We are actively signing new clients every year and are open to writers from all stages of their career.
Because of the large volume of email we receive we will not respond to your email unless interested. If you do not hear back from us after eight weeks from sending your submission, you can safely assume that we are not interested in that project. You may submit to us again if you have a new project you think might interest us, but please do not submit the same project to us multiple times, and please do not submit more than one project at a time or to multiple agents at the same time.
What we are looking for:
We work with all kinds of commercial fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, thrillers and mysteries, romance, children’s women’s fiction and general fiction. We are interested in literary fiction with a very strong narrative hook.
We are also interested in trade non-fiction in a variety of topics. We are interested in writers who have a unique and thorough perspective on their topic. We are interested in current affairs, history, health, science, psychology, cookbooks, spirituality, pop-culture, adventure, and true crime.. We are also open to reviewing other genres and topics, as long as they are written for a general audience and not scholarly.
For a more detailed look at what our agents represent, please visit the our Agents page.
We do not represent screenplays, poetry or short stories.
How to submit:
All submissions should be sent electronically by email to agent@ethanellenberg.com. Please indicate which agent you are submitting to in the subject line along with your manuscripts title and genre.
All materials should be pasted into the body of the email. We will not open attachments. Please follow the below guidelines for what to include in your submission.
Fiction:
Query letter
1-2 Page Synopsis
First 50 pages of the manuscript
Non-Fiction:
Query letter
Proposed outline
Sample Chapters (up to 50 pages).
Illustrators:
Query Letter
4-5 Sample illustrations pasted into the email
FAQ—
Who will review my query?
If you send your query addressed to a specific agent, they will be the one to review your material. We do not hire anyone to review on our behalf. Because of this, our response time can be longer than we hope, but please be assured that your query will reach the agent you send to. For a better look at what our agents work with, please view the Agent Bios(link) page. If you do not address it to a particular agent your query will be ready by whoever has the availability to review when it comes in. That being said, we are a collaborative agency and if we think the project is better suited to another agent we will pass that along internally.
Why don’t you accept mail submissions?
While we have accepted mail submissions in the past, unfortunately we can no longer handle the volume or facilitate the return to authors. We urge you to submit to us by email, any submissions mailed to our office will be discarded unread.
May I follow up on my submission?
You may follow up on your query if you have relevant information that we need to know to asses the query, which includes an offer of representation from another agency or an award or other recognition. If we have requested your full manuscript you can follow up on the status. To follow up no either please email us. For a query if eight weeks has passed you can assume it is a pass from us. We ask that you do not call our agency to ask about the status of a query. Because of the volume we receive we are unable to track them individually.
Why do you insist on a query letter in addition to a synopsis and sample material? Shouldn’t one or the other suffice?
Your query letter should be an introduction to your sample material. Reading sample material without a query letter is akin to reading a book with its jacket removed. Without information on the author, or the length, genre, and intended readership of the work it’s difficult to evaluate whether you’re an ideal candidate for representation. If we don’t know who you are or what you’re trying to accomplish with your work, it’s difficult to judge whether you’re succeeding or not. Likewise, we can’t tell if your work is well written merely by reading your query letter, so we appreciate the opportunity to read the first fifty pages of your manuscript. The synopsis is used as a guide to determine where the plot goes after those fifty pages are up, and whether it is wise to request the entire manuscript. Sending all three together affords you the best possible opportunity to become our client, because it presents us with all the information necessary to entice us to read further.
May I provide a link to my website in my email submission?
Yes, you may, provided your link is not a substitute for the sample material, which should be included in the body of your email. Any linked material should be a supplement to, not a replacement for, your submission material. For illustrators, we understand that portfolios are often presented online. If you have an online portfolio you may link to it, but please provide us with the requested sample images pasted into the body of your email in addition. For authors, we’d prefer to read your sample material in the body of your email rather than be directed to read it from your website.
Why don’t you accept short stories, screenplays, or poetry?
Our primary interest is in book-length works of fiction and non-fiction intended for trade publication. While we enjoy poetry and short-stories, the compensation for magazine and journal publication is too low to justify our interest, and most publications do not require one to have an agent in order to submit, so we leave this arena up to individual authors. Collections of short-stories and poetry are difficult to market to publishers, so we generally avoid taking on new clients based upon these works. As for screenplays, while we often negotiate film rights on behalf of our clients, our business is exclusively dedicated to print publication, and we do not have the requisite experience to shop screenplays. If you have a screenplay or stage-play, we would recommend seeking a dramatic or film agent instead. The Writer’s Guild has a resource for film and television writers seeking representation here.