10 Things You Never Knew About Literary Agents
A “Special Report” by Rusty Fischer, www.requestedmaterial.blogspot.com
Introduction
Recently I was talking to a literary agent and her dog kept barking the whole time we were on the phone together.
Over the holidays last year several agents sent me Christmas cards with sweet, touching or funny personal notes inside.
A few months ago an agent forwarded me an email response to one of my client’s query letters and forgot to turn off the entire thread; his earlier responses to the person he was writing to was littered with typos!
Another agent wrote me one of the most encouraging rejection letters I’ve ever read.
Years back a young agent took myself and a client to lunch and left an 8% tip!
I say all that to say this: literary agents will surprise you.
Most of what we as writers know about literary agents comes from Writer’s Digest magazine and their own websites, but who of us has time to really give agents much thought beyond what type of genres they represent and do they or don’t they accept email query letters?!?
I couldn’t have written this “special report” a few years ago for a variety of reasons. For starters, I wasn’t blogging back then but, more importantly, I hadn’t spoken with, worked with, written for and sold books through as many agents as I have now.
And it occurred to me, as I was walking another client through the agent maze last week, we really do have a lot of misconceptions about literary agents that should probably be cleaned up if we’re going to work with them as writers.
So I figured I’d come clean and share with you 10 Things You Never Knew About Literary Agents, and that’s what I’ll be including in this very special report:
The First Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Are Human
A publisher recently asked to see a client’s book proposal, via a great literary agent, and I was ecstatic; we hadn’t heard back from anybody in awhile so this was definitely good news. Then the literary agent shared with me a brief little anecdote about how, exactly, the publisher asked to see the proposal:
He said the senior editor wasn’t too impressed with the idea herself but, since it was lunchtime, and Friday, and she was feeling a little frisky, she decided to ask the younger gas in the office – most of them assistant agents, interns or assistants – what they thought of the idea (which was a dating book with a particular twist). Turns out they all said they’d buy it, so she decided to ask the agent to send it along.
Now, amusing though it is, this anecdote immediately had me asking 101 different questions in rapid succession, such as:
What if it hadn’t been a Friday?
What if that senior editor hadn’t been feeling quite so frisky?
What if the younger gals in the office had all gone out to eat that day?
What if this had happened on a Tuesday instead?!?
Regardless, the editor passed on the book and the trifle might have faded from memory if it hadn’t made me realize the first thing you never knew about literary agents: they are human.
They eat lunch, obviously, and often at their desks; they can be whimsical, fickle, uncertain, gracious, kind, petty and all the other good and bad emotions that make them – and us – so human.
Follow the rules you’ve learned on my blog and others, on Facebook and Twitter, in dozens of books on how to get published and, obviously, on the literary agents’ websites themselves, but never forget there’s a human being attached to those eyeballs reading your book proposal.
Write accordingly…
The Second Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Have Long Memories
Every few years or so I pitch an agent I haven’t pitched in awhile or, conversely, hear from an agent I haven’t heard from in awhile who needs a proposal done or has a client who needs a ghostwriter.
Whenever I do, I’m always amazed that the agent remembered me in the first place!
But agents will often say something like, “I remember that non-smoking proposal you sent me because I lost a brother to cancer six years ago…”
Or, “I’ll never forget that two sentence subtitle you sent me for that business book a few years back!”
Agents: they’re just like you and me!
So don’t be afraid to mention to an agent that you’ve been querying her for years, saw him at a recent writer’s conference or just noticed his name in the acknowledgements section of a book you read recently.
Anything you can do to create a personal, even emotional response from an agent will only put them in a more positive position while reading your proposal.
Maybe they’ll remember, maybe they won’t, but chances are the ones who do might be a better fit as your new literary agent.
The Third Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Have Short Memories
Some agents never remember me, whether they’ve asked to see half-a-dozen proposals or we’ve spoken on the phone before or gotten really, really, really close on a deal.
These are typically the bigger agents, and I know they certainly have bigger fish to fry, but I mention this mainly because I don’t want you to be upset that they DON’T remember your gardening, nursing or salespeople query from six years ago!
Not every agent is going to be a warm and fuzzy, buddy-buddy experience; they don’t have to be. Agents serve a necessary purpose and the more you focus on the purpose versus the person, the less disappointed you’ll be if you and your agent don’t wind up being lifelong friends.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s awesome when you get to work with an agent who also treats you like a friend, just don’t expect it to happen too often. At least, not anymore than it would happen with your doctor, your lawyer, your mechanic or your insurance agent.
The Fourth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Are Workaholics
I have gotten responses from agents on Halloween, on Christmas Eve, on New Year’s Eve, in the middle of summer and, judging by some of the email time stamps the next morning, in the middle of the night.
Many agents are workaholics who are at their desks early and/or late. And, with technology, it’s easy to take your query home with them.
Not that all will, but many is the time if I’m doing a rewrite on a proposal specifically for an agent or getting close to a deal I see “sent from a Blackberry” at the bottom of their short message so I know they’re working remotely, often early in the morning, late in the evening and even weekends.
The Fifth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Are Away a Lot!
Just as hard as they work, agents are often on the road.
They travel frequently; they go to conferences where they speak or workshops where they enjoy “meet and greets” and short pitches, they take holidays and vacations just like everybody else.
So don’t be surprised if you get an auto-response to your emailed query letter or if it takes awhile for an agent to get back to you.
The main thing is to just hang in there, keep pitching and never lose faith in your book project. If you don’t hear from an agent after a few weeks, send out another query letter to another agent. If you don’t hear from that agent after a few weeks, send out another.
Don’t sit on your hands; don’t wait around for the phone to ring, the in-box to fill up or the mailman to come. Just… keep… moving.
Some agents respond the same day I query them; others the same week, still others that same month. The other day I got a response to a query I wrote back in February – of LAST year! The point is agents are busy; you are busy.
Don’t assume an agent doesn’t like you, or your book, because they haven’t responded right away; just keep pitching until you find an agent who responds in time – and in the positive!
The Sixth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Are Quite Often Nice
Most agents I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to personally are actually quite nice. They are often busy, but polite; blunt, but fair.
The fact of the matter is an agent doesn’t have to be nice to be good; it just helps everything go a little more smoothly. Likewise, an agent doesn’t need a client to be nice, but it sure helps.
The bottom line, of course, is how good a writer you are and how good an agent he or she is; “nice” is really just the icing on the cake.
After all, the nicest thing an agent can do for you is give you constructive criticism that actually helps your proposal get better through a rewrite or two; this they actually do quite often!
The Seventh Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Can Occasionally Be Nasty
A few years ago an agent said of a client’s book, “This will never sell.” He went on to say it was “juvenile” and “petty” and had “no place” on today’s market.
Just last year an agent rejected a client’s beautifully written project (and not by me; he did it all on his lonesome) because it was “too regional” and that “nobody outside of his time zone would care.”
Recently an agent told me, “Rusty, we think it best if you stop sending us query letters.”
Ouch!
Which, of course, just goes to show that agents are human and, often, moody, brusque, impatient, brutally honest, frequently narrow-minded and occasionally downright mean.
There are as many reasons for rudeness as there are ways to be rude. Maybe the agents who wrote the above responses were hungry, hungover, tired, just got bad news themselves or broke up with someone.
Agents are human and respond like humans; sometimes nice, sometimes not-so-nice. The trick is to brush it off and move forward so that you don’t become not-so-nice yourself!
The Eighth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Don’t Mean Anything Personally (Except When They Do)
Whether an agent is being nice or mean, patient or impatient, giddy or goading, never, ever, ever take it personally.
Again, agents are in business to sell books and make money and they like to work with people who write good books that will make them money; period.
When a client gets a query letter that somehow doesn’t match their business model, they promptly reject it. This could be for any number of reasons, including a variety that have absolutely nothing to do with how well you write or even what you write about.
For instance, the market might be too crowded right now, we might be in a recession (ahem!), a certain type of book might be hotter than yours, they might even be representing a book like yours at the moment.
So you see, there are literally hundreds of reasons why a good agent might reject a good writer with a good book; none of them have anything to do with you, personally.
I often hesitate to forward clients a brusque, blunt or occasionally sniping rejection letter because I know they’ll take it personally; still, knowledge is helpful and it’s a necessary evil to know who isn’t interested so we can move on to someone who is.
The point of this post is to stop reading every rejection letter for hidden meaning, stop taking it personally and move on. “No” means “no” and regardless of how cryptic, or blunt, the rejection might have been, the bottom line is no matter how you interpret it the answer is still, always and ever “NO!”
The sooner you move on and pitch to another agent, and another and another, the sooner you’re going to get over the rejection and start “getting to yes!”
The Ninth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Are In Business, Just Not Necessarily YOUR Business
Agents are in business to sell books and make money, and not necessarily in that order.
Some agents live for finding that new book that is really going to inform people, move people, touch people or just generally shake things up.
Other agents live for the deal; they talk constantly about points and figures and rights and money.
Neither type of agent is right; neither is wrong. Both types of agent are in the business of selling books; both types of agent typically make money selling books.
The critical point to take away from this section is that agents are in business; they expect and demand to work with professionals and the best way to secure an agent is to treat them, your book, the market, the audience, the professionals and in particular YOUR BOOK PROPOSAL like a business.
I know it’s easy to get caught up in the dream of becoming a published author, but the best way to make that dream a reality is to learn the business of what it means to get published in the first place.
Writing a really good book proposal is a great way to start.
The Tenth Thing You Never Knew About Literary Agents:
They Really, Really, REALLY Love Books
Finally, the BEST thing about agents is that they are book people. They know books, read books, buy books, sell books and talk books. If you are a book lover, like myself, like most of my clients, this means you will ALWAYS have something in common with your literary agent.
And the best thing to have in common with them is a really good book proposal for a really good book. You can read everything out there on how to write a book proposal, do it exactly like the agent likes and still not make a sale.
Why? Often it’s because no matter how good the book proposal is there may be a problem with the title, the subtitle, the book’s structure, the timing of when the book would come out or, frankly, the writing.
Never forget that the book proposal is only a sales tool for the book itself. Like they say at the DMV, “If you want a better picture on your driver’s license, bring a better face!” For me, the better the book is, the easier it is to write the proposal.
So before sitting down to write the proposal and certainly before submitting to a good agent, always make sure you’re treating your book like a business and making it the best it can be.
About the Author:
Rusty Fischer
Rusty Fischer is a bestselling ghostwriter whose collaborations with many influential clients have been published by such respected houses as Wiley & Sons, Simon & Schuster, McGraw-Hill and Kensington, among many others.
Rusty runs the popular and informative “Requested Material” blog, which can be found at www.requestedmaterial.blogspot.com.
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