Why Is It So Difficult To Get A Literary Agent?

Our agency recently had a bad experience with a writer. He posted a vicious blog after we turned down his work. (Apparently 316 other agents had rejected him and we were the straw that broke the camel’s back.) Luckily, it’s noteworthy when that kind of drama explodes.

But I’m not unsympathetic to his disappointment; finding an agent isn’t easy. Most of my friends are writers; I’ve spent many hours helping them craft a submission list and compose a query letter. I feel personally involved in their hunt! And I’m always surprised at how long it can take for a debut author to get his work read and then taken on — even while I realize intellectually, that when an agent passes, it’s not a judgment on your work. Here’s why:

*  When an agent is established and has a big list, she might decide that your book is too similar to others on her list. Or her father is dying. Or she’s had a baby. Or four of her clients have just submitted their work.

*  There is no objective reality in publishing. I can send out a manuscript to 28 editors, I’ll get rejects from 27 of them (each of whom will have a completely different response to the book) and it will become a bestseller.

*  Agents spend most of their time tending their clients; they’ve got to keep their lists small, otherwise they won’t get their work done.

*  Book agents and publishers are like venture capitalists. Agents are figuring out whether a project is worth an investment of their time. Publishers, of course, are weighing the possible upside to an investment they know is more likely to disappear.

*  When a literary agent reads your manuscript here is what he is thinking: Who can I send it to? Where will it be placed in Barnes and Noble (or what kind of metadata will be used)? Will this bring in money? Reviews? Can I visualize what needs to be done editorially to get it into shape? Is this in a category that I’ve been hoping to move into? Will this be fun to work on? But most of all, it’s: Do I have enough time to do a good job for this author?

* A Literary Agent always wants to fall in love. There is nothing in Bookland that is more enticing than a debut author: No bad sales figures! Endless potential! The drama of discovery! In other words, we want you to be our Cinderella; we want the slipper to fit; and when it does, we will commit with all our heart.

This is why an author can only spend twenty percent of her time looking for an agent. Getting a literary agent is like searching for a job. You’ve got to do it seriously and methodically, but the rest of your life needs to be spent writing the next book, and well, living your life.

Getting Started On Your Book Proposal

It takes just as much time to write a book proposal as it does to write the book.

Is that what you’re saying? 

Yes. It is.

You may be a journalist, an academic, an essayist or a novelist. You may have published your memoir, published books in various literary genres, or written a cookbook.

You may have read books on how to write a book proposal. (The one I’m most partial to is Susan Rabiner’s THINKING LIKE YOUR EDITOR.)

You may have jotted down your overview, dug up your bio, pulled together a chapter outline, or even used a proposal template.

But if you’re like most of the accomplished writers who come to me, you don’t have a three-sentence description of your book. Nor do you have a title.  And this means you don’t really know what your book is about. You are master of your subject matter, but you haven’t yet figured out what the story is.

Writing a book proposal can be daunting. Here’s how to get started:

Look at the nonfiction books on your shelf. Read their introductions. That introduction started its life as a long e-mail addressed to the literary agent. These intros read like a speech to a bunch of college students, don’t they? They open with a wry, personable, chatty story.

So write that e-mail. Go on and on, explain why you came up with this idea. Tell stories, give examples, describe how you gathered your story, describe the structure of your book, set down your credentials. Don’t censor yourself. If you over-edit yourself now, your voice will be strained and awkward. Your work will sound dry and tortuous. Have fun writing it, but don’t send it out.

Then, focus on the title and the subtitle. Look at the titles of books in your area.  See how they often have two or three words. Good hearty nouns. When I look at the title and subtitle of Jane Mayer’s DARK MONEY: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, I am consumed with envy.

You’re probably scared of the chapter outline aren’t you?  Imagine that you’re teaching a thirteen-week course in your subject. Each chapter is an hour long …. . Look at LORDS OF THE SEA: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale if you’re an historian.

Once you’ve completed these three steps, congratulations! You thought writing the sample chapters was going to be the difficult part, but it’s not nearly as difficult as book proposal you’ve just done.

Notes From a Practical Agent

There’s a dark shroud that occasionally unfurls to cloak a subdued conversation an author shares with me when his worries weigh heavily on him: “My publisher won’t want another book from me,” the author moans. “I’m out of ideas. I’m going to have to become a substitute teacher. I won’t be able to pay my rent. I will never, ever make it.”

These worries are not limited to new authors or writers with modest advances. As a literary fiction agent I find it’s more often an author with several books published, with contracts “in the bank,” with an audience of long-time readers. Yes, it’s more often these authors – who have enjoyed success – who panic. About halfway through the conversation, I say, “You’re catastrophizing again.”  And then I insist we examine each bit of evidence that has been presented to me: an editor who didn’t return their call, two negative Amazon book reviews, a (seemingly) curt e-mail from their publisher.

Time and again, what’s really happening is that a writer is stuck (but not in a writer’s block sort of way). Yes, a conversation is needed, but it’s not about readying his application for a job at Walmart. It’s about figuring out where the story begins…or what the book is really about…or changing the setting.

Writers catastrophize when they think they’re trapped. Stories aren’t “real,” but once you solve the problem of the story then the anxieties of paying the bills seems to evaporate, as well.

Notes from being a literary fiction agent: You can’t eliminate anxiety. Writers are narrative-driven folks, and writers feast on stories of failure. Such stories are dramatically satisfying but offer little more to the story writer. But bargain with yourself. Make an appointment with anxiety: between 3:00 and 4:00 PM is a good hour. After you’ve rolled around in the shroud, chop up an onion and make dinner.

Writing a Second Novel (or Third or Fourth) is Notoriously Difficult

Second novel, third novel, fourth novel, the process is the same.

A client calls and says, “I have an idea, let me share it with you.”

Tell me first about the main character in your novel, I prompt.

“He’s a very ordinary man.” “She has no family, her parents are dead and she never married.” “He doesn’t have any interests, that’s the idea; by the end of the book, he’ll know what he’s interested in.” “She doesn’t have a career, that’s the point; she’s going to figure out what it is.” “I’m a serious writer, there is no plot structure.”

Tell me about the minor characters in this second novel, I suggest. It turns out there are a dozen of them. Each boasts a lengthy list of attributes of age and appearance and profession and the author tells me she can hear their accents and they’re funny.

“But they’re not really important,” the writer says. “It’s just that I can see them so clearly.”

Take a walk, I propose. Spend four days as your character. Really immerse yourself in the character profile. Pay your bills as that character. Eat lunch as that character. Exercise as that character. Write me a letter from that character. Tell me why and how that character knows all those minor characters.

It’s a miracle. Always. It turns out that those minor characters are very important to the story structure. It may turn out that one of them is actually the story’s chief character. We find that this protagonist has a rich and complex life and that the writer somehow has always known that. None of the material has been wasted. It’s just that this is how some writers work: that the main character has to remain in the shadows until the world around him solidifies.

What Makes Me Wary, What Makes Me Happy

What makes me wary:

* When a new writer looks me in the eye, holds my hand and says, “I really, really want to be a New York bestseller.”

*  When an author says, “My last agent just didn’t know anyone in Hollywood and didn’t know how to make my book into a movie.”

*  When a writer says, “I want to write in this genre type,” but then it turns out she’s never read the competition.

*  When a new writer proudly announces that she knows exactly which literary editors I should send her book to.

*  When a writer asks me if I’m interested in selling the new book in a series she is self-publishing.

What makes me happy:

*  When a writer says “I’ve written five books and had two agents. But here’s something new.”

*  When a writers says, “I like the books on your list.”

*  When a new writer says, “First, let me tell you the story.” And then the story is so spooky strong that I just want to listen to what he has to say.

*  When the first paragraph of a manuscript submission is just so strong that I immediately send it to my Kindle and then almost miss my train stop going home that night.

*  When I’m reading a manuscript and forget that I work in the publishing industry and then I snap back to reality and start to compose a submission list.

Why Do Agents Go to Writers’ Conferences?

A few weekends ago I attended New England Crime Bake, a jolly mystery conference filled with talented published writers, attentive newbies and convivial agents and editors.

If it turns out I found a new talent there, I’ll be thrilled. But that’s not why I went. Every year it makes sense to attend a gathering of writers and fans and colleagues; I always walk away with tidbits of new knowledge. I had breakfast with my old pal Brendan DuBois, for instance, who is having such a good experience with James Patterson’s Book Shorts line. His happy success in this fresh category of publishing was interesting intelligence to me.

And I refined my editorial skills as I listened to pitches and was read first-page manuscripts by six aspiring writers. Each writer had talent, but I found myself saying often, “Cut those adjectives. Every one of them. Eliminate them from your first three pages of text.”

Adjectives are not your friends. They’re like crabgrass. They’re like weeds. They’re like too much salt. I know this is advice you’ve heard before, but before submitting a manuscript to a publisher, please go through it one more time and clean it up. You probably don’t even notice them anymore, but to a professional editor they’ll jangle like an off-key voice in an otherwise competent choir.

Thinking of submitting a manuscript? Feel free to send it our way.

Take a Field Trip and Get To Know Your Types of Reader

Here’s something else that you should do: Take a field trip and get to know your types of reader.

One of the things of which I’m mindful is the process by which Barnes & Noble orders the books they then stock onto their shelves. Each book category is assigned to a “buyer.” So there’s a buyer for nonfiction, health, travel, mythology, literature, fantasy, mid-grade, YAs. You get the idea. B&N buyers fill the shelf space, and books need to fit into the bookseller’s already-established categories. If there is no place to shelf the books, the titles won’t be purchased.

Take a trip to Barnes & Noble or to any large independent bookstore. Which titles would your book be snuggled up against? What kind of cover would your publisher put on your book? Which authors give quotes for these titles? I find that walking through rows of books is always illuminating. But much the same impact can be had by pawing through Amazon’s “customers who bought this title also bought” carousel.

Don’t ignore this step! When you write your query, you need to tell the agent which types of reader your book is for. Your editor will want to know. So will the publicist. And the sub-rights department. Please note: The correct answer to the question of who your book targets is never, “Everyone!”

Query Letters that Worked

Before you get started on the first of fifty drafts of your cover letter, I urge you to look at publishers’ catalogues (which are issued about four months before a book is published and are used by sales reps to pitch their company’s titles to booksellers). Hachette makes those and all their various imprints available online.

I’ve seen a lot of query letters that worked by adopting this method. Generally, each book gets a page in the publisher’s catalogue, and all houses use the same general formula/template: The first sentence is the hook or the handle or the one-minute elevator pitch. The next paragraph highlights the story itself. The third paragraph describes the book’s competition, its comparable books. The fourth paragraph tells you about the author and her credentials. Off to the sides of the main text, you’ll generally see quotes or reviews.

Draft your query letter as if it’s catalogue copy.  Of course the letter will sound clunky and artificial at first, but you’ll be able to smooth it out.

If you’re not getting agent responses to your current query letter, try this approach. I’ve seen a lot of query letters that worked this way.

I Was Recently Reminded Why I Like Publishers

I ran an exciting auction this summer. The author and I subwayed up and down Manhattan on an only moderately hot day in July and visited eight publishers in ten hours. We met in small offices and in large conference rooms and in corner offices. In some meetings, twelve folks gathered with us. In others, one. So it goes in the literary business world.

We were interviewing editors, and they were checking out my client. I was there to keep the conversation going. Mostly though, I was inhaling the scent of books. Each publisher felt familiar. I recognized the structure—the rhythm—of their year. I recognized the mug full of sharpened pencils. I could imagine working there: the editorial meetings, the joy of looking at twelve covers to find the one perfect fit. I could hear the echoes of conversations, the past celebrations of successes, the bewilderment over a book that tanked.

Each book at a publishing house is “touched” by dozens of folks, each expert at their particular task, people who enjoy long careers in copy editing, design, marketing, publicity, editing…. When you page through a book, you should know how much work and time went into every element of what you see and touch.

Does it help writers to know this? I think so. Publishers invest their time and resources into your creative work. Yes, this is literary business, which means that our relationships are transactional. But each person who works for a publisher is looking to do something brilliant and magical and “right” every day. I’m so glad that I had long experience on the corporate side of publishing. Of course, I’m even happier now that I’m not dependent on solely one house to publish my list. And book agents don’t have to sometimes abandon pushing a writer’s career the way that an editor sometimes may. But it makes me smile to think about the many smart, caring people who work in this literary business.

The Garden Metaphor

Today I harvested 17 tomatoes. The six tomato plants I set out this year are greener and healthier than any I’ve staked out in the last twenty years. And I’m responsible for none of the plants’ success. At a neighborhood garden sale, late in the planting season, I impulsively grabbed four tiny, scrawny potted tomatoes that were missing their labels. I didn’t mulch them. I didn’t pinch off suckers. I planted them too close together. Yet I now enjoy a thick wall of healthy, heavily laden tomato plants.

There’s a truism among agents and editors: It’s the most unexpected book that ends up being the big success. Sometimes everything conspires for success: Sun and rain showered down in abundance. The soil was just right. The plants were healthier than they looked. They didn’t need to be fussed over.

Everyone in publishing spends long hours trying to get every single detail right—from the manuscript to the jacket, to publicity, to sales outreach. And sometimes, everything works and you think: Why can’t it always be this way in the literary business? It’s what keeps the seasons of book publishing exciting for agents and editors. With every list, you know there will be a few happy and unpredictable surprises.

Should I Fly to NY to Meet My Publisher?

Meeting your new publishing team after your first deal is a “must” visit. But time it correctly. Don’t just hop on a plane right after the deal for your new publication is made. It’s too early. Your editor will be focused on getting the contract done. She’ll be thinking about getting you an editorial letter. Your agent doesn’t have much to tell you that isn’t better said over the phone. And you don’t need to go over revisions in person with the editor. (The telephone acts like the perfect therapist when you’re talking about revisions with agents and editors. It serves the same happy function that a car drive often does in prompting conversation with your children: Both you and the editor will be far more open and creative when you’re not looking into each other’s eyes.)

But after your manuscript has been accepted (which should be approximately 12 to 18 months before your book is published), start planning a trip. Ideally that visit will happen 9 to 12 months before your book is published.

All publishers work on the same internal schedule. About a year before a new publication, publishers have what they call launch or marketing meetings. They circulate your manuscript in-house to all the staff that will be working on it. That would include marketing, publicity, subrights and the sales department. At this point, you’ll be on the publisher’s radar. They’ll want to meet you and won’t just be saying a polite hello.

Give your editor a few weeks’ notice so you’re firmly on her calendar. It’s not necessary that your editor take you out to lunch, but what you both want to do is meet and get to know each other. You want to meet the publicity team and you want to walk around the office. I think it’s especially useful to meet the sales force. They love books and, since they’re all extroverts, they will loudly share their enthusiasm.

If you wait to visit until only four or five months before your new publication, your impact will be lessened. By then, most of the publisher’s plans for your book will already have been set into motion. The publisher’s attention has shifted to the list after yours. Four or five months before publication, plans for your book are already securely settled, and there’s just not a lot you can do to impact your new publication.

Etiquette for Authors

When should I call my agent or editor? One of the many common author questions.

Many authors are nervous about protocol. An agent takes you on, and then for some reason, you feel uncomfortable about asking questions.

Remember, the agent works for you. She (or he) gets paid only if she sells your work. She hasn’t done you a favor by sending you an agency agreement to sign. She loves your work and wants to invest her time in selling it.

On the other hand, you do want to be organized and thoughtful in what you expect from your agent. After she’s made you an offer of representation and before you’ve accepted, write out a list of “author questions” that will minimize surprises later:

* Do you think my book needs more work? If so, how will we handle editorial matters? Will you write me a letter? Will we talk these ideas out?

* Once my book is ready to submit, who will you be submitting it to? (This a general question about the types of publishers the agent will be submitting it to. Don’t expect to receive a list of editors at this point. And don’t do your own research and start sending in ideas for the perfect editor at specific publishers. Editors will worry that you’re spending your free time digesting Publishers Marketplace instead of working on your book.)

* At what point do you give up sending my manuscript out?

* What’s the best way to contact you? E-mail or phone? I like to schedule calls in the beginning so I can focus on the interaction. Other agents prefer e-mail.

After a manuscript has been submitted, ask for a list of publishers and editors.

* Ask if the agent will send rejects as they come in or if they’ll hold them. (I prefer to hold them until I have several in hand.)

* If you have one question, wait a few hours; maybe that one question will turn into several.

When the contract arrives for a new publication…read it. And then go over it clause by clause so that you understand what deadlines you’re committed to and what rights the publishers will be selling.

A Primer on Audio Rights

When an agent makes a deal to sell your book to a publisher, you’ll likely be elated (and will have a few common author questions). You’ll delight to tell your friends that they’ll soon see your work at their local bookstore, between brightly colored covers emblazoned with a respected publisher’s colophon.

What you won’t be thinking about until later are the subsidiary rights: sales that can be made to bookclubs, audio publishers, foreign publishers and movie/television producers. There are all sorts of ways that a book can earn money for a publisher and an author.

Right now, audio publishers are acquiring audio rights aggressively. They want everything: bestsellers and romances and science fiction and mysteries and nonfiction and backlist and kid’s books. They are building audio empires and their advances can equal or surpass those of your print publishers.

There are a couple of major book publishers who now insist on acquiring audio rights along with print rights, and that insistence can be a factor in where your agent thinks you should be published. Agents always want you to retain audio rights (for separate sale to an audio publisher) and may choose to sell your book to a house that will let them.

The publishers who retain audio rights pay royalties if they publish the book under their own audio division. If they license the rights to an outside audio publisher, you’ll receive a 50% share of the advance and of any royalties. The big downside to a print-and-audio deal with a print publisher is that the publisher will own those audio rights for as long as your book is in print or for the term of copyright — generally your lifetime plus 70 years.

If your agent sells your audio rights separately, generally your audio contract will run for a defined term of license much shorter than the term of copyright, often no more than eight or ten years. After that term, the audio rights revert to you.

These days, authors may end up having a relationship with their audio publisher who may choose, for instance, to send you to the American Library Association. Or authors may become friendly with the narrator of their books; readers will tell you that they loved “listening” to your book. And even if your book was published long ago, there’s a chance that it can find a new life in audio.

About Literary Film Agents

Don’t be afraid to ask your agent what her plan is re sending your book out to the movie business — even though she’ll sigh just a bit.

Here’s what you need to know about literary film agents (assuming you’ve gotten your audio rights covered). There are three good times for an agent to get your books into the hands of literary film agents:

* When an agent has just taken on a book and is really, really excited about it. The idea is high-concept; the agent thinks it will go for a lot of money. Hollywood loves the chase. So the agent sends the book to suitable literary film agents. An agent takes on the book. And the literary agent and the film agent go out to publishers and producers simultaneously.

* When the book has just been acquired by a publisher. The announcement appears in Publishers Marketplace. Assistants to producers and studios and film agents want to read it. But if the idea isn’t high-concept and cinematic and sexy…well, this can also be a place and time where film dreams disappear.

* Just as the reviews are being published.

But the fact is that most books are discovered by film people almost accidentally, and for some reason these accidents seem to disproportionately involve airplanes or children or college roommates. A producer slips into first class and asks his seatmate what she’s reading. A producer falls in love with a middle-grade series when he reads it to his nine-year-old daughter. The college roommate of the author is now working at a studio. Yes, yes, of course it doesn’t happen this way all the time, but what your agents wants you to know is that this is the most unpredictable aspect of the publishing business and that she has very little control over whether Hollywood or Netflix will decide whether to acquire your novel.

Should I Hire a Publicist?

Another of the popular author questions. In general, no, it’s probably not a good idea. At least for (most) fiction. Publicists can do fabulous things for authors. But now that so few newspapers or major media review books and, instead, digital media has blossomed as the prime engine for publicizing books, it really doesn’t make sense to take a good portion of your advance and hire a publicist who will come in five months before pub date and do all the things that an in-house team — who will be meeting and planning your book’s strategy together — will do.

If you’ve written several books, it might make sense to hire an assistant rather than a publicist. That assistant can work out a promotion plan for you that rolls out year-round. She (or he) can help you with social media, with Twitter, and with getting out an e-mail newsletter to fans and bookstores. An in-house publicist can invest about six weeks getting out the word on your book. After that, it’s time for her to move on to other projects.

Authors of nonfiction (and historical fiction) should discuss the value of a publicist with their agents and editors. Certainly there are a lot of practical ways that a dedicated publicist may make a significant difference for nonfiction titles. But unless there are good reasons to conclude that your publisher doesn’t have sufficient manpower and/or enthusiasm to promote your book, it’s probably best to stick with your publisher’s team.

Whatever you decide to do, decide early! Don’t hire a publicist two months out from publication. Start looking for someone seven or eight months earlier.

The Snowflake Method

A few years ago, a friend used “the snowflake method” to plot out her first novel. Her book was admirably tight and her characters had a depth and complexity that is rare in a first novel.

Since then I’ve sent many writers to this site:
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

And many have been inspired by it. I don’t know if they’re systematically following the program, but they’re getting something useful out of it.

I take on a lot of debut fiction. By the time it lands on my desktop, every chapter and page of these books has been long worked on to build a compelling tale with full-featured characters. If all goes right, the book gets sold and the publisher and readers want more…soon. So then comes the contract for the second novel. Or for the fifth. And the author must start anew. Maybe the writer has an idea, has settled on a few characters and so he starts to work. I can see trouble ahead. And that would be the vast middle of the story, the Sahara Desert called plot.

Eventually the writer will figure out how to make it all work — even without my help. But there will be so many drafts, so many restarts…and inevitably it turns out that a new character needs to be introduced. Or that the stakes aren’t high enough. And this is where the snowflake method shows its stuff.

It’s kind of the opposite of the Marie Kondo plan. In other words, the author isn’t confronting a messy house that needs to be cleaned out. The problem instead is the inherent scantiness of beginnings. And the author’s fear that her idea spigot has been turned off elicits panic, not inspiration. It’s always scary: Is there any guarantee that the urgent twists and turns and engaging characters will return?

The snowflake method is methodical; it ploddingly explains that building a potent story is not about inspiration. It’s about asking one question, listening to the answer and then offering up another idea. It alleviates many authors’ anxiety to think of plotting as a skill like any other. The craft has rules, it can be learned, and it’s not about brilliance. It’s about thinking characters and a story through and giving yourself enough time that an unexpected twist or turn can emerge.