Blogger: Rachelle Gardner
1. We hate getting bad news about your book and don’t enjoy sharing it with you, but we trust you’re adult enough to handle it.
2. If we say we don’t want to submit a particular project to editors, we’re probably trying to protect both of our reputations (the writer’s and the agent’s).
3. While many of us do a great deal of editing and polishing of your manuscripts and/or proposals, it’s the writer’s job to provide a marketable book. It shouldn’t be assumed that the agent will make it sales-ready.
4. We are invested in your book and often feel like it’s “our baby” too (even though we KNOW it’s yours!)
5. If it seems like we’re too busy, it’s because the economics of this industry demand we carry a certain amount of volume to make a living wage.
6. We prioritize taking care of current clients above the search for new clients. So typically, queries and writer’s conferences take a back seat.
7. We are interested in your long-term career, not just the size of the next advance.
8. We hate the slowness of publishing just as much as you do!
9. We want to set you up with the publisher and editor who will be best for you, not just the one who’s offering the most money.
10. When we’ve tried to sell your book but we’re not successful, we’re probably almost as disappointed as you. Not only are we emotionally invested, we’ve put in a lot of time for no paycheck.
11. When you send us a manuscript to read, we rarely do it during the work day. We read in the evenings (our “free time”) and on the weekends. With Kindles and iPads, we may even be reading your manuscript on the treadmill at the gym.
12. We’re aware of all the new options for writers these days, and we’re doing our best to help steer each client in the right direction.
13. If your writing career keeps you awake at night, there’s a good chance it has kept us awake on occasion, too.
What are some things agents may not know about writers?
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John Wells
November 26, 2014 at 5:22 amWriters? I doubt that any two of us are alike, except maybe in the frustration levels we experience when we get our “pass letters.” There’s no code, no descriptive passage a la The BSA’s “A scout is trustworthy, kind, clean, reverent….”we have to subscribe to. On a personal level, I am a hesitant reader, because I don’t wish my writing style to be compromised. I spent long years developing it, so I don’t wish to have it mucked up subconsciously by some other author’s style because it “sells.” I don’t pooh-pooh their style; I may be a bit envious, but yet I wish them all Godspeed with fair winds and a following sea. They have their style and I have mine. Their’s sells; mine doesn’t—well, at least not yet. If nothing else I’m a persistent s.o.b. Lotsa luck.
Shirlee Abbott
November 26, 2014 at 7:39 amI’m the mom. The book is my baby. I was hoping for a fairy godmother agent. Another shattered fairy tale. [sigh]
Kristen Joy Wilks
November 26, 2014 at 9:21 amYep, I’m tired of rejection too. But I’ve gotten better, much better because of my years of rejection letters. I’m hoping that someday, something I write will enthrall an agent, even if she is on the treadmill.
Jeanne Takenaka
November 26, 2014 at 9:31 amThere’s probably not a lot you don’t know about writers. 🙂 We, like most agents, like chocolate and a cuppa something warm (coffee for me, tea for some others), many of us work hard at our craft. Time is a tricky thing to keep a balance of between real life and writing life for us, just as it is for most agents (between real life and agenting life, that is).
Hmmm, nothing is coming to mind that you may not already know about writers. 🙂 I’ll be curious to see what others share. Thanks for a glimpse at an agent’s perspective, Rachelle. It’s helpful and encouraging to know how agents view their clients’ work.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Sarah Tipton
November 26, 2014 at 11:39 amI don’t know if any other writers feel this way, but I feel guilty sometimes for not being published yet, because I’m not earning my agent any money. This post sounded like a place to make that confession 🙂
SJ Francis
November 26, 2014 at 11:47 amHmmnn…what is it you don’t know about writers? Probably not much, but here’s some grumbling I’ve done and heard from other writers: Agents must remember that our time is just as valuable as theirs. It takes time to write up original query letters, but why do you always send a form one back?
Without writers, agents wouldn’t have a job. Why do so many agents behave as if they’re doing the writer a favor? Most writers appreciate what agents do. It’d be nice that agents remember the other way around.
We’re all in this for the love of writing and making a buck while we do it to pay our mortgages etc. We need to work together and not against each other.
Thanks for asking and listening….
Happy Thanksgiving to all! 🙂
Regards,
S.J. Francis
don and rascal
November 26, 2014 at 11:58 amI long for the days – before PC’s/Macs and word programs – when the No.2 Pencil and lined paper “Ruled The Literary World.”
John Wells
November 26, 2014 at 12:12 pmS.J., from the standpoint of agents and authors, it’s a matter of supply and demand; more authors submitting manuscripts than agents who need to sell. They know what sells and what doesn’t, and their knowledge on this subject alone is what makes them valuable. Many authors (I’m one) are unfortunate in telling a story that nobody’s interested in reading. The sad thing seems to be that we persevere when the marketplace tells us we shouldn’t. Before we feel too sorry for ourselves, think about poor Jane Austen or the artist Van Gogh; neither sold anything. Neither is it a matter of writing style. Most of us write very well, but this isn’t anything extra, but expected of us. It’s sorta like gold mining, y’know. I can run a gold mine very efficiently in the Shenandoah Valley and go broke for all my proficiency, because there isn’t any gold in the Shenandoah. Yet some ragtag man can get drunk and fall down somewhere in the California Sierra mountains and find a nugget out of dumb luck, because he fell down where there’s gold! Anyhow, we just keep on keeping on. Patience and Perseverance, child! Lotsa luck.
Janet Ann Collins
November 26, 2014 at 12:41 pmBefore attending my first writers conference I thought agents and editors were superior beings who probably glowed in the dark. I was pleasantly surprised to learn you’re all human beings who might even (gasp) not be without flaws.
Wanda Rosseland
November 26, 2014 at 3:29 pmWriters are scared to death, because the work they do is a corner of their heart, and if it is derided or criticized or scoffed at, those comments are not absorbed into the rational quadrant of their brain to be dissected and picked over for subsequent improvement, no, they strike directly at their own self-worth, and lodge there with an arrow of poison, which is almost impossible to withdraw.
Writers want to be lauded. To be told they are wonderful, their books are tremendous, they are brilliant. They wish to be adored, revered and held in awe. Because laying their soul at another’s feet, one who in essence is their superior, bends their spears, breaks their axes, destroys their innate ability to stand up for that precious life they have suffered to bring into existence.
Writers do not want to fail.
No matter what anyone says, they are little children inside, seeking the warmth and certainty of a mother’s love. Like that starving new monkey, holding on tight to the mannequin covered in fur, choosing the imposter he believes to be of more value than life, the stand with a bottle of milk.
Writers simply want what everyone else in the world wants. They want to be held dear.
Gary Neal Hansen
November 26, 2014 at 6:07 pmIt is hard for me to imagine myself coming up with anything about writers that you wouldn’t already know! Likewise hard to imagine anything I would think true of all writers.
I do know that this Thanksgiving I am grateful to you and your colleagues for all the insights you share so generously! Thank you so much, Rachelle.
Tracy L
December 6, 2014 at 5:28 amThere are many among us who are trying hard to do all the right things to get published. We’re reading books and blogs on writing, reading books of a similar writing style and genre to what we are trying to create and taking classes, we are finding our own voice. We are embracing social media and trying to build a platform and getting our work published here and there along the way. And in between all of that and our real lives we continue to work on our manuscripts. We are essentially self-taught. We do it because we have something to say and we love to write. And many of us don’t care so much about hitting the NYT’s best seller list as we just do about seeing our dream come to fruition. And if we could just capture your attention with our words initially, we would then work so hard for you to make this happen. We’d even kill our little darlings.