Zeno Literary Agency Ltd.

Thanks to all the Worldcon attendees who sent their stuff in during the recent submissions window. There was an interesting mix of fantasy, SF and horror, along with a smattering of YA material thrown in for good measure and it was really great to get acquainted with all the current trends in the Aussie genre scene.

I’m really grateful to everyone who contacted us and will be happy to chat through my comments if you come and say “Hi” in Melbourne. Do note though, that we received lots of submissions and so don’t be insulted if I ask you to remind me which one was yours!

I don’t yet have a confirmed schedule of my programme commitments, but all being well they’ll be posted on here before I leave for Australia, so you’ll know where to find me at the con.

Are you going to be at the Melbourne Worldcon in September? Are you an unagented author based in either Australia or New Zealand who will be attending? Are you an unagented author from somewhere else, but somehow independently wealthy enough to be going to the con? In either case, are you any good??

It’s looking increasingly likely that I’ll be attending Aussiecon 4 later in the year – volcanic ash permitting! My intention, having schlepped all that way, is to return with the pick of genre talent in my agently pocket, thus we’ve decided to open for submissions, but only for authors who will be attending the con. (Don’t try and hoodwink me – as I’ll be checking the membership roster to see if you’re on it! If you’re not going to be at Worldcon, your submission will not be considered in this window.)

What am I looking for? Well, all areas of genre fiction basically. That means SF, Fantasy and Horror and the various combinations/permutations thereof. As always, the salient factor is that of the excellence of the writing and the commercial hook, rather than how many rockets or wizards or ghosts appear in the story, so look to our Submission Guidelines and the About Zeno page to gauge our tastes.

Come on Australia and NZ – let’s see what you’ve got!

It’s entirely possible that we’ll be opening for submission at some point soon, so anyone considering sending stuff in to us should be sure to take careful note of our Submission Guidelines. We get so many queries – almost simultaneously – when we open the gates, that authors would be wise not to count themselves out by simple errors of formatting and suchlike.

I just recently came across this post – The Top 10 Query Mistakes – as posted on the blog of US agent Rachelle Gardner. Read and learn, people.

I’ve added Rachelle’s Web Site to our Resources page under the ‘Agents Who Blog’ heading. If anyone has a writer’s resource they feel should be on our resources page, so please le me know via the comments.

Thanks to everyone who sent their submissions in to us during the recent “open” window. Not so much thanks to those out there who did so blindly, without bothering to read our specific submission guidelines! If you’re wondering why we passed on your particular offering it may just be becuase you didn’t send in what we asked for.

We’ve got enough reading to keep us busy for some weeks now and want to give proper consideration to those manuscripts we’ve asked to see – so we’re closed again until further notice. We’re still particularly interested in YA and tradtional crime type  stuff, so when we do get round to re-opening (not before please!), that’s what we’ll be looking for.

We’ve tentatively opened up once more for submissions – and I’ve not the faintest idea how long we’ll be able to remain thus. I fully expect the usual deluge and once my mailbox looks like it’s about to burst, I generally close knowing that I’ve enough material to keep me going for a good few weeks! If not months!!

I’m really hoping to come across some great YA material during this round of submissions  – this is a market that continues to flourish and publishers are hungry for quality material to add to their lists. I’d also like to get some thrillers and crime stuff in as these markets remain buoyant in the recession, with folks wanting to escape from the daily grind by reading of either the adventures or the woes of others! Whatever the reason, there are publishers looking for books in all these areas.

Of course we remain committed to genre fiction, but with the caveat that we will only consider material of the absolute highest quality- so if you’re sending in science fiction or fantasy, be very conscientious about not giving us any reason to reject your work – this generally means getting your enquiry right for starters. Read our Submission Guidelines.

Finally we also interested in serious non-fiction – take a look at our client list to get a clear idea of what we mean by this. We handle work by Iain Sinclair, Mark Adkin, Tobias Capwell, Andrew Hodges, Sir Roger Penrose, Rachel Lichstenstein &etc.

Thanks to all who sent in their fantasy novel submissions during the recent brief window of opportunity. We opened for a exactly a week and received just under fifty fantasy submissions. Of those fifty I have called for maybe eight samples (which I’m now working through) and so far have only requested one full manuscript. Tough odds, huh?

Interestingly, I was surprised at how few of the submissions we received fell into the area I’m looking for – **and specifically requested**. Not a single submission hit the nail exactly in the head (as outlined in my previous post) – which is worrying. There was also a disproportionately high number (I’d say about 80%!) of stories that centered on angels, or some sort of fight between angels and demons, or a conflict between heaven and hell. This a kickback from the urban fantasy trend which shows no sign of abating – but my feeling is that the market is already saturated with this stuff as it is – and publishers are currently buying up books for publication in 2011 and 2012 when it will be even more saturated. I may be wrong, but at some point the bottom will drop out of the market for this type of fiction and – from what I’ve seen this last week – they’ll be nothing to fill the gap!

Gimme something else, folks! But only when we re-open, please.

From our Submissions Guidlines page…

As of June 10th, we are currently ONLY looking at novels that fit comfortably into the fantasy genre. By this we mean traditional, high, heroic, dark, historical, or urban. Do some research if you don’t know what these subdivisions are.

Carefully note that we’re not looking for anything that attempts to redefine the genre or reinvent the wheel. Nor do we want derivative rehashes of your favourite Sword and Sorcery stories. Be aware that the tale of the great quest to recover the ancient, lost ring of hochty-mochty and thus bring harmony to the warring dwarf kingdoms is extremely unlikely to excite.

In short we want intelligent and commercial fantasy fiction. Need examples? Look at some of the recent market leaders, both in critical and commercial terms… THE FIRST LAW TRILOGY by Joe Abercrombie, Brent Week’s NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY, Patrick Rothfuss’s THE NAME OF THE WIND, Brandon Sanderson’s MISTBORN sequence, Peter Brett’s THE PAINTED MAN, Steven Erikson’s THE MALAZAN BOOKS OF THE FALLEN  – all of these are excellent examples of what I want to see … and if you’ve not heard of any of these, don’t bother contacting us! Note no mention here of classics like Tolkien, Brooks, Donaldson or even GRRM. We are looking for submissions from folks familiar with the current, cutting edge of market. So, if yours is the next name on this stellar list of fantasy talent, drop us a line.

… why we are still closed for submissions, or why we’re taking so long to get through stuff sent in before we closed, take a good, hard look at this article by Shawn Speakman entitled The Busy Agent that appeared on Suvudu today!

For the time being, we’ve closed the door to unsolicited submissions.  Since our formal announcement of the company back at the end of November 08, we been absolutely swamped with submissions, receiving far more than we can comfortably handle.  Once we’ve cleared the back-log, we’ll post a status update here and welcome your queries.

Note that while we’re closed, this status will be reflected on our Submission Guidelines Page. Please note that if you send anything in during this time, it’ll just get binned!