Is it time for writers to rethink attitudes about agents? (And, dare I suggest, agents rethink writers?)

I laughed a lot when I saw this photo from last week's Frankfurt Book Fair. With 7,300 exhibitors and almost 300K attendees at more than 3,000 events, I understand the need for organization, and I don't know if there was a special segregated potty for writers... but I doubt it. In any case (without even addressing the fact that the agent is assumed to be a man) the sign makes a pretty potent icon for the industry dynamic that's arisen in the last few decades.

When the advent of the home computer made the physical process of writing a book infinitely more achievable, a tsunami of aspiring writers started pursuing literary representation, which cast authors as beggars and agents as choosers, bringing about a massive shift in the power balance. I think indie publishing is now shifting power back toward authors - if authors are willing to grow a pair and do their own dirty work.

True or False?

Agents should champion books based on literary quality, not income potential.
True, in that perfect world where lions lie down with lambs and ice cream is an excellent source of calcium. I mean, yeah, but reality check that. Agents are supporting their families, just as writers are. And overall commercial success makes it possible for them to devote time to occasional windmill-tilting.

False, when it gets to the point that easy-selling crap completely trumps literary quality and gluts the market to the exclusion of the low to moderate (read "midlist") moneymakers, and that is the direction a lot of agents are going as the industry sphincter continues to tighten.

Agents are the best gatekeepers/tastemakers.
True, in that agents are (for the most part) educated, intelligent, bookish folk who do have insight into what readers want and what publishers will pay for.

False, in that marketability has become the primary (if not sole) criterion, not only for taking on new authors, but for strongly influencing the revision of manuscripts, and too many supplicant authors are willing to turn their backs on their own artistic vision in a desperate attempt to win that agency contract. ("What doth a man profit," Jesus asked, "if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul?") In a biz as capricious as publishing, you need intelligent guidance, but shared craft values and a common vision for the author's work are imperative.

Agents know more than authors about how to write books.
True, when the author is an amateur, in which case the author does not need an agent, the author needs a good critique group.

False, the rest of the time. A terrific agent excels in the art and craft of sales. A terrific author excels in the art and craft of writing. In that perfect lion-lays-down-with-ice-cream world, the two come together with mutual respect in an equal partnership that is peaceful and prosperous for all concerned.

Must end with my favorite Mitchell and Webb bit, which should be required viewing for any author before s/he rewrites based on agent input. (I know I've shown you this before, but it bears repeating. Or don't! Yeah?)

Both Sides Now: Is it kosher to submit directly to an editor?

Directing your attention to an interesting post over on Editorial Anonymous today: "To Boldly Give Advice No Man Has Given Before" weighs the realities and rhetoric behind the "no unagented submissions" policy.

FYI: Query Dos and Don'ts

You'd like to think that once you've been published, you'll never have to write another query letter, but Colleen and I both know better. You change agents, you do proposals, you have to pitch every project in one way or another. So there's something for everyone in this no nonsense list of Query Dos and Don'ts from literary agent Wendy Sherman:

DO...

Write a fabulous query letter

Tell us why you chose our agency

Tell us why this book has an audience, and why you're the one to write it

Include information about your credentials to write this book, publications and prizes, awards, and conferences

Know the competition and describe those titles

Tell us which well-known writer's work yours most clearly compares to

Keep your letter under two pages

You can include a double-spaced table of contents and overview (non-fiction)

You can include a double spaced 1st chapter (fiction)

Tell us if you are submitting to more than one agency

Always include a SASE

Please be sure to provide us with your email, phone number, and address.

Read the books on how to find an agent - there are several. There is much valuable information that will help you throughout this process.

DON'T...

Refer me to your website for a reading sample.

Tell me about all the agents who have turned you down

Call to see if we received the material

Send me a query for something I turned down before (even if you rewrote it)

Tell me about several books I can choose from. Pick one!

Send anything that is single-spaced or in type less than 12 pt.

E-mail. We no longer accept e-mail queries.

Fax. We do not accept fax queries

Drop it off in person

According to Sherman, "The bottom line is: do your homework. Be as well prepared as possible. Read the books that will help you present yourself and your work with polish."

Laurie Harper's Author Biz guides emerging writers through the publishing industry maze

Ten years ago, one of the many (and I mean many) New York literary agents who rejected me passed my query letter along to Laurie Harper of Sebastian Literary in San Francisco. She was impressed that I'd managed to place my first two novels unagented with small but reputable presses. I was shopping my third book, a memoir about my experience in chemo, and Laurie candidly told me right up front the same thing all those other agents told me: cancer books don't sell. The difference was, she was willing to look at the ms.

Long story short, Laurie loved the book, talked me through a few revisions, then worked her shapely young backside off to place it with a terrific editor at Harper Collins. I finally felt like an author "for real"; this was the first year of my writing life that I made more money than I would have made as a checkout girl at Kroger. A giant leap in self-esteem, income, and opportunities.

These days, Laurie's living in the Midwest and expanding on the experience and industry expertise gathered during 30+ years as a literary agent with Author Biz Consulting. She offers project evaluation, contract negotiation, career planning, and other services geared to help emerging authors take that next step forward. Unagented writers can get help with the query process. Agented writers can get contract advice and career coaching from a neutral party. Author Biz offers Quick Counsel services on a retainer basis, which is a great time and money effective way to get expert answers to questions about writers conferences, copyright law, agent evaluations, and other industry stuff.

It sounds like a terrific resource, especially for a writer who hasn't yet connected with a network of published friends and publishing colleagues. Check it out.

Your Contract with a Literary Agent

Agents do a ton of work on the behalf of their author clients. They risk a lot of valuable time, along with money in the form of long distance phone calls, overnight mailings (sometimes), etc. So it's only natural for them to want some guarantee of renumeration -- otherwise they'd be hobbyists and not businesspersons.
To secure their rights, every agent/agency will either ask the author to sign an agency agreement up front or will add a clause to the end of every publishing contract they negotiate that spells out the specifics. If an agent offering you representation works on a "handshake" (as many do), you should ask to see a copy of the clause it adds to book contracts. If you don't, you risk being put in a terrible position -- trying to negotiate that clause, if needed, while the agent is trying to negotiate the best deal possible with the prospective publisher. Talk about an anxiety-ridden situation. ("If I make the agent mad by asking for changes to her clause, what is she says no? What if she gets mad and drops me? Will the publisher withdraw its offer? Will I have to start over with a different agent? What if I can't find one quickly?" And so on...)

Either the agency contract or the agency clause in the publishing contract names the agent as the "agent of record" and entitles her to her cut (usually 15%) of the proceeds. Most of the time, the agency clause indicates that all payments from the publisher are paid directly to the agent (who should get out a check for your 85% as soon as the publisher's check clears). A few agents and authors have something called split accounting, where the publisher sends the author her cut and separately sends the agent hers. Some agents are fine with this, but a lot of them will get upset if you even ask, since they feel they should be trusted with your earnings, as is traditional in the agenting world. I think this is fine, as long as your agent has a wonderful track record of being honest and timely in her payments. This is one good reason to thoroughly check on an agent before agreeing to representation. RWA, the Romance Writers of America, keeps a record of complaints against agents. Members can check them out by phoning the RWA headquarters in Houston. Or you can check out the Preditors and Editors website maintained by SFFWA or other online resources.

Most agency clauses assign the agent to act as the author's representative for matters relating to "this agreement" or contract. In other words, when the contract is over (i.e. the book goes out of print and the rights revert to the author), the agent who sold the book no longer has a claim to its earnings. The Author's Guild, the Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and many other writers' organizations all agree that this is fair, but what's caused a huge controversy is the change in wording instituted by several large agencies (and taken up by others) entitling the agent to a cut "for the life of the copyright of the work" (that's your life plus seventy years) or, worse yet "irrevocably" . That's right: forever.

So what does that mean? Suppose your early books have gone out of print and you've parted ways with the agent who sold them. (Very few authors remain with the same agent throughout their career. Either they fire the agent, the agent goes out of business/dies, or the agent drops the author.) Later, you make a comeback and want your current agent to sell the rights. You do all the legwork on getting back your rights, and your new agent does all the work to re-sell the book. Without both of your efforts, the book would be dead in the water, making no one any money. So why should the original agent (or the original agent's heirs, since in the case of an "irrevocable" agreement, this could go on forever) be paid for work she/they did not
do? And why should you pay 30% of your earnings in two fifteen-percent commissions to two different agents? And once you've passed on to that great Slush Pile in the Sky, do you really want your heirs having to fight with the agent's heirs about this issue? (I'll bet Tolkien's grandkids are glad they don't have this to contend with.) Besides this, if an agency dissolves, there may be no clear successor, which
could tangle things in court for years.

Another tangle cropping up in some agency agreements/clauses has to do with options. When a publisher offers a contract, they'll almost always want the right of first refusal on the author's next work of the same kind. If the publisher wants that next book, it has to (usually, depending on the contract language) renegotiate a new deal with the author. Some agents/agencies are asking authors to sign contracts/clauses that entitle the agent to a cut of the option book. If the author's moved on to a new agent and has the new person negotiate the contract on the option book, this would mean the author would be obligated to pay both agents 15% of the take, leaving her only 70%. I feel that only the agent who negotiates the new deal should be entitled to a commission, but that's something you need to try to negotiate with your shiny new agent before the shiny and new wears off.

Only you can decide what's a deal-breaker and what isn't. But it never hurts to ask for information, explain your reasoning, and request changes in a business-like manner. If you're professional about it, nobody's going to get mad and stomp off in a snit. (And if someone does, who'd want to be stuck with this kind of agent anyway?)

Agent and Author: Eudora Welty and her "benevolent parasite"

While we're core-dumping a lot of hard info about the agent-author relationship this week, we're not saying much about the fairy tail romance that happens between an author and agent (or an author and editor) once in a blue moon, the marriage of true minds that breeds not only good money, but the more elusive goal: good art. One such exquisite click is chronicled in Author and Agent: Eudora Welty and Diarmuid Russell By Michael Kreyling.

In his first letter to Welty, Russell wrote, "An agent is rather a benevolent parasite because authors as a rule make more when they have an agent than they do without one." He pulled no punches with her. He challenged her. Never let her off the hook. I read this book about a thousand years ago (I think it came out in the early '90s) because I was in a delicious all-things-Eudora phase, devouring any and all words of hers, but I ended up getting a lot more than I expected from this exchange of letters between her and Russell, who encouraged and guided her career. Author and Agent is a warm bath of beautiful language, but it's also a gimlet-eye look at the world of publishing, much of which has not changed a bit in the fifty years since these letters were written.

This astute observation from a New York Times article:

One of the bases for the "absolute trust" between him and Ms. Welty was his determination to respect the integrity of her work yet somehow translate it into an income for her. And the times were right; though publishing was always commercial, it had not yet developed its capacity to make the megabuck deal.

Mr. Russell first offered to be Ms. Welty's "benevolent parasite" in 1940, shortly after he had founded his literary agency with Henry Volkening, an English teacher at New York University. Ms. Welty accepted though she doubted the agency would be able to help her, since all she had to offer was "a collection of short stories by an unknown writer who doesn't ever want to write a novel first," and all that publishers wanted from her was that first novel she didn't wish to write.

What we then follow in the correspondence is her curious evolution into the novelist she thought she would never become. Mr. Russell encouraged her to go on writing her stories and found a market for them, both in national magazines and in a collection that was brought out by Doubleday...

Publishers had a feeling Eudora Welty had the talent to spin straw into gold, and they were right, but she needed her Rumpelstiltskin. As do we all.

More Agent Basics

Once you've narrowed the field and read up on the submission
requirements of agents of interest, I recommend that you query your top three to five choices simultaneously (life is way too short to do this one at a time) and evaluate their responses. If you receive only form rejections, you may wish to retool the query letter before sending out more submissions. If you receive a request for material, go ahead and send it, but you don't have to mention your other queries unless you're specifically asked for an exclusive.

If the agent requests an exclusive look at your material, it's
reasonable to allow this – if you limit the period. Thirty days is
more than adequate, and if you have more than one agent asking or a time-sensitive project, it's fine to offer a two-week exclusive (or whatever you and the agent mutually agree to).

When you're at the point where you feel an offer is likely, it's time
to ask around to see if you can get authors who are or have been
represented by this agent to comment of his/her working style. If the agent doesn't have a website listing clients, try Google or Publishersmarketplace.com (Who Reresents is the section you'll need), and try sending polite e-mails explaining the situation to a few of the authors have website/e-mail contact information. If you belong to a writers' organization, you might use its e-mail loop to ask for off-list feedback from anyone who's had dealings with this agent.

Take what you hear with a grain of salt, though, because one author's dream agent is another's nightmare. Authors doing well in their careers are going to be happier than those who are having problems, which often aren't the fault of the agent. Instead, listen for clues about the agent's working style.

I've worked with several different agents over the past dozen years (all well-respected, AAR agents who sell many books), enough to tell you that they vary a great deal. Some are cheerleaders; others are business-like or even abrasive. Some edit their clients' work before it's sent out while others simply decide whether they believe the work is ready or not for submission. Still others, once they've
learned to trust the client, send out her work without even bothering to read it, especially when there's an established relationship with a particular editor.

It's important to remember that different styles suit different
authors. Some love the super-friendly type of agent while others are more comfortable with a "shark" who will shake loose every last dime from the publisher. Many appreciate being a client of a select, one- man/woman "boutique" agency while some would rather be represented by a large agency with lots of supporting players, such as contract departments and affiliated sub-rights agents, who attempt to sell the
work to foreign markets, audio, or the movies. (There are pros and cons to both large and small agencies.)

Another important agent quality has to do with his/her accessibility. Another time, I'll talk more about what it's reasonable to expect from your agent (and what isn't), but communication is key. If you can't reach your agent for days or weeks or longer, small concerns can mushroom into huge problems, so it's good to ask around about how quickly the agent returns calls or e-mails.

Probably the most important attribute to look for is integrity, since the agent usually handles all of the author's earnings. Be especially wary if you hear the agent's not passing through publisher money (less his/her commission) to the author in a timely fashion or if amounts are in dispute. Sadly, there have been cases where an agent's disappeared with client funds, but this is fortunately very rare among reputable, AAR agents.

When you're offered representation, be sure to ask the agent for specifics, including commissions and any other fees, marketing plans for the project, and whether the agency works on a "handshake" or requires a contract. (I've mostly worked with handshake agents, where either player can end the relationship at will, but I think a one-year contract is okay, or an open contract with a 30 to 90-day, at most, opt-out. I wouldn't want to commit myself for longer because no one profits from being stuck in an unhappy agent partnership.) Ask about communication style, frequency, and whether the agent prefers calls or e-mail. Ask about recent sales and about how the
relationship may be terminated if either of you decides it's not working. Take notes as you talk, and listen for the kind of enthusiasm that communicates itself to acquiring editors.

I would also recommend that you ask to see a copy of the agency clause inserted into publishing contracts so you can check its wording (more about this later). If you can contain yourself, tell the agent that you appreciate the offer, but you'd like a day or so to think it over since it's a very important decision. If other agents are looking at the manuscript, you may wish to contact them to gauge their interest before making a final decision. In some cases, you may end up with several choices.(This sounds great but is actually stressful. It's a big decision!)

Once you do accept an agent's offer, be sure to politely contact anyone else who's evaluating your material and respectfully withdraw your query/submission. I can't stress enough that you don't want to leave an agent spending hours or days reading your material only to have them find out someone else has beaten them to it. Agents and editors really hate this, and I can't blame them (no one enjoys having his/her time wasted), so be sure to extend this common courtesy. The industry's a small one, and it never pays to aggravate those you might end up dealing with later.

Later this week: Clauses and Contracts

Miss Snark forever: an agent's blog lives on...and on...

Can't address the topic of literary agents without offering a link to Miss Snark, wherein an anonymous New York literary agent "vented her wrath on the hapless world of writers and crushed them to sand beneath her T.Rexual heels of stiletto snark." Miss Snark stopped blogging in May of this year after two years and 2.5 million hits (God knows how she found the time to keep posting as long as she did), but the archives live on, and the blog is still one of the most entertaining and pragmatic resources an aspiring writer could hope for.

There's been a lot of speculation about Miss Snark's real life identity, but I'm not going to speculate or offer links here. She was able to speak freely by keeping her name a secret, and her contribution to struggling wannabes was so generous, I think she deserves to be allowed to disappear into the dusk with her dog, Killer Yapp.

Quoth Miss Snark in her parting post:

I'm pretty proud of what we did here. And by "we" I don't mean just me and Killer Yapp, I mean you too. You sent me questions, trusted me to snark your work, made "crapometer" an industry term and most of all, you gave me perspective on what it's like to be on the other side of the slush pile.

There's much to be learned in the snark-infested archives. Particularly helpful info under the labels "nitwittery abounds" and "this crazy industry". You'll also find links to a few other agents who blog and a list of 20 Agents to Avoid.

Check it out.

The Why & How of Working with a Literary Agent: Part One

If you're just entering the think-I'll-write-for-a-living game, don't be surprised if you feel like a doofus. You should. Even if (maybe especially if) you have prior business experience, you're going to find the business of writing runs counter to every scrap intuition a rational person might be blessed with. Publishing's a very old business with its own traditions, and woe unto you if you don't take the time to learn the rules of the game. Since the acquisition of a literary agent is often the first stop on the Publishing Facts of Life Tour, I'll be spending some time this week sharing what I've learned over the course of a dozen years, thirteen novel sales, and associations with four different reputable agents. Feel free to chime in on the comments section with your own observations or questions.

Not every author works with an agent. Some make the choice not to share 15% of their earnings (and 20% of foreign sales, typically) due to the belief that an agent could do no better than they in negotiating their publishing contracts. This is often cited as a reason for going agent-less by authors of juvenile fiction as well as those who sell to Harlequin and Silhouette's "category" romance lines or to smaller presses. (A portion of these authors feel it's worth it to pay the agent so he/she can chase down missing contracts or payments, field questions, and/or schmooze their editor to their benefit.) Some authors, however, don't have agents because they secured a publishing contract before they were able to attract an offer of representation from an agent. This happens, though generally not with the better-paying publishers, who often refuse to consider (or don't seriously consider) unagented work. (They like the agents to separate the wheat from the chaff to lighten their huuuge workloads.)

Agents take on clients they believe have the potential to be moneymakers, if not stars. They will often pass on writers they believe to be publishable at less-profitable levels (or those writing books with niche appeal), just as they pass on published authors with modest earnings potential. If agents didn't make such choices, they couldn't stay in business. Though it's tempting, try not to take it personally.

If you decide to go it alone, I highly recommend that you purchase, read, and take lots of notes on the most recent edition of Richard Curtis's How to be Your Own Literary Agent. It teaches you the basics of literary contracts (which bear little resemblance to other kinds of contracts you may have encountered). Even if you do pursue representation, I think this book is extremely worthwhile. I bought and dissected it after getting my first agent so I could talk about business matters and set priorities on my publishing contract wishlist without coming off as a total moron.

Another book that will help you fully understand the big picture is
The Career Novelist, by agent Donald Maass. I learned a ton about business strategies in publishing from this book and highly recommend it.

Next Up: When, where, and how to look for a reputable agent