CHAPTER 38

Meet the Matchmaker: How an Agent Can Help You

THE GOLDEN RULES FOR GETTING AND WORKING WITH AN AGENT

Make sure your proposal is ready to submit.
Be impeccably professional in contacting agents.
Treat your relationship with your agent like a working marriage.

A writer sent his manuscript to a publisher, and when he didn't hear back, he wrote the publisher a letter: “Please respond immediately as I have other irons in the fire.” Shortly after that, he received a note saying: “We have considered your manuscript and advise you to put it with the other irons.”

This chapter will help you avoid rejections like that one. New writers approach agents without an understanding of agenting or publishing, so one of the fundamental services that agents perform for their clients is to transform them from writers with something to say into authors with something to sell. This literary alchemy changes writers from artists and crafts people who can spin words into prose to authors who can spin prose into gold.

HOW AN AGENTS CAN HELP YOU

Here's how and why an agent can help you. An agent is

a mediator between two realities: you and the marketplace.
a scout who knows what publishers are looking for.
a filter who sifts through thousands of submissions a year to discover prose with gold in it and then offers it to editors, who are grateful to agents for enabling them to do their jobs faster and more easily.
a midwife who can provide editorial guidance and help you give birth to your idea, an essential part of making a book salable.
a matchmaker who knows which editors and publishers to submit your book to and, just as important, which to avoid. An agent continues to send out a manuscript until it is sold or until the agent has tried all likely publishers. It's taken us as few as four phone calls and as long as ten years to sell a book.
a negotiator. An Arab proverb says, “Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.”In publishing, you tie your camel with a contract. When a publisher makes an offer for your book, your agent becomes a negotiator who hammers out the most favorable possible contract for your working marriage with your publisher.

Publishers will offer an advance against royalties, usually based on their estimate of the first year's royalties. Large houses pay between $10,000 and $25,000 for most books, but they'll pay whatever agents or competing bidders convince them a book is worth.

The contract between you and your publisher, which may be as long as thirty-six pages — and which you must understand, approve, and sign — enables your agent to act on your behalf and receive income earned through the contract. The agent deducts a 15 percent commission and forwards the rest to you.

Your agent haggles about rights and money with your editor, so you can work harmoniously with your editor to make your books successful. An agent enables you to keep more subsidiary-rights income and receive the income sooner than if your publisher handles the rights. Your agent may appoint co-agents for film and foreign rights.
a liaison and connector to the publishing world who helps you answer editorial, financial, production, and promotional questions that arise throughout the publication process.
a bookkeeper who checks royalty statements and keeps track of the e-mail and paperwork a book generates.
an advocate who helps solve problems, such as a late or rejected manuscript, a bad jacket design, or your editor leaving the house.
a cheerleader for you and your books.
a rainmaker who may be able to obtain assignments for you from editors or come up with ideas for you.
a mentor who can advise you about your writing and your career.
an oasis of encouragement in what may be a desert of rejection.

AGENT AS PAINKILLER

Some writers think people become agents for the same reason they become dentists: They like to inflict pain. Like editors, agents reject more than 95 percent of the submissions they see, but agents receive far more rejections than writers.

Consider these additional ways an agent can help you.

Editors respond more quickly to submissions from agents than from writers because agented work is more likely to be publishable.
As a continuing source of manuscripts, agents have more clout with editors than do writers.
Editors may change jobs, and publishers may change hands at any time, so an agent may be the only stable element in your career.
By absorbing rejections and by being a focal point for your business dealings, your agent frees you to write.

Writers who approach publishers without help are at greater risk of being taken advantage of. The selling of your book deserves the same level of care, skill, knowledge, passion, and experience you devote to writing it. An agent can't write your book as well as you can, but you can't sell it as well as an agent can. Even if you could do what an agent does, wouldn't you rather spend your time writing your books and helping them succeed?

NINE WAYS TO FIND THE AGENT YOU NEED

If you want your book published by a big house, and you don't have a track record, you may find it hard to get an agent. But this list of nine ways to find an agent proves it's easier than ever to find one.

Your writing community: The writers you know, online and off, will recommend agents. One way to get an agent's attention is if the first two words the agent sees or hears are the name of a client, editor, agent, author, teacher, or bookseller who suggested you contact the agent. Agents do consider the enthusiasm with which a recommendation is made. A note to the agent is more effective than someone just telling the writer to mention his or her name.

The Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR): The 450 agents in AAR are the best sources of experienced, reputable agents. Members are required to follow the AAR's code of ethics. The directories mentioned in item number five of this list indicate when an agent is a member, and you can look agents up at www.aaronline.org.
The Web: Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Google. The sites in the Resource Directory (Appendix A) include agents' e-mail addresses and websites. PublishersMarketplace.com is an online news source and community for publishing insiders. If you become a member ($20/month), then you'll have access to a database of publishing deals made by agents and editors, as well as contact info for hundreds of publishing professionals.
Writers' organizations: Members of the writing organizations in the Resource Directory (Appendix A) will tell you about their agents.
Directories: Directories in the Resource Directory (Appendix A) vary in the kind and amount of information they provide. For the best results, check what several of them list about the same agency.
Literary events: Writing classes, readings, lectures, seminars, book signings, conferences, and book festivals present opportunities to meet and learn about agents and publishers. Conferences offer opportunities to meet agents.
Magazines: Publishers Weekly, The Writer Magazine, Writer's Digest, and Poets & Writers have articles by and about agents. If you don't want to splurge on a subscription to Publishers Weekly, read it at the library or online. The “Deals” column is a roundup of sales.
Books: Check the dedication and acknowledgment pages of books like yours. Grateful authors thank their editors and agents (always a good idea).
Your platform: Let agents or publishers find you — be visible online and off, get published, give talks, publicize your work and yourself. When your continuing national visibility is great enough, agents and editors will find you.

GETTING THE AGENT YOU NEED

In Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me, Cynthia L. Copeland wrote: “ … [J]ust … keep banging until someone opens the door.” It's the same with agents. Here are eight steps to getting the agent you need:

Find a salable idea.
Write a proposal or manuscript. The only time to contact agents is when you have something ready to sell.
Research potential agents online and off as the list above suggests.
Write an irresistible query letter.
Follow the submission guidelines of the agents you contact.
If the agent has a written agreement, read it to make sure you'll feel comfortable signing it, and feel free to ask the agent questions about it.
Meet interested agents to test the chemistry for your working marriage. Look at the challenge of finding and keeping an agent as creating and sustaining a marriage that has personal and professional aspects to it.
Choose the best agent for you, based on passion, personality, performance, and experience.

Then bask in the glow of satisfaction that an agent thinks enough of your book's potential and yours to represent you.

FOR LOVE AND MONEY: WHAT AGENTS CAN DO THAT YOU CAN'T

Like publishers, agents are motivated by love and money. They need big books to make big bucks. They also love to get excited about their books and authors. And they must do a good job on the first book if they expect to work on the next one.

If you have a salable book, you can sell it. Although writers sell more books than agents, an agent can help you in four ways you can't help yourself.

Agents understand editors' expectations, so when agents submit a proposal, it's stronger than you can make your proposal without help. Agents understand what will sell and how to present books to publishers. Editors have become agents, and agents have become editors. Most editors don't have the time they would like to edit; they have become in-house agents who sign up books and sing their praises all along the road to publication and past it.

This has forced agents to become editors. Agents must make sure a proposal is ready before they submit it because editors can't buy books that will require more editing than they (or their assistant) can do. Also, an agent's reputation is on the line with every submission. If agents submit poor work, editors ignore them.
An agent is better able to get you the best editor and publisher for your book. There's a world of difference between a yes and the best possible yes.
An agent can understand contracts and negotiate better contract terms.
An agent can respond to the questions and problems that arise during the long publication process that you won't be able to answer for yourself. You can use your networks for advice, but whether you'll receive the same level of guidance is questionable. And it's unlikely you will be able to speak on your behalf as well as an agent will.

THE TOUGHER THE BUSINESS, THE MORE AGENTS NEED YOU

Finding new writers is one of the hardest parts of an agent's job, but it's also the best part. Agents want and need to discover new talent and hope they will be able to say yes every time they begin to read a proposal.

To make a living as agents, Elizabeth and I need to sell books to New York houses. But we're trapped in the publishing pyramid. At the apex of the pyramid are the 6 percent of writers that Writer's Digest estimates earn a living as writers and who have agents. At the bottom of the pyramid are the more than 90 percent of writers who aren't yet ready to sell their work to Big Apple publishers. Between them are the fewer than 5 percent of writers who are ready for a big or midsize house. But more than 1,200 agents are searching for these writers. You think you've got problems!

The tougher the business gets, the more urgently agents need writers. If you have a book that will interest large and midsize publishers, you will find an agent. As a writer, you are the most important person in the publishing business because you make it go. For more about agents and publishing, and to find out how to make yourself irresistible to agents and publishers, please see my book How to Get a Literary Agent.

If you want to cook up a successful book and enjoy it, turn the page.