Literary Agents
The good, the bad, the lovely
If you have decided to venture down the path of traditional publishing, you need a literary agent.
What is a literary agent?
A literary agent is your partner in publishing. They are an experienced publishing professional that will be your liaison to big publishers. They send your book to editors, help you secure fair and equitable contracts and support your professional journey.
Most traditional publishers only accept manuscripts from literary agents.
Most of the big publishing houses and imprints do not allow unagented submissions. In a perfect world, authors could send books straight to publishers, but the reality is publishing is a for profit business and some of their contract terms are predatory. Your agent will strike predatory terms and help you get the best deal possible.
A good agent is a business partner. They help edit your book and direct your career. They negotiate contracts, mitigate problems, compliment your work, and serve as a buffer when any problems arise with your publisher. Your literary agent is there to believe in you and help you make the best choices for the long haul. You get to be the artist and they get to handle the rest.
So how do you get a literary agent?
Most people get their agent through cold querying. There are some outlier stories about meeting agents at conventions or finding your writing online, but those are extremely unlikely. The best way to find an agent is through the slush pile: you send them a query!
My favorite research spots for finding a literary agent are:
The back of your favorite books: authors usually thank their agent
Publisher’s Marketplace: this is expensive but worth it for a short stint for research.
Query Tracker: this is truly the MVP of the modern querying age and it’s worth paying for premium
Manuscript Wishlist: This is a great tool for direct solicitations from agents. If you don’t see an agent asking for exactly what your book is but they rep those larger genres, query them anyway.
Do your research.
Not all agents are created equally. This is an apprentice-based industry and anyone can call themselves an agent. You want to make sure they have experience and connections to properly represent your book. It takes years for someone to move from intern to assistant to agent, so if you don’t see that in their bio, stay away. (The only exception here for me is if they worked elsewhere in publishing as an editor or something similar.)
An agent never charges up front for their services.
They get paid when you get paid. Industry standard is 15% commission off what you get paid. If they try and charge a reading fee or sell you editorial services, run.
I’ll go into more details about red and green flags for literary agents later in this series, so stay tuned!
Up next: The Anatomy of a Query Letter.
Trust me, it’s going to be good.
