Advice about approaching agents!

[dustinzgirl]

Perhaps lin just had a bad experience with an agent(s) and is just sharing his personal viewpoint on the subject?

I would get an agent, if I wanted too, I don't think I'm good enough for one to bother and I doubt that I could afford to pay someone to help me fix the things I need to fix, so for now I just stick to self publishing for my friends and family and the like....which is OK for me, but certainly not OK for everyone.

Its like, construction. Some people like to pay someone to help them build an add on to their house or get a realtor, but my parents and I just got the permits and started going it ourselves. Might be more of a pain in the butt and take longer, but we didn't pay someone else.

Now, I do think that agents and publishers and all that is a personal choice...you have to decide if it is the route you want to go.

That doesn't mean that going without an agent is a good route, just a different one.


PS: I think the point of this thread should be to give people as much information on different routes, opinions, and such so they can make thier own choices. What works for one will not satisfy another.

 

[lin robinson]

Much more important factors.

I'm saying that too. Your idea that what I'm talking about is "haste above all" is your own invention, like my "satisfaction with self-publishing'.

A major consideration for me in any business I do with anybody is my general trust in them and respect for their business practices. I don't respedt anybody who says, "I'll only look at your work if you promise not to show it to anybody else no for as many months until/if I get back to you on it." Sure, "Writers Digest" thinks that's peachy...they need agents more than they need your few bucks for subscription. But it's not businesslike.

Once again, a deal is a two way street. Somebody offers something, there's a counter offer you agree on something and do it. My offer is if I'm really interested in an agent or publisher I'll promise them an exclusive look for an agreed upon amount of time. This is not some sort of anarchist heresy. It's the way things work in the world.
You do thing one way, I do them another. In both cases because they work for us. I'm comfortable with that. You don't seem to be, keep snipping at me and making up what I'm saying. You have my permission to do your career your way.

Dustinzgirl, actually I haven't had many bad experiences with agents because I limit the amount of exposure I allow them. That's a lot of what I'm saying here.
Anybody who says you should go into a business deal with the attitude of just letting the other party do whatever they want with you is going to have some trouble. Or has been lucky.

Again, I think if you poll pro writers you are going to tind that they do things pretty much like I laid out: an articulated committment from zero on queries up to a defined exclusivity for a novel manuscript or screenplay. It's the only thing that really makes any sense to somebody who's writing for a living.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

From where I stand, lin, you are the one doing the "sniping" calling my opinions "wrongheaded."

As for assumptions, I can only go by what you have said yourself. And the only basis you have given so far for choosing an agent is whether or not they'll accept simultaneous submissions. If you have some other criteria, I'd be glad to hear it.

I think if you poll pro writers you are going to find that they do things pretty much like I laid out

Would these be the same pro writers you have accused of encouraging other writers to accept shabby and illegal treatment?

 

[dustinzgirl]

Its been my experience that most agents and publishers are not out to screw someone, but they are out to make a living, just like the writer is. Its a one hand washes the other relationship. Its not like you pay an agent upfront, so I just don't see why you seem so against them.

I'm not for or against agents. I've met a few around here and they seem like pretty cool people.

 

[lin robinson]

Would these be the same pro writers you have accused of encouraging other writers to accept shabby and illegal treatment?

No, I'd suggest the ones who have their heads on straight.

Those are not my only requirements, as I've already said. That's the third time you've just dreamed up words to put in my mouth. I wish you wouldn't do that. It doesn't reflect very well on you. Neither does the sniping, pissy attitude here. You are not even addressing the question anymore, just trying to win some trophy and slap me down. Why bother?

I said what I said, it's the way I do things. I haven't tried to tell you how to do your thing or put words in your mouth to put you down. If this is just about having the last word, be my guest. Unless its something attributing things to me that I have not said or intended.

 

[lin robinson]

I am not against agents or dislike the ones I know. Well, a couple. I generally find them more congenial than writers, actually.

I am against certain business policies and mindless furtherance of those policies by magazines and forum posters.

But mostly, if you look... I just laid out the way I do things.

 

[lin robinson]

Let me add, Dustinzgirl: it's pretty tough for an agent to screw a writer. (The other way around has proven tough, as well

A lot of my underlying attitude here is actually formed by publishers and editors who CAN and DO screw writers out of our earnings. And my attitude about backing up people writers deal with against the interests of the writers themselves has been hardened by my experience as a freelancer.

I'm not a novelist with a day job. I've made my living writing for decades, except for a few sabbaticals into the Desperado industries. It's unreal what you put up with. Well, I don't generally put up with it: but I've found that everytime I throw an editor down a stairs (Seattle) or stalk them into a coffee house (San Diego) to get paid I end up losing a client. No big...what good are clients who stiff you?

Having attempted to reject my lifelong career of violence in recent years, I now end up having to go to courts. I haven't lost a case yet, but that's partly because of what I learned earlier in the field and partly because the people were so arrogant, they literarlly did not realize that if you promise to pay somebody for doing work you have to pay them for it, like a plumber or mechanic.

There are so many shitty conventions in writing that other professions would no accept. Pay on publication. How many people not only are told to do their work then wait six months for the money...if the mag is still in business by then? Yet writers mags not only accept this, they tell writers not to have a problem with it. And you'd find writers right on this board who would defend that messed-up practice.

What I notice is that more experienced at the writing business a writer is, the more they tend to agree with me on these matters and even congratulate me for taking stands on them instead of cringing away and taking abuse in hopes of future sales. It's generally people who pick this stuff up from magazines and books who have a problem with it because it threatens what they are learning. Or something. Freakin' collaborators...

Anyway, my idea is that writers should get paid for their work, that be treated in a businesslike fashion, and that they be idolized and sexually pursued like rock stars. Got a problem with that?

 

[John Jarrold]

I suspect everyone reading this thread can, as Teresa said, make their own minds up...

 

[dustinzgirl]

I suspect everyone reading this thread can, as Teresa said, make their own minds up...

I agree with that hope, and I'll add that I hope everyone reading this thread realizes that this is a friendly discussion of varying opinions and methods, not a strict definition or process or instruction. It is mainly opinion.

And, I hope I have a beautiful, perfect, fully written novel magically appear on my desk.............nope. Shoot.

(sorry, just lightening up the mood. Boy, some of you need to meet my friend, Chamomile Tea, and then post.....)

 

[Brian G Turner]

A couple of interesting points come up in this thread:

1. Any industry that doesn't require formal qualifications to enter it will always be polarised between the reputable practioners and those out to make a quick buck at the expense of clients.

Because the writing industry is very much in this category, writers always need to ensure they can research who the reputable practioners are, and target that layer of the industry.

2. Business is business, and there are rules of the game as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.

If a writer is serious about being published by serious market players, they have to accept the rules of that game and work within those rules professionally.


Of course, writers don't have to play by the established rules of the game if they don't want to - but anyone who actively attempts to limit their options from the start is hurting only themselves.

2c.

 

[John Jarrold]

Yeah, we all have rules in mainstream publishing. As we've all agreed here, there are alternatives and anyone who doesn't like commercial publishing now has more outlets for their work than ever before.

Lin mentioned payment on publication. In general, the payment for a novel will be split - either half on signature of the contract and half on publication for a paperback original, or into smaller percentages if there is also a hardback, or in the case of a multi-book contract, where only the first book has been delivered (though there will be an advance paid on signature of the contract for each book that has been acquired). Most books are published twelve months - in some cases more than that - after delivery. During that time the editor works on the book with the author, and hires a copy-editor and proof-reader; the art department spends time coming up with a cover, after the initial design briefing and meeting, which will decide on which artist to use, or if they want a 'designed' cover, rather than artwork; the sales and marketing team talk to the bookselling trade about the book; and a number of other parts of the publishing company will be working on the title. So basically, publishers don't want to have the full advance paid out before they make anything back for that effort. Financial directors looking to balance the books aren't going to let that happen!

 

[lin robinson]

My reference on pay on publication was to periodicals, not novels. Sorry I didn't make that clear. Perhaps it's a phrase that's less immediately recognizable among English writers than in the Americas.

It's been suggested that my remarks here have been taken as applied to posting individuals. I have a hard time understanding that interpretation could have been made, but hasten to assure that unless you are some agent or editor reader I've dealt with in the past (unlikely) that my comments are directed towards industry practices at the expense of writers and artists, not any individual on this board.

 

[lin robinson]

It's also suggested that my comments on having had to physically force people to pay up would "encourage" readers to be violent themselves. I find this shocking and perhaps have mis-estimated the degree of impressionability of readers here. My assumption was somewhat like the idea put forth here:

I suspect everyone reading this thread can, as Teresa said, make their own minds up.

Let me say that if anyone feels influenced toward thrashing somebody who stiff you for payment that you consider other methods. Write to me and perhaps I can direct you to some of the support groups and reading that have helped me toward coming to grips with harming and killing people in my own affairs.

 

[lin robinson]

anyone who actively attempts to limit their options from the start is hurting only themselves.

I agree completely. It's one thing I'm trying to get across here. Don't accept the limitation: take initiative in creating a business situation you can live with. Just like in real life.

 

[T.K.]

Caroline Sheldon has a 10 pet hates list on her website that probably hold true for other agents, and might be useful to know when submitting:

Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency—Books, film and television