In her November talk to the Literary Society, on Crime Writing, Aline Templeton touched on the role of a Literary Agent, which gave rise to some discussion. As I thought it might be of wider interest I asked Aline to write a piece on the role of an agent, from the writer's perspective, and a Literary Agent, Holly Faulks, to write one from the agent's perspective. LY
The Literary Agent, by Aline Templeton
Being able to drop the words ‘my agent’ into a conversation
for the first time – very casually, of course – is a great day for an
author. This is a rite of passage: up to
that point you may in your heart believe you’re a good or even a great writer,
and your mother and perhaps even some indulgent friends may go along with that,
but when an agent offers you her – or his - time, advice and expertise for
nothing because she considers that it will pay her to do it, you have the most
convincing form of professional approval.
Her judgement may, of course, be wrong. Her high opinion may not be shared by
publishers, but even so many agents persist because they still believe in the
book and work tirelessly with their author to get it into print.
It’s an enormously important relationship and there are as
many different ways of conducting it as there are authors and agents, and there
are bad ones as well as good. I have
had several agents in my time; the first one who approached me on the basis of
some short stories I had written gave me such bad advice that I only got my
first book published after I left her, and she was later thrown out of the
Association of Authors’ Agents.
My next one was wonderful.
I approached her and she would only take me on after very hard work and
accepting a lot of criticism on the next book, but the pain was worth it. More
books followed, but she made everything enormous fun too. When one of my books was coming unstuck, she
said, ‘Come and stay. We’ll work hard all day to get it into shape, and then
we’ll drink and gossip all evening.’ We
did, the book was sorted out and then
the other books followed.
All her clients adored her and we were devastated when she
decided to retire. I’ve been grateful to
agents since, but I’ve never had that sort of closeness with anyone else.
I’m not good at talking about what I’m planning to write. I
have author friends who talk over their plans with their agents before they
write them and look to them for plot suggestions but after outlining in some
detail the book I was planning on one occasion, I found the drive had
dissipated when I sat down to write it and the book never got itself
written. I’ve never done that again.
It's once it’s safely in manuscript form that I look to my
agent to be cruel enough to tell me what’s wrong with it and how to put it
right. I hate this stage, but I know I
need it; I have also learned to ignore the first paragraph says that she
absolutely loves it and it’s brilliant,
and go straight to the ‘But..’ in the second one. I had one agent who was neither cosy or
supportive but I was grateful for the talent she had for spotting exactly what
was going wrong and spelling it out despite my squirming.
Not being meticulous by nature, I need an agent when it
comes to checking contracts with publishers and dealing with the intricacies of
foreign rights. Then after publication,
the agent acts as a buffer between you
and your publisher; when you’re quite sure that your assigned editor is
completely wrong, and the changes being demanded will ruin your book, it is
your agent’s job to convince the publisher that he’s wrong, or alternatively to
convince you that you are – possibly using the phrase, ‘The person who has the
chequebook is one who’s right.’
That brings us to one of agent’s most important duties
- getting the publisher to pull out that
metaphorical chequebook, and haggling about what should be written on it. A
fair bit of that involves explaining that the book is so brilliant that he
can’t afford to miss it and with luck managing to lure other publishers into a
bidding war; that’s the highest degree of agenting skill – and then the
sky’s the limit.
It hasn’t happened to me so far, but a girl can dream. I have no doubt about their value to an
author and have no doubt that the percentage taken off my earnings in agents’
fees has been more than covered by the rewards their skills have brought me.
The Literary Agent, by Holly Faulks
A literary agent is involved in
every step of an author’s career. When we first take on a client they may only
be at the very early stages of an idea. We work together with the author to
prepare their work for submission to publishers. This might be a proposal for a
non-fiction book or the complete manuscript of a novel. We will then draw up a
list of editors at the various publishing houses that we think might be
interested in the work. A big part of our job is staying up to date with all
the editors and knowing what exactly they’re looking for. We send the author’s
work to the editors along with a submission letter and with luck we receive an
offer of publication (or more than one offer!) for the author. We then
negotiate with the editor(s) to ensure the author is given the best possible offer
and guide the author through the process of selecting their new publishing
house. We will then go on to negotiate the full contract between author and
publisher. At this point, the author will begin to work directly with the
publisher’s editorial, marketing, publicity and sales teams to prepare the book
for publication, but we will continue to support them through this process,
especially if there are difficulties or disagreements between the author and
the publisher. We will also ensure that the author is paid correctly and
promptly by the publisher, chasing advance payments and checking royalty
statements. This support continues beyond the publication of the first book as
the author’s career grows. We try to help authors achieve their long-term career
goals whether that means negotiating new contracts with an existing publisher,
seeking out a new editor when necessary or changing writing direction entirely.
Literary agents will also aim to sell translation rights in the work throughout
the world as well as TV and film rights. Some agencies will do this directly
and others will work with co-agents and sub-agents. Literary agents may also
act as speaking or broadcast agents and can handle all sorts of non-book work
for their clients.