1900s: Agents began to represent authors in negotiations with publishers, asking for 10% of the profits for this service. One sunny morning in the 1980s publishers, in turn, laid off their "first readers" and simply declared they would accept only "agented" manuscripts, effectively turning agents into the doorkeepers for the system. The following day, agents all raised their rates to 15%.
Today: The rise of the computer and the Web and some other technological innovations have turned all this on its head. Today it is technically feasible for an author to print his or her own book, using one of several systems, without any agent or traditional publisher having any say in it at all.
But is this a good idea? Well, sometimes yes, mostly no. As it stands at this moment: (Friday, July 30, 2010 at 9:15 U.S. Eastern Daylight Time (GMT+4)). In ten minutes, the way things are going, it might be different.
(Just one aspect of a historical conundrum that we all suffer through. In 6000 BCE Mesopotamia, or 1400 Europe, you lived in the same house your great-grandfather had lived in, used tools a hundred years old to do jobs that were thousands of years old. The average English peasant never traveled more than 30 miles from where he or she was born in the whole of their nasty, brutish and short lives. If you were a shoemaker you learned techniques hundreds of years old and those never varied through your life span. Once you leaned something - and you didn't have to learn all that much - it was good information forever. But we, today, learn things that are outdated and useless in a decade or less. We spend 20-25 percent of our lives getting educated enough to just function in our complex society and a large percentage of the rest of our lives trying to keep up. In some fields, it has reached the point where by the time a student graduates from college, some of the information learned in freshman or sophomore years is outdated and useless. In this hamster-wheel of education, are we any better off than Thomas Hobbes' simple bootmaker?)
So, publishing, as I see it now, boils down to the following:
- Traditional royalty-based publishing. Best for widespread distribution of relatively cheap books. You write the manuscript and help with the marketing. You get to keep a small percentage of the profits.
- Self-pubishing, what used to be called "vanity" press: You do everything, write, get printed, get distributed (very unlikely) and schlep the book around yourself to sell it. You pay considerable up-front printing costs and if there is any profit (again, unlikely) you get to keep it all.
- POD or Print-on-Demand: You write the book. A POD company, for a small fee, processes the "set-up" and prints one copy off and mails it out to any buyer. You still have to find the buyer and there is no effective distribution or book store option. The book, being a "one-off" copy, is relatively expensive. You get to keep most of the profits.
- Electronic publishing: This can take many forms, from a web site that displays your book to a reader device (Kindle, iPad, whatever) that downloads your book, to some other options. People are still trying to figure out how to make any money off the Web, which seems geared more to giving things away for free.
OK. the Kindel model is a possible alternative for authors looking to make money, as it pays a good percentage to the author and almost anyone can get a book up there (or listed on Amazon).
But if you want your book sold in bookstores, and through the big distribution systems, you must still go with the traditional publisher. They have the access; for you to do it is possible but difficult. And, usually, to get a publisher you need an agent first.
AGENTS:
To my way of thinking, agents come in three flavors:
- Competent and/or experienced
- Inexperienced and/or possibly incompetent
- Thieves
Let us dispense with thieves first because they are the easiest. A WritersCollege.com student once asked me: "My writing contact says that as long as it isn't up into the hundreds of dollars it should be okay to pay a fee to an agent. What think ye?"
I think that no legitimate agent charges any up front fees. This is not my opinion alone. It's the opinion of the entire publishing industry. An agent makes money from representing your best interests and getting the best possible book contract for you and getting a share of that. These fee-charging guys are sharks and there are hundreds and hundreds of them.
Here's what they do:
- Charge you fees for various things in advance.
- Tell you that your work has potential, but that you should use some editorial service they "flip" you to. The editorial service charges you a lot of money to "fix" or "prepare" your manuscript. The editorial service is usually some close buddy of the "agent" and kicks back half the fees, or is the agent himself, operating under another name.
And here's what such a person will NOT do for you:
- Sell your book to any serious publisher.
These guys don't make money from book contracts. They make their money from their fees. (Plus, legitimate publishers won't let them through the doors, let alone look at any manuscript they are pushing.) In general: No legitimate agent charges fees. (Some do ask for photocopy costs, or messenger fees, but you should be offered the option to NOT incur these expenses. That's how my nonfiction agent worked. She wanted extra copies of the manuscript. I could pay her to make them or mail her some extra copies.)
And, in my experience, no legitimate agent advertises for new writers. That's not because it's a bad thing for them to do so. It's because they do not have to. They are swamped with submissions anyway. Any agent who advertises in any writing magazine is a scam artist. Sad but true.
Here's how to find an agent:
1) Buy or check out from the library some books. Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers and Literary Agents is an industry standard. So is Writer's Market. Those books list agents by their specialties. Read them with highlighter in hand. Look for agents who handle your kind of book and who are members of AAR, the Association of Authors Representatives. Start with those. These books are dated and you should be using the most recent copy and, even then, they often contain out-of-date information, the more so towards the end of their year of publication. (But Writer's Market can be bought as an online item. You get a years' access to a web site that is constantly updated. Clever.)
2) There are a number of web sites today that list agents and which can be searched in various ways. Handy and free unless you buy assorted extra services you probably do not need. I like http://www.1000literaryagents.com and there are others I occasionally look at. The one problem with these free sites is that they can contain outdated information. Agents change agencies - it's like counting worms in a can to track them. Agencies open or close. Agents die (Nancy Love, a good friend and fellow ASJA member did so just recently). Whatever...change happens and Web sites are usually undated and often out-of-date.
2) Visit the web site for the AAR at http://aaronline.org as this is the professional group for agents and is self-regulating. No one in the AAR is permitted to charge fees. They have other standards to abide by as well. The AAR web site has a searchable database of members. AAR has advice, too, articles on finding an agent, and a list of questions to ask of any agent seeking to represent you. Not all legitimate and good agents are members of AAR. But you know that the AAR people are legitimate, so membership in that organization is an easy way to filter agents. Only after you have run out of possibilities among the agents in the AAR should you go to nonmember agents. You're on your own when you do that and welcome to the Deep Blue Sea filled with sharks.
3) Visit the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) web site. SFWA operates Writers Beware, an excellent service (that is NOT limited to Science Fiction). Good advice, and a list of really bad guys. Here's what one snip of advice says:
"An agent should not charge an up front fee. An agent's income should derive from commissions on sales, and from no other source. Fee-charging violates the basic premise of the author-agent relationship: a shared financial interest in the sale of the author's manuscript. An agent who makes money only when the author does is highly motivated not just to sell the author's work, but to find the most lucrative possible deal. An agent who makes money right off the bat, on the other hand, has already realized a profit, diminishing the incentive to submit to legitimate publishers.
"SFWA defines a fee as any routine charge made to an author prior to the sale of a manuscript. By "routine" we mean charges that are a requirement for representation, and are made to every client no matter what the circumstance. Such charges include not just the familiar reading and evaluation fee, but the increasingly common marketing or submission fee--which supposedly represents an advance on expenses the agent will incur in circulating your work, but in fact is often just a reading fee by a different name.
"It isn't only your pocketbook that's at risk here. There's an overwhelming correlation between fee-charging and a poor to nonexistent track record of commercial book sales. Writer Beware has collected documentation on more than 300 agents who charge fees or engage in the abuses identified below. Of these, only a handful have anything approaching a genuine track record. Not all fee-charging, non-selling agents are dishonest--many are just inept. But for the writer, the end result is the same: no sale.
"Note that most legitimate agents do pass on some of the expense involved in submission. Standard practice, however, is to allow expenses to accrue and then deduct them from the author's income--not to ask for them up front on contract signing, or as a regular out-of-pocket billing."
I've been playing this game of late, looking for an agent to represent my fantasy novel series Sorcet Chronicles, and it's been interesting to me. Last time I needed an agent was for nonfiction and some time ago. Today I do things a little different, at least at first:
I make up a list. I actually had a list of more than a hundred, but it was rather dated. So, I made a new one. The old one was a simple Excel spreadsheet but the new one is in a database so I can sort and search and all that good stuff. And play with the database program, which is probably the real reason to use it. To make that list I use my 2010 Writers Market, Jeff Herman's 2010 book, and some online web sites. Since I will also be looking for representation for a mystery series and some travel books I look for agents who represent one or more of fantasy, mystery, travel.
I don't go just by the listing in some book or undated web site listing a lot of agents. I look at the agent's own web site and use that as my primary information source. They usually have email addresses for their staff, submission guidelines and more useful stuff. Whatever they say they want, that's what I send, especially if it can be sent electronically.
Today I look for agents with web sites and email. This is new for me. I've already sent out - as of yesterday - 23 emailed queries. Got six back as rejects and 17 have, thus far, ignored me. More on that in a moment. Point is, I have not used one postage stamp or printed one sheet of manuscript.
My database is not limited to agents with modems. If or when I run through the list of agents with email I still have the option to contact the ones without. But here I admit to some prejudice. In today's electronic age, my thinking goes, an agent with no web site, or an agent who cannot or will not take an emailed query, is an agent not in touch with 21st century publishing. I'm not Charles Dickens, and I need an agent who is a little past the quill pen stage. How is an agent supposed to fight for my electronic-publishing rights when she doesn't even know how to use her computer and modem? I would not refuse to use such an agent but she will have to answer some blunt questions I would have.
That's right. You clever readers noted I said, "I would not refuse to use " as if I actually had any choice in the matter. "That's not how it works, I hear some say. "You are damn lucky just to get an agent, any agent to turn toward you on her pedestal and, in an almost unfathomable display of compassion and generosity, slightly extend one petite boot for you to lick."
Bull. Pardon my English. This is a business transaction and I might be a writer but that didn't make me stupid too, and this is the time for me to be a businessman. I am hiring an agent to represent me. Hiring. As in employee. Actually, the agent is a contractor and, yes, might be picky about with whom she chooses to do business. But, then, so am I. So is my yard-man. And the woman who, weekly, hoses out the stables here is very picky about her clients. This is all fine and normal. I need an agent. Agents all need clients. I have some requirements. So do they. Think Venn diagrams: of the universe of agents, some will have standards that overlap my own. It's just a matter of looking. And looking. And looking.
AGENT BEHAVIOR:
And this brings me to the most common problem writers have with agents: agents who demand exclusive looks at your work and then take forever to look at your work and then reject it or simply never respond at all.
But first, I do understand that agents need to make a living and, just as magazine writers like to have ongoing relationships with editors because it leaves more time for income-producing work, agents would obviously like to work with long-term clients too. (Leaving the question of: How do you get a long-term client if you won’t take them on to begin with?)
The agent argument is that I am asking her to take the time to read and ponder upon my work and then to get back to me with a yes or no.
If she comes back and says yes, and I then tell her that she is too late, that I have already gone with another agent who was faster, she has wasted her time. She would prefer that I be content for her to add me to the bottom of a high stack of manuscripts and she will get to me in due course.
Well, duh. Who wouldn't want that?
But I have to make a living too. If every agent took four months to respond with a turn-down (or never responded at all) and you had to go through a dozen agents to get a nibble, and you do all this serially, you are looking at four years to sell an idea. That’s silly. She wants to represent me, she can get back to me quicker.
I became ensnared in this many years ago and learned a lesson: Don’t play this game by their rules. Of course, the agents wants exclusivity and for a long period of time. Of course the publisher wants this too. Who wouldn't’t? And of course they tell you that this is “the standard practice” and that you should be patient. You would say the same, in their shoes. But that doesn't’t mean that you have to play by their rules.
This is a business transaction. Would you walk into an automobile dealership and tell the sales person, “I really like your Belchfire Special over there. Now park it out back for four months while I think about buying it. Don’t let anyone else see it; I want exclusivity.” I suppose you could do that, let me know how it works for you.
Now we get to some rather—um—scaly philosophy. Feel free to spit on me, or at least on the screen, if you please, you will not be the first. But, to me, part of not playing their game is not even engaging the question of whether or not I’m giving the agent an exclusive. Oh, sure, I have no problem with two weeks. I would do that. But more than that and I am inclined to not only not give them an exclusive but, if they ask, to tell them whatever they want to hear. Quite frankly, this question, “Are you giving me an exclusive” is none of their business. Do I ask editors if they have received similar queries from other writers and, if so, would they, the editors, please tell those writers to hold off while my idea is under consideration? Of course not; it’s not my business and the editors would be correct in telling me to go to hell. Pardon my English.
I suppose a compromise between, “Of course I’m giving you an exclusive” when you are not doing that at all, and “that question is inappropriate and none of your damn business” is the two-week window. That’s doable for the writer. Whether it’s doable for the agent is another issue but, ask yourself, if an agent takes four months to respond at all, is that not an indication of how the working relationship is going to go, or not go, as well?
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