8 Responses to Great Agent Comments

1. Louis says:

   May 13, 2010 at 10:26 pm

   Thanks for the heads up. Since I was blessed with a laptop recently, I have been working on my novels on a regular bases again. So I may very well be needing this advice from everyone not too long from now.

   Reply
2. izanobu says:

   May 14, 2010 at 1:42 am

   For more agent wackiness, I found this post with one agent’s rejection letter to a query.

   http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/2010/05/most-bizarre-rejection-letter-ever.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MissSnarksFirstVictim+%28Miss+Snark%27s+First+Victim%29

   Not an agent I’d want, I don’t think, even if somehow this was meant to be ironic or funny or something.

   Reply
3. Laura Resnick says:

   May 14, 2010 at 2:03 am

   Eye-opening trip down Memory Lane this week. Around the time I was firing my third agent, I was also finishing a contemporary romance I was writing (which that agent declined to have anything to do and nastily castigated me for writing; it subsqeuently became a Rita Award finalist and was recently named on DearAuthor.com as one of the genre’s Top 100 Novels). One of the main characters in the novel happened to be a writer (which profession I chose because I needed a character whose profession meant she was at home most of the time–and I didn’t see the point in researching some OTHER profession when there’s an at-home profession (writing) that I already know extremely well). And although the book isn’t about her career, since it’s fiction, and conflict and drama raise the stakes, I put her in the middle of a career crisis (and if there’s something else I know a lot about, it’s writerly career crises! ).

   Anyhow, I’m reviewing/prepping this MS, which I haven’t looked at in a few years (I wrote it in 2003) for reissue. And since I have a terrible memory, I had forgotten a lot about this book’s contents.

   At one point in the story, the author’s agent abandons her when the chips are down. And I’m reading this yesterday and thinking, “Yep.”

   But at the end of the book, as things are wrapping up happily in the two main characters’ lives… ONE of the things that wraps up is that she gets a new literary agent who turns her career around.

   So in 2003, when I was finishing this book, I still believed in that. Here’s evidence right on the page.

   Although the character and her experiences aren’t based on me, I was using what I knew to portray her… and back then, that was still what I believed: That in my own constant agent disasters and problems, I had been unlucky, it would be better next time, Mr./Ms. Right was waiting out there for me, and would save me.

   In 2006, after a FOURTH bad agent experience, yet another round of weird/insulting query experiences, and a sober look at my career (and how much money I would NOT have made and how many books I would NOT have sold if I had accepted the judgments of agents over the years), I decided to manage my own career, and my early 2007, this was clearly confirmed by experience as the right decision. As 2007 wore on, I realized more and more that not only was I now doing what was best for me (working agentless), but that my only regret was that I hadn’t abandoned the various myths about agents much, much sooner than I did.

   So yesterday when I came across the final scenes of this novel, written 2003, when I still believed (and herein portrayed) a professional myth that I no longer believe in at all…. I was embarrassed! (wg) So embarrassed that I briefly considered rewriting substantial proportions of the book to change that attitude.

   But then I thought, no, the book is what it is, and the book is not ABOUT the author-character’s career crisis or the solution she finds to it. And, after all, she’s also NOT based on me. (Besides, ever since getting agents out of my life, I’m too heavily contracted to spend my time rewriting several scenes of an old novel. I have too many new novels to write for good money.)

   But it certainly is an eye-opening about (a) how long and steadfastly certain myths persist in our minds, and (b) how much experience eventually changed my views about agents.

   Reply
4. Sam Lee says:

   May 14, 2010 at 3:58 am

   Good stuff, indeed! I fell into a track like Nathan’s — write, send, get requests for fulls, then swallow the myths hook line and sinker, get no writing done, get the joy sucked out of writing, and then somehow finding you and Kris and others who bust the myths wide open. The joy’s come back, I don’t torture myself about my writing any more, and I can’t wait to see what success comes from going back to the original write-send-write pattern.

   I started reading Dean and Kris last year, but I only started to “get” it this year. I really hate that I lost so many years in the wilderness from believing the myths. Better late than never, though, so I guess I’m a proud member of the Dead Sacred Cows of Publishing Class of ’10!

   Reply
5. Steve Perry says:

   May 14, 2010 at 9:38 am

   So, the question that probably came up in all he back-and-forth, and I missed it:

   Are there good agents? Those who perform according to the general guidelines put forth here, and who do so effectively and well-enough so his or her clients are pleased … ?

   Reply
   • dwsmith says:

     May 14, 2010 at 12:57 pm

     Are there good agents who perform according to the guidelines I have been talking about in these blogs? The answer is yes, of course. (Nice question, Steve, since you know the answer. (grin))

     And even though I am getting known out there in the great “inter-lube” (as Craig F. calls it) as anti agent, I am not. Kris has a great agent that works perfectly with everything I have been talking about here. And I have had three good agents that worked perfectly for me as well. I am not agented at the moment because, as it has turned out in the last few years, I haven’t needed an agent’s help for anything. I might, and if that day comes, I will hire a good one in a heart beat.

     What I am banging against is not only the bad agents, the new agent model of rewriting their client’s work, and the refusing to mail, but the stupidity that writers deal with agents caused by the myths spread everywhere. And these myths, as Laura just pointed out, are deep in all of us. I was no exception.

     So, yes, there are great agents and good agents, and I think there are agents that fit every different writer’s style. I just this weekend I gave advice to a first time novelist (who just sold a four book deal ON HIS OWN) as to how to find a good agent and what to watch out for and if he was on the right track with his agent choice. (I thought he was.) Those that know me and listen to me and actually don’t get angry at every word I say realize I actually have no problems with agents.

     I have problems with writers and how they deal with agents.

     I believe we are all responsible for our own career. We make the choices, we are the boss. If a writer wants to hand over their entire income and career to a stranger without checking on them, just because of a myth, they make that choice. So I have nothing against agents at all. Bad agents would not exist without stupid writers.

     I am trying to help the writers get through the myths so they can make smart agent choices. Nothing more.

     (And I think I’m going to post this as a front page comment as well…thanks, Steve…(grin)

     Reply
     • dwsmith says:

       May 14, 2010 at 1:37 pm

       I cleaned this answer up and put it up as a post, with some added material. Thanks, Steve, it was time.

       Reply
6. Laura Woodby says:

   April 12, 2011 at 11:04 pm

   so much great info on here, : D.

   Reply