Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream comes alive better at no other place in the book publishing industry than at a literary agency. It seems that just about every single agency is encouraging writers to submit multicultural projects, especially those with strong multicultural main characters. Why is that? Well, quite simply, it’s because that is what editors and publishers are constantly asking for and seeking.
You can see some examples of personalized query letters that landed my clients writing multicultural books an agent here: http://tinyurl.com/67f8hf4
I’ll tell you another reason. There are many advocates, both of color and not, who are adamant about increasing literacy for multicultural communities, and what better way to do that than to have novels starring multicultural plots and multicultural leads? These advocates are on your side, constantly pushing the industry to publish more and more multicultural books, making it a hot genre to get involved in right now. Not only will you be writing a highly sought after novel, but you’ll also be helping the multicultural community by writing novels featuring a strong lead.
That being said, you should keep a few things in mind. One is, if you’ve written what many would classify as the “urban novel,” please beware. About five years ago or so, nothing was hotter, but nowadays, there are only certain agencies looking for a novel like that. Thing change, though. Since then, the market has become oversaturated with self-published, sloppily edited & written versions of those bad direct-to-video ghetto movies that they couldn’t give away at Blockbuster. Urban novels jus aren’t where it’s at these days.
Write the perfect query letter for your multicultural novel by visiting some examples at: http://tinyurl.com/67f8hf4
What agents seeks now are mainstream novels that just happen o have people of color as the protagonist. A witty sidekick is nice, but a strong lead character, like Lauren in Alisa Valdes-Rodriquez’s Dirty Girls Social Club, is even better. So do some research. Read books that feature a strong lead character of color that have been highly successful to get a feel for the kind of material that agents and publishers are looking for these days and then put your own personal tough and twist on it.
Create a strong plot with strong characters who happen to be of color, and you’ll be one step closer to landing a literary agent with your Multicultural novel.
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