I talked to some literary agents last week about how they do business. I'm afraid I wasted a good chunk of time talking about how I do business, but that's par for the course when I'm let out of the house. The idea was to garner some general impressions of the literary agency scene these days, as it's been five years since I last worked with an agent, and have no need for one as a self publisher. Remember, there's a big difference between a real literary agent and a scam artist.
One of the agents I spoke to was an independent who owned her own agency and had about twenty years of experience in the field. The years speak to her success. I suspect most independent agents at any given time are ex-trade editors who try it for a year while collecting unemployment and give up with a filing cabinet full of manuscripts and no sales. From talking with her, I think her success is largely due to her representing books that intrigue her as a reader, rather than chasing publishers with titles she hopes can make a lot of money. I like that approach because I don't swing for the fences myself. While I don't think she spends a lot of time on statistical analysis, it sounded like she gets about 20 queries a day by e-mail and requests a follow-up proposal from perhaps one of them.
The other agent worked for one of the big literary agencies in NYC that have a hand in movies and other entertainment areas as well. Given their overhead, it sounded like they weren't really interested in representing deals that didn't promise an advance where their cut would come to several thousand dollars, which would put you in the $50K area for book deals. The only publishers who can pay that kind of advance for fiction are the biggest trades (or well financed wanna-be's). Since the whole point of hiring an agent is to have a publishing insider pitching for you, it does make sense that the agent will be pitching to a limited number of presses where personal relationships are in place. The way she expressed this was something like, "If I called a publisher who didn't know and respect the agency I work for, it wouldn't do the author any good."
I also spoke with a well published fiction author who had been with the same agency for over a dozen titles. She cherished the agent relationship for insulating her from the business side of publishing, which can be dark and contentious. More power to her, but that's not a position most aspiring authors can afford to take. I should also note that there was a bit of selective memory at work with many of the more successful writers who lectured at the conference. Writers who have figured out how to make a living writing often forget how that first book deal or contract with a literary agency came about and attribute their success to the quality and intelligence of their writing. While hard work and talent play a part, a little memory mining often brings admissions of luck and personal relationships to the surface.
The worst advice anybody can give a writer is that they go into isolation and perfect their craft before trying to get published. Most first novels are pretty bad, but agents and editors will advocate for titles that mesh with their personal world view. So if you're wondering why you can't interest an agent or an acquisitions editor at a literary press with your novel, remember that they are human beings, and personal preference rules. And remember they are mainly women, as are mass-market fiction readers.
Unpublished Authors
I'm back from the Cape Cod Writer's Conference, the first such event I've ever attended. Not surprisingly, the majority of the attendees I spoke to were unpublished authors, though a few had worked as journalists or published professional papers of various sorts. My greatest fear before going was that the entire conference would be dominated by elderly women who were writing memoirs, but they turned out to be a minority.
While the conference was very profitable to me in terms of gathering material for future blog posts, I left on a sour note, as the instructor of the one full week course I took was unable to keep his politics out of his lectures. I made it a point to pay for a session with both of the agents in residence, an independent non-fiction agent and a fiction agent from one of the name NYC firms, just to improve my understanding of how they operate. Also took a two hour class on poetry translation, in honor of the three years I put in translating my great-grandmother's works.
The main impression I took away from the conference is that the unpublished writers there fell into two broad categories: those who were planning a long and potentially unrewarding grind in their efforts to become published authors and those who were looking for short-cuts. We all know about the former group because we've probably all been part of that group at one time or another, but while I've hear from the short-cut crowd by e-mail on a regular basis, this was the first time I'd ever met any of them in person.
Continuing with the oversimplification that groups can be naturally divided into two logical parts, I'd say the unpublished writers looking for a quick in could be further divided into those who were planning to buy themselves a shortcut and those who were hoping to do it through networking. In both cases, those authors (and budding movie makers) didn't appear to have done very much homework about the publishing industry. I heard one unpublished author (a retired professional) practically bragging about how he didn't have the patience for any of that stuff. He'd been a big man in his professional life, he had a fat bank account, and he was ready to scratch checks to get it done. Not surprisingly, he'd settled on perhaps the worst subsidy press in the industry to print his book, and was currently embarking on a five figure publicity campaign with a PR firm that was all too glad to take his money.
The larger number of unpublished writers were hoping to find their big break through networking. While the conference was a reasonable place for them to be trying this, and most of the instructors and guest speakers seemed willing enough to help if something made sense, it struck me that most of these authors were making their pitch prematurely. If your goal is to reach somebody with solid industry contacts and get them to pass along a manuscript, you better have the manuscript finished and handy when you approach them. Trying to network with nothing more than an idea in your pocket is a waste of everybody's time.
Somewhere between the shoestring networkers and the retired general types who figure that the way to land a trade contract is by giving the right orders to the right people with the right inducement, fall the the pay-to-read crowd. These are unpublished authors who are convinced that it's worth paying thousands of dollars to "name" authors or editors providing a vague evaluation plus service. In other words, they'll read a manuscript and offer feedback for a fee, backed by the idea if that if they think it's up to snuff, they'll get it in front of some decision makers. I'm highly skeptical of this model, smells as bad as agents who charge reading fees. I think it's fine to pay an editor or agent "in residence" at a conference or workshop a nominal fee for their time to look over a manuscript AND meet with you about the prospects. But I would actively discourage anybody from spending thousands of dollars for a chance at maybe getting a foot in the door. For that kind of money, all you're going to get is lied to.
While the conference was very profitable to me in terms of gathering material for future blog posts, I left on a sour note, as the instructor of the one full week course I took was unable to keep his politics out of his lectures. I made it a point to pay for a session with both of the agents in residence, an independent non-fiction agent and a fiction agent from one of the name NYC firms, just to improve my understanding of how they operate. Also took a two hour class on poetry translation, in honor of the three years I put in translating my great-grandmother's works.
The main impression I took away from the conference is that the unpublished writers there fell into two broad categories: those who were planning a long and potentially unrewarding grind in their efforts to become published authors and those who were looking for short-cuts. We all know about the former group because we've probably all been part of that group at one time or another, but while I've hear from the short-cut crowd by e-mail on a regular basis, this was the first time I'd ever met any of them in person.
Continuing with the oversimplification that groups can be naturally divided into two logical parts, I'd say the unpublished writers looking for a quick in could be further divided into those who were planning to buy themselves a shortcut and those who were hoping to do it through networking. In both cases, those authors (and budding movie makers) didn't appear to have done very much homework about the publishing industry. I heard one unpublished author (a retired professional) practically bragging about how he didn't have the patience for any of that stuff. He'd been a big man in his professional life, he had a fat bank account, and he was ready to scratch checks to get it done. Not surprisingly, he'd settled on perhaps the worst subsidy press in the industry to print his book, and was currently embarking on a five figure publicity campaign with a PR firm that was all too glad to take his money.
The larger number of unpublished writers were hoping to find their big break through networking. While the conference was a reasonable place for them to be trying this, and most of the instructors and guest speakers seemed willing enough to help if something made sense, it struck me that most of these authors were making their pitch prematurely. If your goal is to reach somebody with solid industry contacts and get them to pass along a manuscript, you better have the manuscript finished and handy when you approach them. Trying to network with nothing more than an idea in your pocket is a waste of everybody's time.
Somewhere between the shoestring networkers and the retired general types who figure that the way to land a trade contract is by giving the right orders to the right people with the right inducement, fall the the pay-to-read crowd. These are unpublished authors who are convinced that it's worth paying thousands of dollars to "name" authors or editors providing a vague evaluation plus service. In other words, they'll read a manuscript and offer feedback for a fee, backed by the idea if that if they think it's up to snuff, they'll get it in front of some decision makers. I'm highly skeptical of this model, smells as bad as agents who charge reading fees. I think it's fine to pay an editor or agent "in residence" at a conference or workshop a nominal fee for their time to look over a manuscript AND meet with you about the prospects. But I would actively discourage anybody from spending thousands of dollars for a chance at maybe getting a foot in the door. For that kind of money, all you're going to get is lied to.
Talking To Authors Who Pay To Get Published
This might be my last post for a week or two, depends whether or not they have decent Internet access at the Cape Cod Writer's Center, which I'm attending next week. Since there are going to be a lot of unpublished authors there, I thought I'd do my preaching about paying to get published now, so I don't get sucked into arguments while I'm there.
Anybody who reads this blog knows that I'm not an advocate of paying to get published. I'm a self publishing advocate, which means starting your own publishing company and going into the publishing business. Yet, I'm also on the record stating time and time again that there's nothing wrong or immoral about paying to get published. It's just not a business model. I've heard from authors over the years who have been very happy with subsidy publishers, including some which have horrible, abusive contract terms. The reason these authors are happy? They read the contract before signing, they paid their cash, and they got what they paid for. They didn't have dreams of bestsellers, they weren't trying to make a living, or even a car payment. If you've written a book you want to make available to the public through special ordering or Internet shopping, you don't want to start your own self publishing company, and you can't or won't go through the trade publishing process, subsidy publishers are pretty much the only logical choice.
But, you do have to read the contract, you do have to do your homework about what you are paying for, and you better be prepared for the ridicule of snobs. There are some terrific subsidy published books out there (thanks to the author, not the publisher) and there are some horrible ones. I can say the same thing about trade published books. While there's no question that the editorial quality of books that authors have paid to get published is generally inferior to trade published books, that not the main difference.
The primary difference between trade published books and subsidy published books is commercial viability. Trade publishers don't publish books unless they believe they have a very good chance of earning money, and while they are frequently wrong, it's the main consideration. Trade publishers, after all, are in businesses. Authors who pay to get their books published are often doing so precisely because their books aren't commercially viable.
Earlier this week I heard from an author who had a bad experience with a subsidy press and wanted to know where she could go to publicly warn other authors. In response to that, I wrote:
Maybe I was little gruff. But when you've been writing about self publishing as a business as long as I have, yet keep hearing from authors who have confused self publishing with paying to get published, you'd occasionally lose your patience as well.
Anybody who reads this blog knows that I'm not an advocate of paying to get published. I'm a self publishing advocate, which means starting your own publishing company and going into the publishing business. Yet, I'm also on the record stating time and time again that there's nothing wrong or immoral about paying to get published. It's just not a business model. I've heard from authors over the years who have been very happy with subsidy publishers, including some which have horrible, abusive contract terms. The reason these authors are happy? They read the contract before signing, they paid their cash, and they got what they paid for. They didn't have dreams of bestsellers, they weren't trying to make a living, or even a car payment. If you've written a book you want to make available to the public through special ordering or Internet shopping, you don't want to start your own self publishing company, and you can't or won't go through the trade publishing process, subsidy publishers are pretty much the only logical choice.
But, you do have to read the contract, you do have to do your homework about what you are paying for, and you better be prepared for the ridicule of snobs. There are some terrific subsidy published books out there (thanks to the author, not the publisher) and there are some horrible ones. I can say the same thing about trade published books. While there's no question that the editorial quality of books that authors have paid to get published is generally inferior to trade published books, that not the main difference.
The primary difference between trade published books and subsidy published books is commercial viability. Trade publishers don't publish books unless they believe they have a very good chance of earning money, and while they are frequently wrong, it's the main consideration. Trade publishers, after all, are in businesses. Authors who pay to get their books published are often doing so precisely because their books aren't commercially viable.
Earlier this week I heard from an author who had a bad experience with a subsidy press and wanted to know where she could go to publicly warn other authors. In response to that, I wrote:
As to the warning off others, there are plenty of discussion groups where you can vent your spleen, but it probably won't make you feel any better. I'm not unfeeling on the subject, it's just that I've corresponded with thousands of authors in the last ten years. Authors who use subsidy presses and aren't happy with the results may have been lied to or misled, but more often than not, they simply didn't do their homework. They thought they were buying something that nobody can sell, success as an author. Don't get discouraged, if you want to write for a living, keep at it, but make sure you put as much effort into studying the publishing business as you do writing your next book. And don't confuse POD, the technology, with the subsidy presses who use it, they are a minority of the POD business.
Maybe I was little gruff. But when you've been writing about self publishing as a business as long as I have, yet keep hearing from authors who have confused self publishing with paying to get published, you'd occasionally lose your patience as well.