ThrillerFest

Read a sampling of the personal success stories of authors who connected with their new agents at AgentFest:

Mike Stewart

AgentFest 2011 wasn’t my first attempt to garner the attention of an agent. And, if I’m any measure, I’d bet many of the authors who attended tried for years before deciding to see if meeting agents face to face makes a difference. I’ve been writing for seven years. Graphic novels, novels, new media writing and in several genres. I’ve really committed. And submitted. Let me tell you, face to face DOES make all the difference.

Seven years ago most agents made me send in Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes with my snail-mail query letters—that’s right, I had to pay to get my form rejection.  As a Canadian author, just getting my hands on American stamps was a challenge.  Even after having several of my graphic novels published, success with HURAKAN selling to a great independent press, and doing new media work with a major publisher, I still couldn’t seem to get my book into the right hands. Read More

John Dixon

The first two said no.

They were both really cool about it, explaining they weren’t actually repping young adult titles anymore, and both offered referrals to agents who did rep YA. I jotted down the recommendations, thanked them, and moved on, turning once more to the daunting yet oh-so-exciting event that was AgentFest.

This was my first AgentFest—my first ThrillerFest, for that matter—and I’d come to New York with fairly humble hopes: if I could get one agent interested in seeing pages from my newly finished manuscript, a YA thriller I then called PHOENIX ISLAND and have since re-titled DISSIDENT, I’d count the experience a success.

But turning back to the room full of agents, editors, and hopeful writers, success seemed a long shot. I was 0 and 2 on the day. Gulp. Read More

Martha Pound Miller

Martha Pound Miller was born and raised on the Arizona desert. She married an architect, had three children and went on to become the Executive Director of the American Institute of Architects Society in Arizona for 20 years. Writing was always of primary interest but with a family and job, there was never time. Much later came retirement and a decision to move to the cool, wet Pacific Northwest where you could turn over almost any mossy rock and find a writer. Possibly a web-footed one. It does rain a lot in Portland where she lives, but rainy days are great for hunkering down by the fire and writing thrillers, so that’s what she did, running her stories through three critique groups and polishing them to the best of her ability. Each manuscript she wrote got a little stronger and she began to get more courageous about pitching them to agents. Read More

Mark Dapin

As a journalist and author, I am quite well known in the eastern states of Australia. This is a bit like being a household name in your own house. A couple of years ago, I wrote a thriller, King of the Cross, about the rise and (of course) fall of a Jewish gangster in Sydney. It won the Crime Writers of Australia’s Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction, I optioned the movie rights to a local producer, and assumed I’d quickly become internationally famous. But all that happened was I grew slightly better known in Western Australia.

Agents in the US showed no interest in my work, and didn’t even acknowledge my emails. I was complaining about this to Peter James, whom I met at a writers’ festival in Melbourne, and who had somehow become lost in a city built around one of the most logical gridding systems in the southern hemisphere. Read more

August McLaughlin

“So you’re going to fly across the country to one of the most expensive cities to attend a pricy conference? What if nothing happens?” a friend asked after I registered for AgentFest.

“I’m going. Something already is happening,” I replied, sensing that his skepticism was geared more toward his stay-in-Los Angeles plans than mine to attend.

I’d been to three other conferences since completing my novel, IN HER SHADOW. And although I benefited from every one, I’d met a grand total of twelve agents, several of whom did not represent thrillers. AgentFest provided an opportunity to “speed date” with rooms full of agents in my genre. (Can we say ‘heaven’???) Read more

A.J. Colucci

I’m a writer, not a salesperson. I’d rather work on my novel every day for a year than spend one hour writing query letters.

As it turns out, that’s about the ratio I set while writing my novel, THE COLONY. After working on the book for five years, I sent out a meager 26 letters and received seven flat-out rejections, 14 requests for manuscripts, five requests for rewrites . . .  and not one sale.

So two years ago, when a friend told me about AgentFest–it’s like speed dating with 40 top agents!–of course I signed up. Read more

Daniel Ames

At AgentFest, anything can happen.  Lives can change in less than three minutes.  When Daniel Ames met Scott Miller from Trident during AgentFest, he was staring at his dream agent.  Little did Dan know that shortly after ThrillerFest ended, he would sign with Scott.  Although things happened fast when Dan met Scott, it’s the preparation that Dan did beforehand that made his pitch sizzle.  Dan’s story is an excellent example of how honing your pitch can help you land the big fish! Read more

Ron and Richard Goulding

Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a doctor—combined forces in the 90s and decided to try their hand at writing novels.  They jokingly call themselves cavemen, as they started out using typewriters and long hand to record their imaginings, sending their work to each other via snail mail.  Then came the fax, which dramatically increased their speed of communication.  Word processing helped, but their computers wouldn’t sync with each other.  Still, nothing could stop their drive to create.  Ron wrote the legal aspects of the story, Rick wrote the medical sections.  This dynamic duo cross-checked everything to create a seamless novel and their efforts paid off.  Rick is here to share their success story of landing a dream agent! Read more

Graham Brown and Jamie Freveletti

Ironically, Graham Brown almost missed the Thrillerfest 2007 Agent luncheon. Thanks to a flight delay–on the red-eye, no less–he arrived late at JFK and made it to the Hyatt just as the event was about to begin. “I was completely wiped out at that point, and decided to skip the lunch. All I wanted was to check into my room and get some sleep.” Graham confessed. “But another attendee got in the elevator with me, and by the time the doors opened on the ballroom level he’d convinced me to go. So I sat at the very last table and met Barbara, who was not only listening to pitches but helping authors make them better. My first thought was, ‘This person had WAY too much coffee today.’ I proceeded to come up with the worst pitch of all time, which she politely listened to.” Read more

Boyd Morrison

Attending AgentFest can change your life. I know that sounds like some corny advertising promo, but it was literally true in my case. At the first AgentFest in 2007, agents met authors during the lunch session, with one agent at each table. Who you were sitting with was totally random. I was talking with author Jon Land at the time, and we were late to the lunch, so we sat at the very last table in the room, which was about six miles from the front. At that table was Irene Goodman, a very well-respected agent who has been in the business for 30 years. She had been representing primarily romance and non-fiction and was looking for thrillers to add to her portfolio.  Read more

.

AgentFest is designed to put authors and agents together for the purpose of pitching projects. This will be an unprecedented opportunity for those writers looking to get or change agents. And where better to have this event than in the heart of publishing, New York City?

AgentFest is set up like a speed-dating event. You pitch your novel to an agent for a few minutes, get the agent’s reaction, and then move on to a different agent.

Please note: AgentFest is available only in a package with CraftFest. There are no one-day passes for Wednesday or Thursday only. Registering for ThrillerFest alone does not qualify you to attend AgentFest.

Tips on pitching to an agent in person can be found here.