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Anyone ever deal with literary agents?
I got a hot book idea, the research is done, the outline is done, it's just they seem to be a fussy lot.
Location specific: Greater New York City Area
Good Answers (5)
Jacqueline L
Independent Writing and Editing Professional
Best Answers in: Writing and Editing (2), Government Policy (1)
Excuse me, but I have to say do NOT even think of Publish America.
Look them up on sfwa.org -- Science Fiction Writers of America which is one of the professional writers' organizations I belong to. Look under Atlantean Nights, a project SFWA did to investigate Publish America.
Google "preditors and editors" (which has moved off the SFWA website) and read about rip-offs in the publishing biz plus learn all about agents.
If you want to self-publish, there are many ways to do it and still present a professional profile. But a self-published book will not get into book stores. If the idea has commercial potential, be sure every agent that handles that type of material sees it before you think of self-publishing.
Agents are fussy because they invest a lot of time, effort, money and rare expertise in matching a project to a publisher. Check their list of clients and how well their published works did. If they have a track record with your kind of material, take what they say very seriously.
I've had several agents in my career and worked with some of the best agents and editors in my field. The good ones know their business. Listen carefully. Publishing has precise requirements for presentation of manuscripts.
Also, you will need other professional writing credentials in jobs where you have written to a specified deadline and not missed that deadline before you can get a contract for a book that isn't written.
I would seriously suggest you get at least half the book completely written before shopping it around. Better to have a full draft of the whole thing, first. You have to prove you can do it, unless you have credentials that say you can.
And in today's market, writing the whole thing on spec is not the futile effort it once was. There are e-book and Print on Demand opportunities if you want to do that. Today there have been e-books that went Mass Market -- in fact, a good friend of mine did that.
If it's a "hot" book idea, the faster you get it written, the better. Once it is complete and you have had several experts in various fields go over it, perhaps hired an independent editor (I can make suggestions for freelance editors), and you're sure the book is perfectly crafted, then shop it to the biggest agents -- and work your way down the list.
Even if this book does not sell, it's not wasted effort. By making a BIG impression with a perfectly crafted book on your first shop-around, you will find their doors will be open to you on your next attempt.
Links:
Jack T
President at Insight Direction, Inc., Management / Marketing Consulting
Best Answers in: Advertising (1), Public Relations (1), Market Research and Definition (1)
Yes, they are. I am in process of publishing a book right now. Here is how I connected with one. First, you need to select a group agents you're interested in. Check you library for the Literary Agents directory. You may have to ask the librarian for it.
As you dig through it, each agent lists the types of books they are interested in / have experience with. Identify a small group and try to rank them.
Also see if the library has a copy of "How to write a book proposal" by Michael Larsen. It gives very detailed instructions on how to approach agents and write proposals.
Then prepare a proposal, send it to the first agent on your list and wait for an answer. It is apparently bad form to send a proposal to more than one agent. Fortunately, the first agent I sent mine to picked it up.
Best of luck. (Of course, being in New York, you may know somebody who knows somebody, given that the city is the capital of publishing. Nothing like personal connections.)
Jack
Links:
Alexandra E
Independent Writing and Editing Professional www.alexandraeverist.com (alexandra(dot)everist(at)yahoo.com
You might try sending it directly to a Publishing Company. I used PublishAmerica. My manuscript was accepted and I had a contract in my hand within a week of sending it. It should be out in the next few weeks and I only sent it the end of Feb.
Alexandra Everist
Author of "A Katrina Moment"
www.alexandraeverist.com
Agents are fussy for a reason--because a lot of people contact them with dollars signs in their eyes. That's the wrong place to start-- whether your book is a best-seller or not will be up to forces out of your control at the beginning of a project. The best way to hedge your bet on the sales front is to consider agents as your first audience-- and to create a pitch letter or proposal that will grab their attention. They're busy people, so you have to stand out from the crowd-- not with gimmicks, but with a great idea presented professionally.
Do you research up front, and identify agents likely to be receptive to the kind of book you want to do, then approach them with a very professional-looking (and short) letter briefly describing your project and offering to send along a proposal (preferably with a couple of sample chapters). Your job is two-fold: to offer an engaging idea (with an indication that you know what your competition in the market is and why your book will be different), then to make a case for why you're the right person to do a book based on that idea.
The critical thing to keep in mind is that publishing is a business, and that part of the process of pitching a book is to show the professionals in the field that you're the kind of writer who will be a pleasure to work with-- because you're a professional, too.
Yes, agents can be fussy, but the bottom line is that they are the gate keepers to the editors you want to sell your book to. And trust me, editors are MUCH fussier than agents, so you want an agent, because he/she will help you learn all the quirks that editors have, so you don't get your proposal shot down by an editor for some seemingly minor mistake. An agent doesn't just rep your work; your agent helps you to make sure it is in exactly the format it needs to be to have maximum appeal to editors.
Because there are so many people pitching book ideas, editors rely on agents to screen out the wannabes, and give writers realistic expectations of how things work, which makes their job considerably easier. So without an agent, it's going to be much harder to get your work read by editors, who really don't want to slog through stuff that's not "pre-screened" by people they trust. It's sort of like how when you interview for a company, you don't meet with the CEO; first, you get screened by human resources, or the manager of the specific position you're applying for. Then, only after you're deemed a strong candidate do you get to meet the top brass.
You can, of course, send stuff into a publishing house without an agent, but many houses have a policy of not even looking at unagented work. And even those that do put it in the "slush" pile, which gets low priority, and sometimes never gets read at all.
And even if your proposal does manage to make it off the slush pile, get read, and get bought, you are then looking at signing a book publishing contract without an agent to protect your interests.
Agents do this stuff for a living, so they know all the seemingly innocent little clauses that appear in book contracts that will bite you in the butt later if you don't get them removed before signing the contract. They also know how to negotiate because they know what the going rates are, and they usually know whether or not the first offer is the best offer they're going to get, and if not, how much more they can ask for without souring the deal.
Additionally, once you've got a contract, your agent continues to act as your intermediary, so if you have any problems, you have someone who can help to resolve them.
Unless you're planning to self-publish, which is a whole different thing, or unless you are close personal friends with an editor at a house that handles the type of book you're working on, you really want to take the time to find a good agent. They're worth every penny of the 15% they get and then some.
FYI, you didn't say if your book idea is non-fiction or fiction, but if it's fiction, you pretty much have to write the whole thing before selling it. If it's non-fiction, a proposal and sample chapters will usually be enough to sell it. Remember, too, that the people buying your book are thinking in terms of marketability, so be sure you don't just pitch the idea itself, but why you, specifically, are the best person to write it, and what "platform" you have to sell it (i.e. if you do a lot of public speaking, write a regular newspaper column, do a lot of TV appearances, have a well-trafficked blog or have other venues that will help you to sell the book after it's out).
Good luck with it!
More Answers (1)
they are a fussy lot...what do you need to know?
JH