This is part 2/11 in our series about How to Land a Literary Agent:
- Your Fishing Guide: What I Know About These Waters
- The Prey: What Exactly Is An Agent?
- The Why: Who Actually Needs an Agent?
- Dawn or Dusk: When to Start Fishing
- The Fish Finder: Locating Agents
- The Bait: Writing a Pitch
- Casting Your Line: Query Letters
- The Nibble: When an Agent Expresses Interest
- The Bite: Getting an Offer
- The Play: Interviewing Agents
- The Keeper: Final Decisions and Next Steps
What, exactly, are we fishing for? What does an agent look like? Under what rocks do they hide? How to they feed, work, and reproduce? And most of all, what role do they play in the ecosystem?
Most of you have a pretty good idea of what I mean when I say (or write) the word “agent.” It’s like when I write (or say) the word “fish”: an image springs to mind of a finned creature with unblinking eyes and a gasping mouth. (That’s the fish, not the agent—although your hesitation is understandable.) We all have the basic idea of “fishness” in our heads. We know what they are. But then your seven-year-old daughter crawls into your lap and says, “Father or Mother Dearest, why do fish even exist?” And that’s a bit of a head-scratcher.
Fact is, agents are a somewhat local phenomenon. In many parts of the world (most of Europe, for example), writers connect directly with publishers. But in the US, we have these intermediaries. Like travel agents or real estate agents, literary agents are people who specialize in the intricacies of a very complicated marketplace, and they offer their expertise to their clients for a commission.
The agent has many jobs. First of all, she (82% of agents are women) is expected to have a nose for the market—smelling what’s likely to sell. She also has to know a lot of editors at various publishing houses. Probably she’ll be specialized—focused on, for instance, romance and horror, or biography and memoir, or celebrity tell-alls and cookbooks. So, the editors she knows best will be in her areas of interest. (There are thousands of editors working at hundreds of imprints, so no agent knows everyone.)
But the agent doesn’t just know about the publishing industry. She also needs to know about you and your work. A good agent is a great reader, and usually a bit of an editor. You want to make your manuscript as good as you can before handing it off to your agent, but if you’re lucky, the agent will read it well and give you homework about how you can make it better. Some agents are more “interventionist” than others, but their job is to make sure your work finds a home, and that means helping you make the work as attractive as possible. (Some agents may push you in directions you don’t want to go. See “The Nibble” and “The Play,” later on.)
The matchmaking of book to press is crucial, of course, but finding a press isn’t all the agent does. Let’s say you’re lucky enough to get an offer (see “The Bite,” later). Bravo! Your agent still needs to determine if additional offers should be sought, if an auction should be started, if the current offer is good enough, if it’s possible to negotiate for a bigger advance. And once the details have been settled, the agent helps review contracts, protecting your rights and making sure that everything is understood. When advances and royalties start rolling in, she (or her agency) handles the accounting and the 1099s—all the stuff you hate doing.
And later on, when the movie deal or the translation rights come into play, there’s your agent, stepping up to get the best deal possible for you—partly because she’s a good person, but partly because what’s good for you is also good for her commission.
I don’t know if a good agent is quite worth her weight in gold (at current rates, and considering the average weight of literary agents, that would come to over $7 million), but she’s at least worth her weight in some semi-precious metal.
All of which brings us to the next question: Is an agent indispensable?
The answer may surprise you.