An article entitled “Start Your Agent Search Here” by Chuck Sambuchino piqued my interest . Why? Many of the 38 literary agents actively looking for new clients listed young adult and middle grade fiction as areas of interest.  I created an Excel spread sheet to analysis the information.

Results

79 percent were interest in young adult submissions

68 percent were interested in middle grade fiction submissions

21 percent were interested in new age fiction submissions

21 percent were not interest in children’s books at all

Wow! My conclusion is young adult and middle grade fiction is “hot” and new age books are finding their audience.

Beta Readers

There is another good article in the October issue about beta readers by Amy Sue Nathan. A beta reader is someone who will give you the feed back you ask for about your finished work.  They are not proof readers. But someone who has a strong interest in the genre and will read your entire manuscript not just pieces of it.