I had a wonderful lunch today with a fantastic group of published novelists. Great fun, great writing talk, great people in general. I can’t begin to tell you how lucky I feel every time I get to attend a lunch like today.
But on the way home, I got asking myself one simple question: How did we get here?
Part of the conversation today was about agents, as it is with any group of published writers these days. This last weekend, I spent exactly three hours at OryCon SF Convention in Portland, Oregon, and ended up hearing horror stories about two different agents, and then I went to a book signing and ended up hearing another horror story about yet another agent there.
In two weeks, I have heard exactly five horror stories about how agents have hurt a writer’s career. So my question yet again: How did we, as writers, get here?
Sure, all through time, all through all jobs and professions, employees can really hurt a business. Not saying that isn’t normal. But in writing, it’s just become excessive.
And worst yet, the writers, as the bosses, let these agent employees stop them, hurt their career, slow down their work, and sometimes drive them completely out of business. One story last weekend was about an agent flat stealing from a writer, another story last weekend was how an agent refused to mail out a writer’s book for two years. And so on.
One story right after another about an agent hurting a writer’s career, and the writer knows better, yet has let them.
So, once again, my question, how did we get here? How did writers let agents get in control of anything? As a group, are we really that stupid? That fearful? That much buried in the myths built up around agents? Seems all the evidence points to the fact that we are.
So, even though I have covered this topic a couple times in past posts in different ways, I want to line out exactly what an agent does. And doesn’t do.
WHAT AN AGENT DOES
1) An agent negotiates a book deal with a publisher after an offer has been made. This allows the editor and the writer to remain friendly and working to make a good product while the agent does the nasty stuff. But in the end, the writer still signs the contract. So, an agent is just a voice box for what the writer wants in a negotiation.
2) An agent can sometimes, if the situation is correct, work one publisher against another in a negotiation. Again, writers makes the decisions, but an agent does the heavy lifting on setting this sort of thing up.
3) Agent gets the books out to other agents in other countries and to Hollywood. With the internet, this is becoming less and less important, but an agent is needed in the mix somewhere along the way to negotiate the contract with an overseas publisher when an offer is made.
4) Agent chases the money, keeps the publisher following the agreed contract.
That’s it. Anything out of those for major areas and you, the writer, are letting an agent have too much power in your life and your livelihood.
WHAT AN AGENT DOES NOT DO
1) Agents do NOT edit books. They don’t ask you to rewrite a book, they don’t ask you to fix a book. If they knew how to write, they would be doing it and making the 85% instead of the 15%. (Folks, if they don’t like your book, find an agent who will like it as you wrote it.)
2) Agents do NOT hold a book you want sent to a certain publisher. Agents have no control over where a book goes or doesn’t go. That is up to the writer, and the moment you give that control over to an agent, you are asking for trouble and rejections. You know your book better than anyone else, and it is frighteningly easy these days to do market research. Pick your own editors, your own houses to send your book to. Take control of the submission process and then direct your employee. (Again, if the employee says no, find an employee who will follow your directions.)
3) Agents do NOT tell you when a book has no hope. Just because it has five or ten rejections doesn’t mean your agent has the right to tell you to put it away. History of publishing has hundreds and hundreds of stories of major bestsellers and classics getting rejected upwards of 50 or more times before selling and hitting it big. Five or ten rejections doesn’t mean your book doesn’t work, it means your agent is lazy.
4) Agents do NOT help you plan a career. They have no right to tell you to slow down, to change a habit, to write under another name or not write under another name. The hard truth is those are your decisions and you have to make them for what works for you. The moment you let marketing and agents and outside voices, like those of your workshop, into your art, you are doomed. The frightening truth is that most agents don’t have a clue what it is like to be a writer, or even what happens in a writer’s life. Get advice from other writers farther down the road than you are. Not some agent.
I hope you can keep the above points in mind, but to be honest, it still won’t help you much with decisions about agents. I know, I was at lunch today with nine of the smartest novelists in the business and the myths still kept coming up in all the agent discussions. I had one of the myths hit me this week as well and took me three days to get past it, three lost writing days because I let something from an agent into my office that didn’t belong.
Agents are important in this business to work for writers and help them with contracts and business. But they are nothing more than an employee. They do not know how to write, and they suck at marketing compared to you, because you know your own book better than anyone.
Keep the control in your own hands, find an agent who can work for you.
And I guess I did finally answer my own question. How did we get here?
Answer: We lost sight that there were choices, that we were in control, and that agents work for us, not the other way around.
Remember that and it will help you keep moving ahead when everyone else is falling by the wayside, listening to their agents thoughts on rewriting, believing their employees are gods.
Cheers, Dean