13

Bagging the Big One

Catching and Keeping Your Literary Agent

“Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.”

~Frank Sinatra

Literary agents, the ultimate gatekeepers. They hold the keys to the kingdom. Get you across the moat, past the dragons, and before royalty—the editors and publishers who can knight you with a career.

Your relationship with your agent is a kind of marriage. They birth the baby with you! And just like partners in a marriage, they won’t always text you back, pick up their socks, or help with those 3:00 AM feedings. At the end of the day, hopefully, you’ll get custody. I kid. I kid.

You may have heard the jokes, like a version of this one: A struggling writer returned home one night to find his cul-de-sac roped off, his street teeming with police, fire, and emergency vehicles. His house was burned to the ground. When he got to his driveway, a uniformed officer pulled him aside.

“I’m sorry to inform you that your literary agent went berserk, came to your house, killed your family, and torched the place.”

“Are you kidding me?” the writer replied. “My agent came to my house?”

This hits home because agents, especially the good ones, are busy. Which means they can be less communicative than we’d like—except perhaps for the authors here (who’ve sold millions, even tens of millions of books). Plus, of course, the few agents I’ve interviewed for these pages. But many a dream has been dashed by putting too much faith in one human. When it works, though—oh, happy day! Your agent will take your ass to the party and then cover it, so your pockets aren’t fleeced on your way to the dance floor.

Doing it alone without an agent requires building your own castle. In the 2019 film version of Little Women, Jo was her own agent and negotiated to keep her copyright, which ensured that she and her family would reap the benefits for years to come—smart! (Fun fact: Director Greta Gerwig based this movie-only scene on Louisa May Alcott’s own publishing negotiations.)

That’s not me. And it’s probably not you, either. If not, buckle up, buttercup. You need a fucking agent! With over a thousand literary agents in the United States and another thousand outside of the US, there are plenty of places to send your work (the “how” of which we’ll focus on more specifically in the next chapter). With hundreds of thousands of mainstream books published every year, there’s simply too much competition out there. Agents have access. A great agent helps cut through the clutter to match writers with the right editors and publishers. Most publishers don’t read unsolicited manuscripts, so agents are your way in.

Where do you find these agents, and how can you make it a win-win? For me, it was as easy as a summer day. Until I let him see me sweat . . .

Finally! I was ready to gamble that my book had enough content to be agent-worthy! My interviews with thirty or so fascinating people (initially half well-known, half unknown folks with extraordinary stories) made me confident in the book’s merits. I didn’t yet have a Seal or a Cher or an Oprah, but I was especially proud of the latest big name I’d snagged.

I’d wanted to profile a champion in the gay community. But who? One evening by candlelight in our uninsulated cabin, I opened Vanity Fair magazine to a ten-page article entitled “Sandy’s Castle.” In it, I learned about the legendary talent manager Sandy Gallin, who’d discovered just about everyone. He’d helped book the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show; made Dolly Parton a household name; produced The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour; managed Richard Pryor, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, and Nicole Kidman; and won an Oscar for an AIDS documentary. I imagined vaulting over Sandy’s moat straight into his kingdom.

Instead, drawbridge up! No surprise: the man who’d only given four interviews in his career didn’t answer my letters. But I couldn’t get his face out of my mind, so I hunkered down, read three memoirs and biographies by Sandy’s buddies—Dolly Parton, David Geffen, and Barry Diller—and knew my next step.

Sandy had an odd saying he repeated whenever he wanted to connect with someone. “They can kill me, but they can’t eat me.” By the third time I read that line, I had chills. Bingo. It only takes one connection to change the course of your life. I booked a trip to Los Angeles where I’d stay with Carol and borrow her car.

Dani Shapiro

I was determined when I started at Sarah Lawrence that I was going to finish and sell my first novel before I got my graduate degree, which is a completely unreasonable goal.

A friend of mine saw a photograph in a magazine of two very powerful agents in New York, who were the co-heads of one of the biggest agencies. My friend looked at the picture and said, “This woman looks like she’s been in psychoanalysis; she will understand your work.”

I did everything wrong. Based on my friend’s astute publishing advice, I picked up the phone and called the agent.*

She got on the phone, and said, “What’s it about?” I stuttered something. She said, “I’ll take a look at it.” I walked down to her office and hand-delivered a box of my manuscript with a cover note. The next day, my phone rang, and it was the agent, saying, “Can you come in tomorrow at three o’clock?”

She hasn’t been my agent for the last twenty years, but our first meeting was very intimidating. She said, “I think I can sell your book.” And she did, within days. I went from feeling totally washed up and having ruined my life—a completely messed-up kid who did not have any kind of bright future—to in a short period having my first novel come out at twenty-seven and being described as precocious with all these achievements. Then I suddenly had a graduate degree and started teaching. There’s no one path.

With Jennifer Rudolph Walsh [Dani’s agent at the time of this interview], there’s a kind of beautiful mirroring that goes on. This is what good parents do for their children, good friends do for each other, and what spouses and partners do over the course of a life—cheerleading you in the biggest way in terms of energy and reflecting at you that you can do this.

Jennifer Rudolph Walsh

It’s an extraordinary journey to be on with somebody who’s unfolding and having the unfolding of their life, as a seeker, reflected in the work. I’m a perfect match for somebody like Dani [Shapiro], who writes from what’s inside of her heart and what’s happening to her in the moment. Sometimes it’s like a magical salve over what’s often happening for me as well.

I want to say to Dani, my beloved, that it’s mutual. People feel that a relationship between an agent and writer is very much that the agent gives, and the writer is served by that relationship. And the agent is paid for that relationship. Those things are true. But in addition to that, in the relationships that are most nurturing and thriving, it’s a two-way street. The magic is in the reciprocity. In all the ways that Dani has changed during the twenty-some-odd years we’ve been in relationship, I’ve changed as much too. I’m an agent, and I’m also producing and curating a tour [Together Rising]. That doesn’t happen overnight. It happens when people like Dani are holding my hand, reflecting truths back to me, bearing witness to my life over decades, dancing at my children’s bar and bat mitzvahs. And really, not only just holding my hand but seeing me in a certain way and holding up that possibility to me.

Once in Los Angeles, I was standing in front of the rack at the card store, weighing my odds.

Doomsday Linda: Should I do it?

Trusting Linda: It’s funny as hell.

DL: They’ve got prettier, more appropriate cards.

TL: Nah. Sandy will either think it’s a dud or he’ll laugh, but he’s not going to hate me over it. At least I’ll get a reaction. There’s nothing to lose.

I took the postcard to the cashier: a drawing of Jesus knocking on a large wooden door with the words “Let me in.” Underneath, I wrote: “Because you can’t kill me or eat me, you might as well meet me.”

Next, I went to my favorite LA bakery, Mani’s on 6th Street, whose fruit-juiced-sweetened “faux nut” donuts had a line down the street ever since Michael Jackson sang their praises to the media. Mani was gay and much loved in the newly named LGBT community. There was no way Sandy Gallin wouldn’t know this bakery.

Believing Sandy’s assistants would appreciate being included, I filled several gift bags with Mani’s pricey nondairy chocolate cream heart cookies. Sure enough, after buzzing me in, they oohed and aahed over my care packages. Thirty minutes later, Sandy’s lead assistant called.

“He laughed his ass off at your postcard,” she said. Yes! He’d actually read my previous letters, and with this final act, I’d finally motivated him to lower the drawbridge. Within the hour, I had Sandy’s cell number, home phone, and beach house lines.

Apparently, Jesus is a book savior too.

“You know more about me than I know myself!” Sandy said when our interviews were complete. “You should be a reporter!” This meant the world to me, seeing as how he’d spent his career shying away from reporters when it came to his personal life. As he signed off on his final chapter, thanking me, I felt an enormous wave of gratitude for the instances when the odds and/or the heavens seemed to sway in my favor.

Four and a half dedicated years I’d been at this already, reading about other newbie writers getting big book deals in the pages of People and Vanity Fair. I wanted my literary champion!

Ann Patchett

Maybe you send your work to twenty different agents, but you want to find the person who loves your work and feels passionately about it. It’s not a club where the door is locked, and you can’t get in because you don’t know the right person.

I used to live in Montana, and I absolutely loved it. But there were people who believed that to get published, you had to be a New Yorker, to know somebody on the inside. You had to have the secret handshake. Nobody in Montana had the secret handshake. That’s just not true.

There is no more slush pile; no more sending your manuscript to Random House. You must get an agent. It is the only way the system works anymore. One of my neighbors is a novelist, and we dog-walk together. Her agent retired, and she sent her new book to three or four different agents, who rejected it. This is a woman in her sixties who has published a lot of books that have not done spectacularly well but have sold. She was worried. Then she sent it to an agent who said, “Oh my God, I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. I love this book so much. I can hardly wait to work with you!” How fantastic that somebody didn’t take her because she was a friend of a friend, as a favor, but not really connect to the work. She held out for true love, and she found it.

It didn’t even occur to me to query multiple lit agents. I had my heart set on only one—let’s call him Dan. I’d read all about him in an industry magazine. He’d sold a ton of titles and written books about the business of publishing, too, so he knew the game. He’d be my MVP. I guessed he’d tell me I still needed a few marquee-name interviews before I had the star power to land a book deal. But couldn’t he help with that too?*

I hummed as I packaged up four hundred pages of interviews in a FedEx box (so it appeared more important) and triple-checked the Table of Contents to be sure every page was where it should be. I’d crafted an intro letter about our eighty-five-year-old neighbor, Stye, who dug septic holes, his frail frame and toothless grin atop our tractor. I was always afraid I’d look out the window and see Stye flying off the yellow iron in a windstorm. This felt like it could be a good hook—Dan had written a funny ditty about tractors in one of his books, about how if he weren’t an agent, he’d be driving one.

I placed my letter over the title page of Lives Charmed, having no idea you’re not supposed to send work out without first being invited to after sending a respectful one-page query letter. Who knew that four hundred pages of interviews were way too much material, especially for a manuscript in progress? Kids, don’t try this at home! I hadn’t heard of a query letter (the one-pager that gets your boot in the door) or a book proposal (the necessary business plan summarizing your book—the topic of our next chapter). Anyway, I never much liked doing things the way you’re “supposed” to. I sealed up the box and drove forty miles to Taos to the nearest FedEx drop-off.

Three days later, our shoebox-sized cell phone rang.

“Linda, it’s Dan. I just read your book, and I’d love to represent you,” he said. Horns honked in the background. Manhattan! He’s in honest-to-goodness NYC! My insides were ready for liftoff.

“That was fast! I only sent it on Monday,” I said.

“Yeah, well, that was the funniest letter I’ve ever received. I’ll overnight you a contract tomorrow, and we’ll get this book sold.” With my heart racing, I hung up and spilled down into the kitchen into Jesse’s arms. Getting an agent is nearly as hard as getting a publisher and I loved that my husband was excited too.

Gretchen Rubin

I’ve had the same agent the whole time. I’d gone in to talk to another agent through a friend of a friend. We sort of ended up together. She was early in her career, and I was just starting out. A total love connection. She’s had a huge influence on everything I’ve done. I feel fortunate to have somebody who has a lot of insight, not only for the books I’m writing and editing but in a larger sense of social media and blogging. She was the one who said, “I think you’d like to have a blog.” She was clearly right.*

I’d barely blinked and my literary agent was coming to our house! Dan had a wedding to go to in Santa Fe and said he’d enjoy the drive up north.

“You’ll have to make it through a few miles on unmarked dirt roads,” I warned him. “Friends say it’s like going on safari, only with roaming dogs instead of big cats. But we do have a Native American sweat lodge ceremony in it for you if you’d like.”

“I’ve wanted to do a ceremony for years!” he exclaimed.

So, this was the answer. You follow your spirit and let go of everything that makes “sense,” and then you get it all back in spades. I wanted to jump up and down in front of Dan but kept outwardly calm.

Pine needles crunched underfoot on the big day as we made our way through the forest. “There should be an auction for your book,” Dan said. “I think it could garner around $50,000.” My God, our bills were only $2,000 a month; $50,000 would be life-changing!

And did he just say that publishers are going to fight to bid on my book?

We walked past Thomas One Wolf’s teepee to his Inepi, a round igloo-like structure he’d made from bent tree limbs and covered with blankets. Thomas was waiting for us, tending the bonfire that heated the lava rocks he’d soon have brought into the lodge one at a time on a shovel.

I tried not to stare at Dan’s pale white legs in his shorts as he peeled off his sweatpants before stepping into the dark, small space and the door to the lodge was closed. Oh my God . . . I’m doing a sweat lodge with my New York agent! Thomas One Wolf respected the fact that we had a publishing powerhouse in our midst and didn’t crank up the heat as he did for veteran lodgers. Still, the coals were hot, and I hoped Dan was doing okay over there. Thomas sang his native prayers and drummed, and occasionally I could see Dan through the blackness when Thomas sprinkled sage, lavender, and sweetgrass over the rocks, and sparks lit up the dark. But with the first ladles of water poured over the stones, and the intense steam coming off them, Dan had covered his head with a towel, and there was no way to get a read.

“That was great,” Dan said dully afterward.

“Really? How do you feel?”

“A little dizzy, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.” He wobbled on his heels. Back at the house, we sat down to dinner. Jesse and I loaded up our salad plates as we always did.

“I’ll just have a bit of soup,” Dan said, looking pale, feebly accepting a bowl of potato leek.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked, watching lines of sweat run down his cheeks.

“Not . . . really.” He was wiping his face with his sleeve. “I think I may be getting the flu.” Instinctively, I put my hand up to his clammy forehead.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Would you like to lie down?”

“No. I think I’ll take off before it gets dark.” Minutes later, Dan hugged me goodbye, strapped on his seat belt, and burned rubber in the dirt (can you burn rubber in dirt?), hightailing it to the freeway as if fleeing flaming spears.

“Too bad about your agent!” Jesse said.

“Yeah. That was a bummer.” But inwardly, I was smiling. Dan used the word auction! That means a bidding war! Maybe it’d sell for even more than he thought?

Shit was getting real. We weren’t just playing Little House on the Prairie anymore. My writing and publishing dreams were starting to come together, and I questioned briefly who we’d have to become to live a bigger life. Did Jesse and I have what it took? Would we grow together through the inevitable changes? Was my skin thick enough?

Was I really ready? I wished that Dan was a bit chattier. I had sooo many questions.

Laura Yorke, avid horsewoman and literary agent (and ex-veteran book editor and publisher at three Simon & Schuster imprints before moving to Putnam, co-founding the Golden Books Adult Trade division, and acting as editor at large of ReganBooks/HarperCollins).

A dream client is somebody aware of the industry, who knows what it’s like today, not how it used to be, because it’s changed. They’re aware of the time limits on a relationship because both agents and editors have so much material thrown at them all the time. If they don’t understand what that kind of overload is like, they listen to you when you explain it, and they accept it. For instance, it can take months for an agent to give you an answer to whether they’re going to represent you. And then, it can take months for editors at publishing houses to come back to you with a response.

A nightmare client is bitching about that. When you get rejections, a nightmare client refuses to think that maybe it has something to do with their writing or with other books in the market. An angel client says, “You know what, thank you so much for trying. I know that it doesn’t always fly.” Having a dialogue with a dream client is a back-and-forth. It doesn’t have to all be pleasant, just one that’s open and honest. They can hear what you have to say about what you’re trying to do for them and what you are telling them about the industry, whether good or disheartening.

It sounds like such a yenta thing, but I feel that I’m a matchmaker. I put authors with good writers (if they need one), and I do the same with authors and editors. You just figure it out. I think that’s a critical part of the job on both sides, matching people correctly.

Without a word about our aborted dinner, Dan recovered, and we were all systems go. He called to invite me to lunch the following month when he and his wife were coming to Los Angeles for meetings at the Four Seasons. Could I make the trip? Heck yes, I could! I’d never had lunch at the Four Seasons. I’d give my country duds a wash and be right the hell over.

“You’ve got a few things to do before we can get this book sold,” Dan said before hanging up. “But we’ll get you ready!”

I didn’t know what he meant by “a few things,” but with my chapters nearly done and him at the helm, whatever he had in mind was just fine by me.

A client once called me the “keeper of her dreams,” which I took as the highest compliment. What could be better than holding someone’s greatest wishes in your hands? That’s what I wanted with Dan—for him to carry the near-impossible bigness of my mission and never put it down. That’s a tall order for any relationship.

Despite sharing sacred sweat in Thomas’s lodge that day, and Dan eventually selling my book, we never had more than a sweet, surface-y connection in my eyes. I adored him then and still do (I continue to connect him with clients, whom he often gets published). But at that time in my career, I ached for more handholding and mentorship. A sucker for a soulful, soulmate-type relationship between writer and agent (which I believe I have now), learning to stop looking for more from Dan didn’t come naturally.

While finding your agent person can sometimes be remarkably easy and fast, Thomas One Wolf’s frequent saying that “things take time, and big thingstake big time” applies here. A good rule of thumb is that big agents take even longer. But in my experience, if you’ve crafted a solid query letter/pitch and emailed it to agents interested in your genre, you will receive requests to see your proposal and sample chapters. And, for heaven’s sake, learn about the world you’re inhabiting—hopefully this book is helping! A few of my favorite go-to guides when you’re looking for just the right literary love match include publishersmarketplace.com, writersmarket.com, and Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents (a classic, which tells you who they are, what they want, and how to win them over).

Keep the faith. Your team is out there, praying for you to show up as much as you’re praying for them.

__________________

*Dani’s former agent, Esther Newberg at ICM, is a legend in the industry. What Dani did was akin to an unknown actress cold-calling Steven Spielberg.

*Newbie-move alert! Your agent may be able to help you network, but it’s not likely. Especially not in the beginning of your relationship. Don’t bank on your agent making you more saleable. Make yourself attractive to agents and publishers by tackling the hard stuff and becoming “agent ready” before you shop for representation.

*Fun fact: Gretchen’s New York Times bestseller, The Happiness Project, led to a successful blog by the same name. The success of one fed the other. A win-win!