If you’d love to keep 88 Cups of Tea going strong, please consider supporting us through our Patreon membership. We added EARLY ACCESS TO INTERVIEWS for our Super Storyteller patrons in the $8.88 tier. Your kind support at any of our tiers is so helpful. A heartfelt thank you in advance. https://www.patreon.com/88cupsoftea  ----------------- Where does a literary agent find new author clients? What are specific examples of query letters that really catch an agent's attention? We get into all of that (and so much more) with today’s special guest: Eric Smith. He’s an author, blogger, podcaster, and literary agent for P.S. Literary. As an author, his first humor book, The Geek's Guide to Dating, was an Amazon 2013 Best Book of the Year selection in Humor, as well as a Best of the Year pick by PopSugar and Wired's GeekDad. He’s also the author of the young adult novels “Inked” and its sequel “Branded”. Eric’s newest Young Adult novel “The Girl and the Grove” was just released this month. You know I love picking our guests' brains, and I give Eric a million and one brownie points for being so transparent, genuine, and generous during our conversation. Say 'Hi' to Eric on Twitter and be sure to head over to his shownotes page. There's a downloadable PDF featuring a query letter guide where I compiled notes, transcriptions of examples, and quotes to help ease your querying process. Be sure to download the guide by heading over to his shownotes page and scrolling to the bottom of the page. Click here! Get ready to dive into the nitty-gritty and happy listening! Xo, Yin PS. Do you know anyone who would love our conversation? Please share this episode to help spread the word! --- If you got some awesome takeaways from this episode and would love to show your appreciation, the best way would be through any of the following:  • Grab our story idea prompts  • Contribute tokens of love • Sign up to receive email updates about 88 Cups of Tea • Subscribe to us on iTunes and leave a rating and a review • Tell your friends about our podcast and why you believe it would benefit them We dedicate a ton of heart and soul into fostering a space that encourages learning, creativity, growth, and community. The most sincerest thank you for your love and support!  --- Meet fellow members in our community and check in about your work-in-progress, and join in on other bookish talks and 88 Cups of Tea related things, join our private Facebook group! You can really feel the love and support in our community. You also get the opportunity to submit your questions for upcoming guests on the show. Click here to join our private Facebook group! --- Have you checked out our archive of episodes by yet? ---  “The way you promote yourself is the way you promote other people.”  -Eric Smith   --- WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN TODAY'S EPISODE:  Flashback: Eric’s earliest memory of when he first fell in love with storytelling [6:00] The light-bulb moment when Eric discovered his immediate connection to the YA voice and audience [11:23] How his job at Quirk Books led to his first book deal for “The Geek’s Guide to Dating” [12:43] How to approach opportunities working in different areas of the literary world [13:41] Is it necessary for our listeners to build a digital platform for ourselves? [15:06] Fun random side note in the episode: We talk about my big road trip move from California to New York and how we were hearing about each other through the community meetups in Chicago and Ann Arbor! [17:34] What prompted Eric to look into being a literary agent [19:05] Cameo featuring the one and only Auggie [19:50] Eric’s early days as a literary agent, learning how to negotiate for his authors, and how negotiations are made [21:37] Where Eric finds new author clients to bring on [23:26] What kinds of stories attract him most when bringing on new representation [24:55] Example of a great hook used to describe a novel to editors [30:39] Eric unpacks the “hook, book, cook” idea of wri