Agent Interview: Eva Scalzo

Diverse voices in fiction

Sarah Younger, Jessica Faust, Rebecca Podos, Eric Smith

Oh, this question isn't fair. I mean, obviously, my authors who I represent are particular favorites for many various reasons. But beyond that, it's just too hard to pick. I mean, I'm obsessed with Priscilla Oliveras. I adore Rachel Reid's m/m hockey romances. Allie Therin's magical Prohibition-Era series is a delight. Alexis Daria's Latinx romances just feed my soul. I just read Cat Sebastian's latest historical and am hungover from all the swooning. In YA, I just inhaled Tracy Wolff's Crave, and can't wait for the sequel. I'm currently reading Inciendary by Zoraida Cordova and it's so, so good. I loved Erin Hahn's You'd Be Mine and am looking forward to More than Maybe.

It's really hard to compare myself to other agents, because we work in silos and each have our own best practices that work best for us. There's no one right way to agent, there are lots of wrong ones, and I don't do those things. I have a great rapport with the authors I represent and that relationship building aspect is the cornerstone of our work together, it's how we pull together projects, submit them to editors, and get them published.

Read my submission guidelines, check out my MSWL, follow me on Twitter. And just make sure you've done your best to polish your query and your project, you want to make sure you're putting your best foot forward.

I like to see the quick one-line snapshot up at the top, so Title, genre, word count, and quick logline/comp. Then a two to three paragraph blurb--this is the key thing I'm looking at in the query, if this doesn't grab my interest then I'm very likely to pass. Writing blurbs can be a challenge, but the key bits of info are: introduce your characters, explain the stakes/inciting incident, and broadly explain the conflict/plot. This is your back of the book copy that you want to make sure hooks me along with those opening pages. Then a quick bio/writing credits so I know a bit about you as an author/person.

I know it when I see it.

About the process? I guess they sometimes don't pay attention to how many chapters I request when looking at opening pages. It's three chapters. Just three.

I like a brief bio, but no need to send me a tome. I have some fun (optional) questions to lighten up the process and helps me get to know the authors outside of the standard query format.

On queries, I usually know pretty quickly. The blurb is the biggest sales point for me. On full requests, I don't always read to the end, but where I stop is more arbitrary. I don't have a set page count to read, I read until I know I'm going to pass on it.

We usually have a phone call to make sure we're a good fit. After the call, the author has to wrap things up on their end and make a choice. If they do choose me, then we work together to get started on edits/the submissions process to editors.

No day is standard. It depends on what projects I have on my desk and what things I need to prioritize. But there's usually some editing, reading, and answering emails. And texts and DMs.