If you’re not familiar, Frasier Crane is a psychiatrist, who after leaving Boston (on Cheers), moved back to his home city of Seattle and became the host of a syndicated radio program. At some point during the series, he had an absolutely abysmal agent named Bebe, who made him miserable.

Apparently, as of this episode, Bebe had left him to work with Dr. Phil McGraw, feeling him a far better client.

In the scene that I just saw, Bebe came back to Frasier and Roz at their favorite coffee house to tell Frasier she’d left Dr. Phil, believing Frasier to be a more up-and-coming client. She then inflated his ego — easy with Frasier — and told him of all her grand visions of his career. Below is essentially the dialogue that followed (I didn’t record it or anything).

________

Frasier: Well, Bebe, that’s outstanding! I’d love to have you back as my agent!

Bebe: Very good, Frasier. But you should know, Dr. Phil paid me FIFTEEN percent.

Frasier: I’d be happy to pay that for your skill! I just have to make a rather uncomfortable call to my current agent.

Bebe: Already handled. I took the liberty of informing her myself.

Frasier: Ah, excellent. Thank you, Bebe!

Bebe: Oh, and one more thing. I also called Spokane and told them they were paying far too little for the rights to your show.

Frasier: Excellent! So you got more money from them?

Bebe: No, they declined, so you’re no longer on the air in Spokane!

Roz: What? But isn’t that a step backward?

Bebe: All the better to get a running start, my dear! Good day to you both, I have much work to do. (Exits)

Frasier: Roz, I’m so excited to have Bebe back as my agent.

Roz: Frasier, you’re paying her MORE money, and you’re now no longer on the air in Spokane.

Frasier: Yes, but my future is FIRMLY in front of me.

Roz: Isn’t the future ALWAYS in front of you?

Frasier: Of course! But not FIRMLY. (End scene)
__________________________

Just had to point out such an obvious comedic illustration of the bad agent “helping” with one’s career. Exaggeration, I’m sure, but in order for exaggeration to have effect, it must be grounded in fact.

We, of course, know better than to think this conversation is pure fiction. The conversation might even be reduced so it doesn’t play as over the top.

Too funny.

Your argument about agents not having the writer’s interests in mind, reminds me about the critisim about real estate agents in the book Freakonomics.

Here is an article about it

Cracking the Real Estate Code

basically, like a real estate agent, an literary agent only makes a small percentage of the sale, so they have much less incentive than the author to bargain for a higher price.

here is their example from the article

So on the sale of your $300,000 house, her personal take of the $18,000 commission is $4,500. Still not bad, you say. But what if the house was worth more than $300,000? What if, with a little more effort and patience, she could have sold it for $310,000? After the commission, that puts an additional $9,400 in your pocket. Yet the agent’s additional share – her personal 1.5 percent – is a mere $150. So maybe your incentives aren’t aligned after all. Is the agent willing to put out all that extra time and energy for just $150?

Of course a literary agent makes a higher percentage, so it is a little less stark, but still you can see how the numbers work.

Here is my example,

Suppose you are offered a 10,000 advance. If the agent is able to increase the advance 25% to 12,500, they will only get $375 added to their cut of $1,500. If it takes a week of work and lunches with editors and possibly getting a reputation for being difficult or burning bridges with editors, $375 is not that much money. If instead, the agent lets your book go for 10,000, and uses the week to sign two more new authors for 10,000 advances, they will earn $3,000 on top of $1,500 from your book.

You can see the idea. It is in an agents best interest to have many writer clients, and sell their books quickly, with as little time and effort expended as possible.

Thanks for the advice. I’ll be sending out four more submissions today!

Greg

Fantastic. That was more or less what I expected, but it is nice to see it spelled out. Now that you’ve responded I have another question. I am a begining novelist. I literally have no ‘credits’ or ‘reviews’ or really anything that I feel isn’t fluff to add to my ‘author’s blurb’. Any advice for those of us who can’t put ‘Dear editor, please find my novel, and by the way, your publishing house has already published 30 of the 120 novels I have written’?

Thanks again,
Greg

Novels, it is to your advantage to have it at least five publishers at the same time in case one makes an offer. As for your questions, #1 “No unsolicited submissions” was the last door, so 1990’s. (grin) Now the door is “No unagented submissions.” I’m going to answer the question with two questions back. “What’s the worst they can do to you?” “What’s the best that can happen?”

Answer: Worst they can do is just say no. The best is that they buy your book.

No right answer on #2. All of us tend to do it differently. I tend to do a cover letter, followed by 10-40 pages of the book to give the editor a sense of the writing and how it opens, and then a short synopsis of the novel after the pages to let them know the ending, then sometimes more of an author blub after that or reviews that might help on previous books. (I do put some of my general credits in my cover letter of course.)

#3 was answered above.

Hope that helps.

I was pointed to your blog yesterday and I’ve been pouring over your advice ever since. With a sigh of relief I have stopped worrying about ‘getting an agent’ as an integral part of building my career in writing. That said, I have a few clarifying questions for you:

1. Should I completely ignore ‘no unsolicited submissions’ warnings from publishing houses?

2. If I do ignore those warnings, do I just send in my query letter and first 50 pages? The entire MS? How did/do you do it?

3. Some say they ‘prefer’ no simultaneous submissions. Heh. I ‘prefer’ to be paid in advance in six-to-ten digit amounts, but I’ll take what I can get. Do you ignore the no simultaneous submissions requests?

Thanks,
Greg

Thanks. I can fire my shrink now. I already fired my agents.

Scott Nicholson
http://hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/14/various-sundry-21410/

What I always say is: Take what you need and leave the rest.