Anyone know where I can find a literary agent specializing in Afro-American works (besides 1st writer.com)?

Question

Someone open to unpublished writers is preferred.
It is a novel about the birth of Capoeira.

Answer 1

Getting a literary agent is best (if you get a good one, someone with a positive track record)

For one, agents can get you a better deal than just going straight to a publisher.

Two, most of the bigger publishing houses only deal with writers represented by agents

Three, literary agents do the paper work, figure out contracts, etc

Four, a good literary agent will edit your work so that it is the best it can be before selling it to a publisher, they usually have insiders view on which editors will best like your writing voice, style, etc.

And of course, if yours is a great book (ie, highly marketable) a literary agent can help conduct an auction, this is where publishers bid to publish your books and can mean $$$$$$$!

With that, how about looking for agents and who represents what:

http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubagent.htm

For a list of agents, you can also try this:
http://shalladeguzman.com/ShallaAgentList.php

(this has links to AAR, Agent Query, etc)

Finally, you can check out Publishers Marketplace:

http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/

They track which African American books (or other types) sold, for how much and which literary agent represented it, etc.

Good luck,

Shalla

Answer 2

Best thing to do would be to go to your library, look at or check out a variety of Afro-American books in the same vein yours is in (historical fiction, it sounds like), and take down the information about the publishers. You can then look up the publishers online - some have guidelines on their websites about how to submit manuscripts.

Since you're looking for "niche" publishing (African-American literature is a large niche, but a niche nonetheless), there are more likely to be small publishers out there who will read unsolicited manuscripts. You probably don't need a literary agent, unless you happen to be famous and are writing under a pseudonym or something :-)

Answer 3

I find agents overrated; how about doing it yourself? Writer's Market, Writer's Digest, Literary Market Place and Writer's Handbook all are great resources that provide info on how publishing companies accept manuscripts, what manuscripts they want, and their policy on unestablished and unsolicited writers. These books are published each year and can be bought for $21 each, but you can go to your library and look at them, and copy the pages you want for about ten cents. One more thing; if the book is more than a year old, then it's outdated and not worth using.