Plot Monkeys

In keeping with the Plotmonkeys Saturday series for writers, here is the next installment in my WHY, WHO, WHAT, HOW regarding looking for a literary agent. This one is about chosing the right agent for YOU. There is so much more to say on this subject, but here is the basic rundown.

Part ONE is here.

Part TWO is here.

Enjoy!
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Okay, that title doesn’t really work grammatically, but we’ve got a theme going here, so we’ll go with it.

First, I want you to go read this blog by editor and author, Jason Pinter. Read it all. Even the comments. It’s okay. I’ll wait. (Don’t forget to hit the Back key and return here, okay?)

Hard to hear, isn’t it?

Because looking for an agent is hard. I think it’s even harder than finding an editor. But category novels not withstanding, if you’re selling single title, having an agent is imperative. (And it doesn’t hurt with category, either–I know, I’m going to do a separate post on this one soon, I promise!)

Now, I know authors who have sold single title without an agent, at least initially, and who went on to very successful careers. However, they are an exception and the ones who did well in almost all cases at least had a literary attorney look over their contracts.

However, some didn’t and are sorry now. Contracts are not meant to be in an author’s favor–ever. No matter how nice your editor is, no matter how much you think he or she is your best friend–they don’t write contracts. The Legal Department does. And it is NOT in an editor’s job description to tell you what to accept or negotiate. I once sat at a luncheon with a literary agent who was a former editor and she told me point blank that any author who negotiated her own contract–even those who were attorneys–were not getting the best possible deals.

But let’s say you’re looking for an agent. WHO is the right agent for you?

A lot of people will tell you the right agent is the one who will represent you. In a manner of speaking, that’s realistic. But it also implies that the writer is the one who goes begging to the agent, manuscript in hand, on bended knee. This should NOT be the case, even if it is.

Let’s get one thing straight. The agent works for you.

I think one of the luckiest things that happened to me in my career was that I didn’t start looking for an agent until my confidence was strong. It wasn’t my first book where I got my agent, but my tenth, having represented myself on one through nine.

Had I not gotten the agent I wanted, I probably would have scrapped the book and waited until another idea hit me. Because I firmly believe that a good, marketable book will find an agent. (Good and marketable are not interchangeable. You can certainly have one without the other–and the market constantly changes.)

When I made the decision to get an agent, I called one of my most knowlegable writing friends, Stephanie Bond. Stephanie had once given me advice that I took to heart. She said, “Get an agent who is tougher than you are.”

Well, that poses a problem. See, I’m pretty damned tough. I decided to amend her advice. I wanted an agent who was just as tough as me, but calmer and classier. Someone who could put things into perspective for me, but who could go in gangbusters to fight for me so I didn’t have to. (I found her, too. I’m so lucky!)

And how did I find her? I’d spent a lot of time doing what I told you to do in my first agent post–being connected.

I went to conferences, I read industry scoop, I made friends with lots and lots of published authors. I met agents. Many agents. I volunteered to be a program chair for my local chapter so I could meet published authors and agents outside of my normal scope. I listened to agents talk about other agents, which was very helpful because my agent “flies under the radar.” She doesn’t troll for new clients, but relies on word of mouth. And I found her that way because I was connected.

By the time the single title bug bit me, I had a pretty narrow list of who I thought would work, personality wise, as an agent for me. (And even then, I wasn’t 100% right…one agent and I would have clashed horribly, but luckily, we did so on a minor scale before she actually read my submission and she was out.) One other agent was a “pie in the sky” submission, but I have to say that her rejection was one of the most informative and encouraging rejections ever. I’m glad now that things didn’t work out. I would have likely been shuttled to a lower agent in the agency, which would NOT have worked for me at all.

That pretty much left me with one agent on my list (I told you it was a short list!) that I really liked. Luckily, after reading my work, she agreed to represent me, and we’ve been together ever since. I’d never “met” her before I submitted to her, but I made a point to meet her immediately afterward and take about twenty-five seconds to talk to her in a hallway. She bowled me over with her knowledge. I was hooked. I nearly cried when she called to offer representation because I knew we would be a perfect fit.

I’m a people person. I need to connect to people in order to work well with them. Not everyone is this way, but I am, so there you go.

My point is this–that whole “connected” thing remains important when you are looking into which agents to submit to. The idea of checking a book out of the library and mass submitting to a bunch of strangers gives me the willies. I did all my research on the front end and I contend you’ll save a lot of money and time and aggravation if you do that as well.

A few suggestions:

Go to conferences where agents are speaking. LISTEN. Do not go to pitch your book, necessarily. Try and figure out what sort of thing float this agent’s boat. Do this for a while until you have a list.

Make friends with published authors. Most published authors have had multiple agents and even if they won’t name names, you can learn a great deal from LISTENING about their agent experiences. If they do name names, listen even harder…though with a grain of salt. Sour grapes grow wild in publishing.

Realize that an agent who is good for one writer might not be good for another–but no agent who is just plain bad is NOT good for you. Ever.

Look at the client list. If you’ve never heard of any of their clients…what does that say?

When you are dead serious (have a book to market) subscribe to Publisher’s Marketplace. This is the parent of Publisher’s Lunch. PM allows you to search deals by agent names and see who is doing what deals. Not all deals are reported, but this is a worthwhile investment.

Check out the web and see if the agent has a blog or a website, but realize that many very good agents prefer to fly under the radar. They don’t need to advertise and therefore, they don’t. Doesn’t mean they aren’t fabulous.

Learn about the Association of Author’s Representatives (AAR) and memorize their standards.

Never pay an agent ONE PENNY until after they’ve sold something for you. Not even for postage and copying. This should be paid out of the proceeds from a sale. It is their overhead. You have overhead. Are you charging your agent for your print cartridges and your IP subscription? I didn’t think so.

Know up front if you want an agent who asks you to revise or if you want an agent who simply wants to sell your book. My agent only asks me to revise when I ask her to look for stuff. She’s good at it, too. But she doesn’t make me revise things ten times before we send it out. That’s absurd. But some authors don’t have fabulous critique partners like I do and need an agent to help them whip a manuscript into shape. However, this should be one round of revisions, not twelve.

A good agent does not need to be in New York, but they should travel there frequently if that is their main marketplace (and if it isn’t their main marketplace, why are you submitting to them?)

I could go on and on about advice on who is a good agent and who is not (generally speaking.)

But the bottom line is that you have no business shopping for an agent until you understand how things work. If you do not learn the ropes before hand, you risk all sort of problems that could delay the start of your professional career or waylay it altogether.

The bottom line is be educated. The time to ask your friends about an agent is before you submit, not after you have a request from them.

This is a business. Act like a business person. Network. Investigate. Have a plan.

And write well. That’s essential to finding a good agent.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Julie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.