A Novel Approach to Agents

Old Hack · Mar 11, 2012

popmuze, I can sort-of understand why you're suggesting this: but the thing is, it gives you no advantage.

At best, all that's going to happen is the requesting agent you grant the exclusive to is going to say ok, and then read your ms whenever he or she gets round to it. The exclusive thing is not likely to get them to read it more quickly. All it's going to do is prevent you from sending it out anywhere else until the exclusive is up.

They might well read your response, think you're being snippy, and send you a form rejection. Or worse, perhaps, delete your submission and not even let you know they've rejected you.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 11, 2012

quicklime said:
fair enough; instead you'd look like Anne Rice, or someone else who's own success or perceived success has made them insufferable. Still not a perk.

That insufferable writer has sold more books than most of us ever will, and is only insufferable to those who have never met her, don't know anything about her, and can only hope to be half as good, or a tenth as successful.

"Insufferable' is going around calling successful people you've never met and don't know insufferable.

Old Hack · Mar 11, 2012

Let's not call each other names. It's rude and uncalled for. That goes for writers who aren't members of AW, and writers who are. Thanks.

Drachen Jager · Mar 11, 2012

Giant Baby said:
That's not cool, or for anyone unfamiliar with the OP's body of work to comment on.

RYFW, and all that.

It just stands to reason. If you wrote 14 novels that sold well and the publisher was happy you would not have any problem finding an agent or a publisher for future novels. Since the OP is having problems finding agents and publishers he has not written 14 novels that sold well and left the publishers happy. Simple boolean logic there, no familiarity required.

I appear to have missed the point about the 14 being non-fiction, if that's the case then of course it does not necessarily apply. However, even with non-fiction, if the they were all profitable and left publishers happy I would think he'd at least get special consideration, and he probably wouldn't be looking for an agent.

veinglory · Mar 11, 2012

If you think he wrote novels then you aren't familiar with his work, which may be why your reasoning isn't quite on target.

Cyia · Mar 11, 2012

Here's what would happen, most likely.

1 - you send a full saying *3-week exclusive!!!*
2 - full goes into agent's already full queue of waiting manuscripts.
3 - 3 weeks pass, then 4, then 5, then 2 months, then the agent gets to your manuscript and reads "*3-week exclusive!!!*
4 - agent shrugs, if the author wants to shoot himself in the foot it's his business.
5 - agent reads the MS and decides whether or not it's worth her time.
6 - writer still waits and/or gets no response because the full isn't read until it's reached in the queue.

popmuze · Mar 11, 2012

I have read a lot of valid points here, so no need to extract quotes from each one. But just to clarify, only 11 of my 14 books have been non-fiction; I've published three YA novels (and recently reissued one of them as an ebook, with a new ending). But, I have to be honest, I suppose I'm not the ideal client, since I've also had probably 11 agents. Many of them I've gotten through writer friends, or other contacts in the industry. I've had editors recommend agents (which I gather they're not supposed to do); I've had agents take me on for non-fiction and then reluctantly agree to (halfheartedly) pitch my fiction. Admittedly, my career flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that you have to publish a successful book before you ever get a chance to publish another one. I wouldn't call any of my previous books successful (if successful means earning back the advance). Yet I've been getting published for more than 30 years. Luckily, my wife is independently wealthy. (I'm just kidding). I am however definitely frustrated by how many agents responded to the query for my latest work with "I'm am totally bowled over by this concept." Or "LOVE to see this one." Or "Send immediately" and then preferred to let it sit for six months or more, or just never responded. Maybe it's time I changed my name.

Perks · Mar 11, 2012

Drachen Jager said:
Certainly some people get lucky, but we're talking about ways you can ensure better responses from agents and publishers, not how some random people get published without necessarily being brilliant. It's not the same thing, and conflating the two doesn't help anyone.

If you want to be a published novelist, control what you can of the equation. If you're counting on lucky encounters you might just as well save your time and go play the lottery.

It's not just that "some people get lucky" unless those here who have sold into the current market are willing to look at everyone else, also here, but still in the hunt, and say, "I guess I just wrote a better book than you did."

I'm certainly not comfortable with that. The book is the most important thing, without a doubt, but there are other factors and part of the pushback against the agent approach suggested in the OP is that it potentially screws with the other components of the process.

quicklime · Mar 11, 2012

Jamesaritchie said:
That insufferable writer has sold more books than most of us ever will, and is only insufferable to those who have never met her, don't know anything about her, and can only hope to be half as good, or a tenth as successful. or who find her rants about editing to be enough to decide they don't care about any of the above. I probably won't sell as many books as Orson Scott Card either, but I'm neither envious nor inclined to drop in adoration of the guy. Ditto Rice, who may save burning kittens, work at a soup kitchen, and still completely, utterly turns me off with her rants. It is perhaps par, but also very simply-minded, to say my distaste can only come from envy.

for pop, barring her career though, you do not have the luxury of being as difficult as she sometimes appears to be. that was my point.

"Insufferable' is going around calling successful people you've never met and don't know insufferable.

I suppose that's true; I have never met a variety of people I only knew from their writings, but if you are claiming someone who's rants you found ridiculous and offensively precious is someone you'd run right out to meet, James, I think you are either lying to me or to yourself...although I admit I am honestly unsure which.

BethS · Mar 11, 2012

popmuze said:
To combat the trend of agents holding onto full manuscripts for six months or more, and often never responding at all, I'm seriously thinking, the next time I get a request for a full manuscript of offering it as an exclusive. As in saying, whether the agent asks for it or not, you can have this exclusively if you read it in three weeks. I wonder what the response would be. If the agents agreeing to it would actually read it in three weeks. Wouldn't you much prefer one agent at a time reading for three weeks, than seven agents holding onto it forever?

This approach doesn't make any sense to me. If an agent has a full and hasn't responded after a couple-three months, drop him or her a polite reminder email. But meanwhile, keep sending your queries, partials, and fulls out to other agents.

Never offer an exclusive. It only makes you look arrogant. If an agent wants an exclusive, he'll ask for it, though you should try to avoid granting an exclusive if you can.

BethS · Mar 11, 2012

James D. Macdonald said:
Writing a brilliant novel is usually the first step.

Heh.

Yeah.

Deb Kinnard · Mar 11, 2012

I sure see and sympathize with the frustration expressed here. I don't think it's in our power to change the parameters of the agent/author experiment. If it were, some determined writer would've changed it a long time ago.

I see the industry as contracting in a weird way. Agents take on fewer clients, perhaps. To those wanting to be signed, their warning is, "If we ignore you, assume it's 'no.'" How many businesses run this way? If I write a business letter, suggesting we might deal together to our mutual profit, I expect to be taken a tad bit more seriously than to hear nothing.

Publishers also. I won't mention Dorchester. But they're getting more afraid and more protective of their turf by the day. Witness the agency model, and the DOJ lawsuit, and, and, and.

All we can do is keep writing, and try to grope our way through the darkness this industry seems bent on becoming. I agree with the frustration that we authors are often the "last and least" when we are the ones doing the lion's share of the work for the tiniest share of either respect or filthy lucre.

Marian Perera · Mar 11, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
To those wanting to be signed, their warning is, "If we ignore you, assume it's 'no.'" How many business run this way? If I write a business letter, suggesting we might deal together to our mutual profit, I expect to be taken a tad bit more seriously than to hear nothing.

I'm applying for jobs right now and a lot of places stress that they will only contact applicants to request an interview (i.e. they won't reply to say they received my resume but I didn't make the initial cut). To me, that's not so different from "no reply means no" to queries.

Drachen Jager · Mar 11, 2012

Deb Kinnard said:
How many business run this way?

Every creative field where there are far more applicants than positions. Try your hand at breaking into film sometime. As an animator I went through nearly the exact same process, send out dozens of resume+demo reel packages and hope for the best. A few of the rejections actually responded.

I was just lucky enough to have an old HS acquaintance at a big company which got me past the equivalent of the slush pile, and in this biz, the slush pile only gets looked at if they have positions to fill, 9 times in 10 nobody will ever look at anything you've sent. We had a room full of demos that nobody had ever looked at, everything older than a few months was chucked on a regular basis.

So don't get so down on the way things are done in the writing world, it's just there are far more people wanting to get in than there are openings, and that's the way the world works.

lauralam · Mar 12, 2012

I'm going to echo everyone and say this is probably not a good idea.

If you write a kickass query and really interest an agent, you'll go up the queue. Or, even if they love the premise, agents are super busy, and existing clients should always come first.

If one agent likes it and makes an offer and you have the full out with 5 other agents, they'll all do a hurry-up read and then you might have your pick of agents and can speak to them all, and get a sense of which is the best agent for you.

But waving your MS and saying "you only have three weeks!" is going to piss a lot of them off. They are not beholden to you, even if your MS is going to make millions--there is no guarantee, and agents are humans, and busy ones at that.

wheelwriter · Mar 12, 2012

Queen of Swords said:
I'm applying for jobs right now and a lot of places stress that they will only contact applicants to request an interview (i.e. they won't reply to say they received my resume but I didn't make the initial cut). To me, that's not so different from "no reply means no" to queries.

Although Pop is talking about requested fulls, so to me that is akin to someone being asked to come in for an interview, interviewing, then never hearing back from the company.

It's understandable to me because I know agents are busy with their clients. From what I've read, it sounds like most agents look at manuscripts from potential clients on their own time. I still think agents should at least send a form rejection on requested work.

While I understand Pop's frustration, I don't think it's a good plan. Agents aren't taking forever with fulls because they want to be inconsiderate. They take forever because they are busy, overloaded, but still interested in representing new and exciting work. Most people don't like ultimatums. Forcing something to happen doesn't seem like it's worth the risk.

Perks · Mar 12, 2012

wheelwriter said:
It's understandable to me because I know agents are busy with their clients. From what I've read, it sounds like most agents look at manuscripts from potential clients on their own time. I still think agents should at least send a form rejection on requested work.

Agents not responding on requested manuscripts is rare. The trouble is that, even on a requested submission, it can take an awfully long time.

danrupe · Mar 12, 2012

I often see advocates for self-publishing mention its advantages over the slowness of the traditional publishing. With 14 books under your belt, I'd think you were better suited for self-publishing than most. Is self-publishing something you've considered as an option?

MKrys · Mar 12, 2012

Maybe it's just me, but I've not come across any agents who've requested a full and not responded. Perhaps a polite follow-up email after a certain period has elapsed, say 6 weeks or so, would be the better approach?

popmuze · Mar 12, 2012

I just tried the polite follow up approach three weeks ago; out of seven agents only one responded to it. That agent guaranteed a read in the very near future. The other six? Who knows? Reactions like this could certainly drive someone to self-publishing, but the two books I've got out on Kindle right now are hardly burning up the chart.

kaitie · Mar 12, 2012

I think that's where having a new project to work on helps. It's easy to obsess over the inbox if you get too focused on it. How many queries have you sent, btw? Something else that I found worked well was to send out a new set of queries anytime I felt things were getting sluggish. It usually guaranteed a few new responses.

happywritermom · Mar 13, 2012

I'm no expert (unpublished), but from what I've learned it seems what you really need now is that kick-butt novel or nonfiction book.

You noted that you have not yet published a book that has made more for you than you were advanced. Agents can get that information easily enough. If they are on the fence about your manuscript, those figures might push them in the negative direction.

I know it's hard to be patient, but it sounds like you need to slow down. Spend a year or two putting your heart and soul into your next work, getting lots of beta reads and feedback, maybe workshopping it, reading lots of other novels in your genre, dissecting them to find out what works.

You need a book that agents will pick up and know immediately that it will sell better than your past 14. In some ways, you've got it harder than those of us who have never published. If you want to make a career of writing in today's market, you have to prove you can pull in the money and that's not easy.

I've no doubt you can do it if you've made it this far, but I do think it might be time to stop querying and polish that diamond until it shines so bright, everyone is reaching for it (Okay, that was really corny. But you get the idea.).

Marian Perera · Mar 13, 2012

wheelwriter said:
I still think agents should at least send a form rejection on requested work.

My bad, I was replying to Deb Kinnard's analogy of writing a business letter suggesting a deal, not specifically to popmuze's situation. Yes, I think at least a form rejection on requested work would be appropriate.

That being said, for one particular manuscript I had fulls requested twice and both times there was no reply (one agent simply dropped off everyone's radar, but the other is still active).

popmuze · Mar 13, 2012

happywritermom said:
I know it's hard to be patient, but it sounds like you need to slow down. Spend a year or two putting your heart and soul into your next work, getting lots of beta reads and feedback, maybe workshopping it, reading lots of other novels in your genre, dissecting them to find out what works. You need a book that agents will pick up and know immediately that it will sell better than your past 14. .

That's exactly what I thought I had with this one. I couldn't ask for better than a 40% request rate from the query. There must be something wrong with the execution--or, as you said, maybe my track record is the problem. In that case, I'm willing to go with a pseudonym. Is that something I should tell agents up front?

happywritermom · Mar 13, 2012

If we could get another guest agent on this thread, this would be an excellent question. Perhaps you could ask one of the blogging agents out there?

Regardless, if you get an offer from an agent, it might be a good suggestion to bring up. A pen name could give you a fresh start with editors and buyers.

A Novel Approach to Agents

Such a nasty woman

Such a nasty woman

Professor of applied misanthropy

volitare nequeo

Rewriting My Destiny

Last of a Dying Breed

delicate #!&@*#! flower

all out of fucks to give

starting over

Professor of applied misanthropy

Moonshade

Not a runner, running.

delicate #!&@*#! flower

Think think think...

Quietly obsessing

Last of a Dying Breed

With great power comes

starting over

Last of a Dying Breed