Do Your Research. It’s among the top rules/tips for getting an agent, along with Follow Submission Guidelines, and Never Handwrite Anything. Excellent advice in theory, but sometimes impossible in practice. It’s amazing how many literary agents have an online presence of next to nil. Sure there are the big guns, such as Nathan Bransford and Kristin Nelson, who blog, tweet, offer advice, and have done numerous interviews. But many agents have nothing more then the blurb on their agency’s site and a page at Publishers Marketplace, if that. So you dig deeper, until you’re on page twenty of Google, browsing through links titled “All-Mercury News basketball teams dating back to 1960″ or “Heaven’s Nursery – SIDS Families.”

I’ve found research to be much more productive, and less time consuming, if I begin with something solid and work backward – an interview instead of just a name. To this end, I’ve complied a list of sites that offer interviews.

(More links and interviews after the jump)