What’s it really like to work with a literary agent?
At The Muse and the Marketplace 2022, Kaitlyn Johnson of Belcastro Literary Agency presented her top myths about working with a literary agent, and I was there to bring you this report!
Myths About Working with a Literary Agent
Maybe you’ve thought these things and maybe you haven’t, but if an actual literary agent chose these to present to a room full of writers, you can bet they’re the ones she encounters most and spends the most time educating people on.
Myth: My agent will always be my agent.
Reality: The author-agent relationship lasts as long as it’s a good fit for both parties.
It’s stressful and time-consuming to query agents, so once you find one, it’s understandable that you’d want to stick with them through thick and thin.
But it’s not a marriage, it’s a business partnership. Your agent is there to help you both earn money, and if one or the other of you no longer see the partnership working, it’s likely you’ll separate. Agents know this, so the separation need not be on bad terms; you’re not necessarily burning a bridge by leaving, if you leave well.
The most common reasons for a separation:
- Your agent leaves the agency
People change jobs, and if you’re with an agency, you won’t necessarily go with your agent. - The fit doesn’t work out
You may simply not work as well together as you thought. - You don’t have success with a book
This could be for a number of reasons, but if you’re not both profiting from the relationship, there’s no need to stick it out. - One or the other of you develops in a different direction
Usually this will be you, the author. Agents tend to find their sweet spot or niche and hang out there. If you stop writing for that niche, then your agent won’t be a good fit anymore.
The good news is that if you have to go back to querying, you can now say you’ve been “agented.”
Takeaway: Working with a literary agent is a partnership, not a marriage.
Myth: My agent will rep any genre I write in
Reality: Your agent will only rep the books she feels confident and comfortable repping.
You may assume your agent will want to represent any book you write regardless of genre. However, agents specialize in genres because they know those genres well, read widely in those genres, and understand that market. Working with a literary agent is a little like working with an insurance agent in that way. Insurance agents know the products their company sells really well and other companies’ products less well. Literary agents know their wheelhouses and won’t necessarily want to get outside of them.
Johnson says communication is the key, here. If you think you’ll want to write in many genres, talk with your agent about that during your interview process. Find out how comfortable he is with that or what he’d recommend should that happen.
Similarly, you may decide you need a different agent for a book in a different genre. DO NOT seek this agent out on your own. Talk to your current agent about what this would look like and how it will or won’t affect your partnership.
Takeaway: Expect your agent to rep books like the one they took you on for and talk to them if you want to go in a different direction.
Myth: My agent will become my literary best friend
Reality: It’s an intimate relationship, but it’s still a business partnership.
Writing is an emotional activity, of course, as is submitting your writing. You will have to make yourself pretty vulnerable to your agent, and you will have emotion-laden conversations with her, but that isn’t the same as becoming best friends.
In fact, your agent will have to tell you things you won’t like hearing. She’ll report back to you all the reasons editors reject your book (which they will, most of them; that’s the business). She’ll explain to you why she can’t sell your book if she discovers she can’t sell your book.
In other words, working with a literary agent is still, primarily, working.
That said, it’s true that your agent can act as a buffer between editors and you. She’ll probably try to protect your feelings somewhat, but her goal is to help you sell books (that’s how she makes money), not to make you feel great.
Takeaway: It’s good to develop trust and intimacy with your agent, but don’t get confused about your roles and boundaries.
Myth: My agent will sell the book I queried him with
Reality: First books rarely sell. An agent is taking you on for your demonstrated potential.
This one surprised me a little. If an agent takes you on, it’s on the strength of the book you showed him in your query letter. Presumably, then, he’d want to sell that first book. And, in fact, he’ll probably take a stab at selling it, but he knows that first books don’t usually sell.
It’s the second book he’s interested in, then. When you get an agent, it changes something in you as an author, and you begin to develop differently. That second book is going to be qualitatively different than the first—in a way that’s more likely to interest publishers.
I’ve said that working with a literary agent is working, i.e., a business partnership, but it’s also still a relationship, and an agent wants someone with potential that he can see selling many books with.
Takeaway: Don’t put all your eggs in your first-book basket. Take it as a good sign if your agent asks about a second book.
Myth: My agent will rep all my books
Reality: An agent will rep books she thinks she can sell.
If you take all the above into consideration, you can see why an agent won’t just take everything you send her and try to sell it. She’s not in the business of selling you, however great she thinks you are; she’s in the business of selling books.
She knows what books she can sell. That includes her genre specializations, as above, but it also includes the quality of the work. Hopefully, you’re developing as an author with each new book. But any author can have a bad book here and there. Probably many bad books. Your agent will tell you if she thinks the book isn’t ready or won’t sell.
This is what you hire her for, in fact. Why waste both your time “going on sub” (submitting your book to editors at publishing houses) if she knows it won’t sell?
This is where communication and understanding your roles and boundaries becomes important again. It’s easy to get hurt feelings or discouraged if an agent says she won’t rep your new book, but if you can talk with her candidly, you can find the best path forward.
Takeaway: Trust your agent to understand her market segment.
My big-picture summation of Johnson’s advice is that working with a literary agent is a business partnership premised on trust and intimacy. Therefore, the better you understand your boundaries, the stronger your trust, and when things get dicey, you need to communicate with each other.
If you’re about ready to query agents, check out Johnson’s top myths about query letters first. If you’d like help getting your draft into shape or writing that letter, reach out and we’ll see if I can be of help.
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash