Ethics & the Literary Agent

[Paul Whybrow]

I came across an illuminating article on Jane Friedman's excellent site, about the ethics of literary agents:

Ethics & the Literary Agent: What Rights Do Authors Have? | Jane Friedman


I'm planning to instigate a rolling campaign of querying agents, rather than exhausting myself with massive all-out attacks when I email 40 submissions . This is very time-consuming, irritating and demeaning, largely because literary agents all insist on slightly different formats for their submissions; there's no such thing as a standardised form.

They specify different fonts, size of fonts, number of pages or chapters or word counts in the query, numbered pages or not, synopses that are less than 1,000 words or two pages long, a potted biography of your life, including your social media presence, or your thoughts on who your book will appeal to and how are you planning to assist them in marketing it?

I've become a big fan of agencies who have an online submission process, as this forces them to streamline their demands.

 

[Geoff]

This may be a silly question, and slightly away from , but associated with Paul's post. But does anyone know if there is any sort of review site / book / app. that rates agents for responsiveness, type of response, ease of submission, et al?

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Not that I know of Geoff. P & E did have an extensive list, most outdated with warnings about bad agents/publishers etc.. I use Query Tracker, but it is very poor on information. Like Paul, I prefer email submissions as its less wasteful especially of paper when there's a 50% chance you won't even get a reply.

 

[MaryA]

Geoff, I'm not sure how that kind of rating could be done and how reliable it might be. I know one or two fairly successful agents (not just fiction) and most of the year they are run off their feet promoting re-issues from backlists or authors with new books or attending book fairs, launches, signings, conferences, workshops etc. Many agents, like smaller publishers, take on far too many clients and too much work.

 

[Carol Rose]

I think the issue with rating agents is there are no global standards by which to measure their responsiveness, type of response, or ease of submission. It's difficult to rate anything objectively unless you have a target goal everyone has agreed is a valid and reasonable one. Unless you have a standard that everyone involved has agreed is at least the minimum to shoot for. Since such things are not agreed upon by all agents, any rating would be purely subjective.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

There's Agent Hunter...not used it; small subscription.

 

[Rich.]

There's Agent Hunter...not used it; small subscription.

I have used it and would recommend it. Great starting point for researching UK agents. They also have a cover letter review service (extra expense). This I wouldn't bother with -- they told me nothing I hadn't figured out for myself with a bit of googling. But anyway, the basic subscription service, definitely worth it.

 

[Amber]

This may be a silly question, and slightly away from , but associated with Paul's post. But does anyone know if there is any sort of review site / book / app. that rates agents for responsiveness, type of response, ease of submission, et al?

There are a few that aim to give you an idea of what to expect. One is called querytracker.net ....Writer's Digest has interviews with 'new' agents but they keep it online.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Did use Querytracker the other day, to confirm a vanity publisher who sent me a contract. Dustbin material!

 

[Amber]

Did use Querytracker the other day, to confirm a vanity publisher who sent me a contract. Dustbin material!

Yeah. They should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Actually doing some research on agents who might handle Star Trek (not looking good) I noticed the very same vanity publisher had ads at the top and bottom of the search result pages....

 

[Rachel Caldecott]

I came across an illuminating article on Jane Friedman's excellent site, about the ethics of literary agents:

Ethics & the Literary Agent: What Rights Do Authors Have? | Jane Friedman


I'm planning to instigate a rolling campaign of querying agents, rather than exhausting myself with massive all-out attacks when I email 40 submissions . This is very time-consuming, irritating and demeaning, largely because literary agents all insist on slightly different formats for their submissions; there's no such thing as a standardised form.

They specify different fonts, size of fonts, number of pages or chapters or word counts in the query, numbered pages or not, synopses that are less than 1,000 words or two pages long, a potted biography of your life, including your social media presence, or your thoughts on who your book will appeal to and how are you planning to assist them in marketing it?

I've become a big fan of agencies who have an online submission process, as this forces them to streamline their demands.

The most annoying agency I came across recently was one that asked me to:
1. Give us your best sales pitch and sound bite - in one sentence how would you sell your book/idea to a publisher?

2. Give us your two to three sentence summary of what your book is about.

3. Tell us in two to three sentences about the intended audience and whether there are any useful comparisons you would make with other books and authors.

4. Tell us about yourself - again in two to three sentences.

I decided that I didn't want to do their job for them and that I'd stick to writing books, rather than advertising copy. So I didn't submit to them. Having said that, I wonder now whether I've made a mistake. Perhaps I should have seen their demands as an exercise in snappy submission writing.

 

[Carol Rose]

Not sure I'd agree with your perception of why agents would ask those questions, @Rachel Caldecott-Thornton. They're not trying to get you to do their job for them. And, really, that's *not* their job. It's the author's. If someone can't summarize their book in a few sentences, they likely don't have a cohesive story. Likewise, if they don't know where it would fit in with current books in the same genre, they probably haven't done their homework. They want to know that you, as an author, understand what you've written and where it fits in with current books in that genre.

I was taught this eons ago by using movie plots as examples.

"Great white shark terrorizes small beach community." Jaws. Sure, the movie has other sub-plots going on, but as its core, that's what the story is about.

There are plenty of other examples, but I think that one is well known enough to illustrate the point. Really, that's all the agents are looking for. They're not expecting you to write the back cover copy for them. They want to know what the core of your story is. And if you as an author can't identify that, you might not have an actual story there.

Hope this helps.