It's Tuesday already?

Yeah, we um, missed Monday. It was Sunday. And now it's Tuesday. Whoops. (no, drugs were not involved. just families and kids and movies and sunshine)

July and December are heavily rumored to be the slowest months in agenting/publishing. Neither of us are actively querying right now - we both have completed mss that we enter in the occasional contest or query with the occasional agent/editor, but we're concentrating on completing our WIPs by the end of the summer for now. (yeah, we know - we said we'd be done by the end of June. it's nice to have goals...making them happen is a whole different story sometimes! but if you're an agent, don't worry - we'd totally make any deadlines you give us!)

How about you guys? Any July progress on querying or submitting? Are you planning on it yet this summer? We love success stories! Here are some of my (erica's) favorite places to research agents - share yours in the comments and I'll add them:

Query Tracker is an absolute must for any writer. Their database is full of agents you can sort by genre if you're generating a list of potentials, but also more specific information (including a comments section) on specific agents. I do all my, well, query tracking right from their site so I know who I've queried and what their response was. They also have a forums area and their own blog (shout-out to Stina, who contributes to their blog).

Agent Query is another helpful database that includes a little more detail for each agent than Query Tracker does, like their special interests/wants and recent deals from Publisher's Marketplace.

Preditors and Editors is your go-to source for finding out if an agent/publisher is legit. Have someone who contacted you about your work. Check here first!!

Absolute Write water cooler has a lot of topics - you could seriously get lost in there. I like the "Bewares and Recommendations" thread - lots of reader-supplied information on agents and publishers, including turnaround time and examples of responses/form/non-form letters.

Krista V.  has done quite a few agent interviews. Check out her "interview with an agent" tab for a list.

Literary Rambles does the research for you - tons of information on tons of agents (primarily for YA/MG)

Middle Grade Ninja interviews agents for MG authors (most of which will also take YA/children's). The list is on his sidebar (and beneath that is a list of author interviews).

Guide to Literary Agents is chock-full of information helpful to any writer. I especially like his new-agent interviews, which you can find on his sidebar as New Agent alert, although you'll find many other helpful labels there, too.

Happy Monday Tuesday! And Good Luck!