. Samantha is one of three agents at the boutique agency.

Pippin is a smaller agency that focuses on children's writing. Like the agency's other reps, Samantha is interested in picture books, middle grade and young adult work. To submit, send a one-page query to her at info@pippinproperties.

Q: I have recently sent out query letters to a lot of agents and got some helpful advice, though the book I wrote wasn't for them. Now I am writing a new book and following the advice these agents had given me. My question is: Since I queried these agents already with one book, is it OK to query them with this new book? I'm sure I know the answer to this question already, but I didn't want to query them again after this new book is finished and they think I am being pushy. The thought "oh no not this guy again" comes to mind.
      - Will

A: Resubmitting is a strange thing.  I get a lot of questions about resubmitting the same work to an agent after it's reworked, but this question is unique in asking about a different project.
      You should be A-OK in submitting your second project. Just evaluate your submissions.  If several agents turned down Project 1 because it didn't suit their needs or wasn't where it needed to be writing-wise, etc., is Project 2 different enough and good enough not to suffer the same fate?
      Now, on to the more common question: Can you resubmit the same work to an agent?  Usually, you wouldn't want to, naturally, because the agent has already passed on it.  But the exception is those rare circumstances where the agent has passed on some concrete reasons as to why the work was denied.  Perhaps the agent's comments match the comments from your critique group.  You take the criticism to heart and retool the ms.  At that point, you could submit - and make sure to mention to the agent that you have completely rewritten the work, taking into account her previous advice.
      Crazily enough, The Buried Editor blog just blogged today about this exact same subject, and gave a very upfront response about resubmissions (that basically disagrees with this post). (Read the whole thing here.) To summarize, the post said that when she rejects a manuscript, she won't consider it again, even if all the personal advice she offered with the rejection, if any, is taken into account when the writer completely retools the work. 
      So the moral is: It depends on the agent.  Some may consider resubmissions.  Others won't.

Last week, I posted submission info on Will Entertainment. Before I knew it, Verla Kay's Web site, among others, picked up the news and spread it like wildfire. Garrett Hicks (of WE) must have gotten plenty of queries, because the next day he wrote and asked that I clarify how he is a "manager," not an "agent."

So this brings up the question: What is the difference?  First of all, you should know that both are legimitate.  I'm tempted to explain the details here, but an upcoming interview on the blog with literary/script manager Margery Walshaw of Evatopia will do the question more justice.  It's on the way...

In the meantime, check out an explanation of the difference between agents and managers on the Writers Store Web site.

Want more on this subject?

• See a profile of script agent Garrett Hicks of Will Entertainment.
• See an interview with script manager Ken Sherman of Ken Sherman Associates.
  
• Is there a difference between literary agents and script managers?
  
• Want a great database of script agents/managers, script contests, conferences and theaters? Buy the 2010 Screenwriter's & Playwright's Market today!
  
• Check out an interview with script manager Marc Manus.
  
• Confused about formatting? Check out Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript.
  
• Read about What Agents Hate: Chapter 1 Pet Peeves.