AGENTS: A Few Remarks to Those Who Seek One 

By David Poyer 

Many new writers have only one question for me, or for any other published writer they meet: "How do I get an agent?"

Some of them ask me this even before they've started their first book!

So I've prepared this little primer. I hope it's helpful. And you might also want to read "Something for Nothing", which is also available for download from this website; it also has some things to say about this topic, though at greater length.

First of all, congratulations on finishing a manuscript, which is in itself a considerable achievement. (I will assume you have finished the ms.)  Many people begin a book, but few stick it out to the end. They usually quit when they discover that writing (not to mention rewriting) is hard work, time-consuming, and for the most part not at all glamorous -- unlike the images of writers shown in movies and on television. Writing, revising, and publishing a book is not exactly a brief enterprise. (Sort of like what happens when a cop takes on "a simple little serial murder case.")  It can involve months or even years of work.

In fact, writing itself is a lifelong learning process. And I am still an apprentice in the craft.

One wouldn't expect to master brain surgery, or even bricklaying, in a year, yet some people assume they can jot down 50,000 words and by virtue of this become a novelist. They don't want to rewrite, or spend time in a writer's workshop or apply criticism and advice gathered there. They simply want to know the magic shortcut to getting published. They want to know the "secret key," as one long-ago writers' conference participant put it, when he complained on his evaluation form that I still had not given it to him!

Unfortunately, there is no secret key. I wish there were; it would save me a lot of labor, too. Quite plainly, writing is the hardest work I know of, and I've done a lot of things -- engineering, publishing, sales, public policy analysis, cleaning doughnut machines, being a security guard. It can be tedious. Being introduced to an editor or agent is no guarantee of publication; knowing an author certainly isn't--we have books of our own that remain unpublished! But I will give you some advice about how to proceed, assuming you have already written a publishable ms -- that is, rewritten and scrubbed and critiqued and vetted and polished and rewritten again, and then checked with utter fanaticism, till it is perfect. If you do not have a manuscript that has reached this stage, you are wasting everyone's time marketing it.

I've published something like twenty-four books so far, and the one I sent off the day before I sat down to write this took me seven drafts. The first draft was 180,000 words; over the course of a year of rewriting, I pared it down to 135,000 words, while adding two subplots and reducing the average Flesch reading level from eleventh to sixth grade. Haven't heard from the copy editor yet on that one, but on the one before it the editor had the following changes to recommend to the draft I submitted: zero. This is the level of effort I mean by a "publishable" manuscript.

Things have changed a good deal in publishing in the last ten or fifteen years. People are under the impression that it is nearly impossible to get a first book published; yet that's not the case. Editors are always looking for good, publishable manuscripts; that's how they make a living. The problem is most people go about it the wrong way. They send off a messy, badly presented first draft full of errors. They don't rewrite their work, don't polish it until it in is the best possible shape. They send their whole novel manuscript off blindly to publishers who only produce non-fiction gardening books, or their x-rated horror novel to a religious press, and then are of course rejected. After a few tries, they give up altogether.

The publishing industry is massive and confusing to most of us, but there are many good agents looking for new talent. They have the advantage of not only knowing the proper place to send your book, but which editor is looking for a book of that type at the moment. So the connection, which would be a matter of pure luck for a writer firing off manuscripts blindly, can be made much more efficiently by an agent in New York who knows the people he or she is selling to.

Agents are easy to contact. Go to any public library and ask for either WRITER'S MARKET or LITERARY MARKET PLACE -- the current editions. Agents are listed in both of these reference works. If you're a serious writer with serious ambitions, another source would be to write to the Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR), 10 Astor Place, 3rd Floor, New York NY 10003. Ask for a list of their members. AAR members subscribe to a code of ethics and my impression is that although this doesn't guarantee sainthood, it's a useful screening mechanism.

Sit down with this list and the book and pick out a number of agents who handle the type of book you've written. (Agents, like everyone else, specialize in certain types of work.)

Another, perhaps even better way to contact agents is to go to writers' conferences and festivals.  Hungry young agents circulate there in search of exactly what you are - a hungry young (or at least beginning) writer.  They have one-on-one availabilities you can sign up for to pitch them on your work, or you can simply buttonhole them at the receptions or in the hallways.  

Whichever way you find them -- and this is very important -- give them exactly what they ask for.  Meaning, if they only want a cover letter and the first two chapters, don't send your entire manuscript; if they don't accept simultaneous submissions, wait to hear from them before you send your query elsewhere, and so on. To second-guess their requirements will only annoy them, and decrease your chances for consideration.

Then wait. Don't harass them by calling every day as soon as your package arrives on their desk. They generally give some idea of response time. If that passes and you hear nothing, then -- and only then -- should you contact them and enquire about your submission.

Should you go with a well-known agent? Generally speaking, a top-notch agent will get you better advances -- by definition. However, unless you're already well-known from short story publications or are a celebrity, you'll probably waste your time writing to Esther Newburg or Scott Meredith (or very well-known, very busy agents from any big agency.) They will be too involved with other long-time clients to devote much time to your work. A just-out-of-the-egg writer might be better served by individuals or small agencies who will welcome your query and be anxious to go out and enthusiastically sell it -- that's how THEY make a living. For a new writer, large agencies (and also, sometimes, large publishing houses) can be a bad fit. As the low man on the totem pole, your ms. may sit on a shelf, or your first novel may not receive adequate (or any) promotion, while the agent or publisher strokes and coddles the "big fish" clients.

Here's an anecdote: my wife, who's also a novelist, has a friend, a widely published and read romance novelist who had done a great job of promoting her own work since the early 1980s -- that's why she was widely read and published. A couple years ago she was approached by a big agency who wanted to represent her. She was flattered, thought: why not? And signed on. Her career took a sharp decline the next year, and she finally discovered the "big fish" principle can apply to already successful writers, too. She terminated her contract with the agency, went to work on her own PR again, and is doing better than ever.

What else should you look for in your agent? An agent should be easy to contact. Email and fax numbers are a definite plus, especially once you have a property in play.

Agents should be enthusiastic about your work. I'd rather have a small agent who was afire with enthusiasm than a large "name" agent who has no special interest in you and considers your work uninspiring.

Agents should have contacts/networks in place to sell subsidiary rights. You should not get a blank stare when you mention film rights, foreign rights, when you ask who handles rights in Germany or Japan. Reputable agents have links or contacts through which they sell these other rights, which can add to your net considerably with very little or no additional work on your part.

I would not advise a friend to sign on with an agent located in, say, Des Moines or Kentucky. A good agent must be near the action.  For the most part, that means in or near New York. Otherwise, how can he keep up his publishing connections? It's true that the advent of fax machines and the Internet make many businesses possible to run from a distance, but publishers and agents are a notoriously low-tech bunch.  It's also an occupational given that editors move from one house to another frequently. Without face to face meetings, eventually the best contact list can dry up, and too many sales depend on the chance remark that takes place at a convention, party, or during meetings to discuss other business. Unless they truly make a heroic effort, agents from the hinterland are going to be too late on these oppportunities.

I have never felt a requirement to sign an agenting agreement, but if you like contracts, and what you read seems fair, there seems to be no reason to refuse one. Just be sure you can get out of it with a reasonable advance notice, should things not work out between you.

If an agent wants to sign you up, make sure he doesn't charge an exorbitant commission. Ten percent is traditional. Ten-percent agents may ask you to reimburse them for such business expenses as copying, but my advice is not to pay your agent any "reading fee". There are reputable reading services/book doctors out there charging modest fees. But the fact remains that an agent is a salesman: it's his JOB to sell your book and then take his cut; not charge you big fees for the honor of having him read it beforehand. (And watch out: there are a number of BAD reading services who pose as agents and make a living taking fat fees and giving little or no useful advice.)

Since about 2000 many agents have jacked up the traditional 10% commission to 15%, while offering no additional services for the 50% increase in charges to you.  This strikes me as more than it's worth, and just another imposition on the writer.  If your agent's one of these, and insists on 15%, try to negotiate a reduction back to 10% for the second and subsequent books, or for sequels with the same publisher.

Once she signs you on, it is reasonable for you to expect your agent to read your work and suggest changes to improve the quality before he takes it out to editors. Packaging is her job, and one of the reasons you're giving her a commission when she sells your book. Your job is not to argue with her; it's to think about the suggested changes and improvements and, if they make sense to you, to incorporate them in an improved draft .

If you decide to send your book to publishers yourself, feel free. I did it with my first three books. Just be sure not to get discouraged early on if the first few attempts are not successful. (It took me sixteen tries to place my first book). If you go this route, follow the directions given in the editors' listings in WM or LMP. Send EXACTLY what they ask for, no more and no less. And be sure you send the cleanest, most grammatical version of your book that you can produce. WM and LMP also give some examples of what a good submission should look like. Editors read an average of 40-50 manuscripts a day; at that rate a dirty, smudged, misspelled, ungrammatical one gets stuffed back in the return envelope out of annoyance or simple eyestrain.

Once you have an offer from a major publisher, you'll basically have your choice of agents, if you want one at that point.  You may not, but you might want to have a literary attorney look over the contract, at an hourly charge, before you sign it.

I should also add a note about vanity presses, E-publishers, and POD (print on demand) publishers.

A "vanity press" is a printer (not actually a publisher, as they do not actually publish your work to the world) who takes money to turn your manuscript into a bound book.  Not to put too fine a point on it, they're almost all scams, unless you just want a few copies of a family memoir or something between covers you can send to friends and family.  Since you pay them up front to print the book, they've already made their profit at that point.

A real publisher will not require you to pay anything to publish your book.  They may not give you much of an advance, but they'll pay you something.

 Most E-publishers and POD publishers I hear about seem to be a recent variation of the vanity press idea.  I'd be very wary of signing anything with most of these folks.  If you have something you think people will actually pay to read, go with a real agent and a real publisher.

I hope this is helpful to you, and wish you success marketing your manuscript. You've really done the hard part already, so don't give up now! 

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David Poyer is possibly the best known writer of American sea fiction alive today.  His most recent book is THAT ANVIL OF OUR SOULS (Simon & Schuster, July 2005).  Check out his work and career advice at the Home Page location below.
   

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