More Agents, More Books?

So I was chatting with an agent at one of the industry events I’ve attended this year, and she admitted she occasionally dreads those “ask us anything” panels and sessions. It wasn’t the people who asked honest questions that bothered her, but the ones who had, in this agent’s opinion, already decided on their particular brand of “the publishing industry hates me” conspiracy theory and were just looking for affirmation.

Some of the other writers and industry types present (who are clearly too nice) argued that you couldn’t tell that type of question on sight. Others, including me, insisted that they’d seen it in action. The agent argued that it was very obvious when writers had somehow gotten hold of the completely wrong end of the stick somewhere and decided to run with it. These questions usually take the form of “What are my chances…” “I heard that you can’t get an agent if you’re new/old/young/etc.” or similar.

Asking “what your chances” are is a completely useless question. I know I’ve posted about it half a dozen times already, but it always bears repeating this great quote from Teresa Nielsen Hayden:

Aspiring writers are forever asking what the odds are that they’ll [sell their books]. That’s the wrong question. If you’ve written a book that surprises, amuses, and delights the readers, and gives them a strong incentive to read all the pages in order, your chances are very good indeed. If not, your chances are poor.

This is a perennial favorite at the industry Q& A. But if you look at a situation like Carrie Ryan’s, you’ll see the difference. She had a bunch of agent offers on her manuscript in a couple of weeks. Because when you have the right book at the right time, getting an agent is pretty straightforward: you send out queries, they request the book, you send the book, they make an offer. If you don’t have that right book/right time combo, all the little tricks and whatnot aren’t going to help you. To my knowledge, no one ever asked her how old she was.

But back to that “wrong end of the stick” question. I was at one of those Q&As recently where a writer asked the following question:

“If agencies’ lists are getting full, why don’t they just hire more agents to make money off new writers?”

I think this is just the kind of question that agent up at the top of the post is talking about. To pose this question, this writer seems to be assuming the following misconceptions:

1) That an agent with an established list won’t take on a book they love.
2) That there is some massive body of incredible books that an agent would love to take on, if only they had enough hours in the day.
3) That someone can walk in off the street and be a good agent.
4) That agents “make money off of” writers, and could sell more books that way.

Let’s take this one at a time.

1) If your books is something that an agent really loves and thinks they can sell very well, they’ll take it on. Yes, even if you’re new. Even if they’re from a big agency. Even if they have half a dozen NYT Best-sellers on their list. The trick of course is that you’re not as likely to get the attention of an agent who doesn’t have much room on their list. They aren’t looking for new clients. They are probably not even accepting query letters. If they sign on someone new, it’s more likely to be a very established author looking to change agencies, a recommendation from one of their clients, or one of those other alternate means.

However, this doesn’t really matter because there are many, MANY great agents who are established, have a proven success record, bestsellers, etc., and ARE looking for new clients. Lots. The idea that there is only one agent out there for you is false. The idea that you must have the agent that Famous-Author-X has or bust is equally false. A lot of the biggest bestsellers out there are with the same agents they had when they started — agents who grew with them. And I can think of a lot of other newly-minted bestsellers or big deals made by agents that were totally under the radar until that deal came to pass.

Now, please note that above I said “not as likely.” This is very different than “not at all.” Query widely — some big stars. some mid-sized established folks with strong track records, some hungry and respectable newbies (at established agencies) building their lists. You never know who will get into your stuff, and you never know, after thinking about it, who you will want to be into it. You may find that you get offers from the little guys and from the big guys and you aren’t feeling the vibe from the big guy. You may find that you get the offer from the little guy and the big guy doesn’t seem to care at all.

2) Now, understanding the above, it’s not as if it’s time keeping agents from taking on scores of new writers. It’s not as if, if there were suddenly 40 hours in a day rather than 24, an agent would reduce their rejection rate from 98% to 45%. There is still a very small and limited number of good projects that an agent sees. This is why, when you get one offer, another one usually comes in (also because an offer from an agent is like a recommendation from someone in the industry that a project is worthwhile). This is why agents sometimes ask for exclusives. Because the projects with real promise are thin on the ground, and if one comes along that an agent loves, they are going to try to make time for it.

3) Even if an agent honestly has no more time to give to a client — any client — they probably aren’t going to let a good project slip away completely. I’ve seen writers get rejection slips from agents saying they can’t take on any more work at this time, but please do send this promising manuscript to their friend, Agent Other, and say Agent First recommended it. I’ve seen agents forward the work along themselves. And a lot of agents work in places with a bunch of others, so they may just pass it on to someone else in their agency. (This is one reason why, when a writer has an offer and contacts other agents, some agents pass right away, because they know that if they haven’t gotten to it but another agent is in love, they are probably the best man or woman to represent that work, and it’s in good hands.)

That being said, just as good books aren’t just lying around on the street, neither are good agents. Agents aren’t just sitting there going “Wow, if only I had more time, I could double my client list. Hey, here’s the UPS guy. I wonder if he’d like to trade in his brown uniform and be an agent!” Training to be an agent, building contacts, building a list, building a reputation is a huge amount of work. And hiring another agent at an agency is a big responsibility — you want a good person, because the reputation of your agency is riding on their performance. There isn’t a huge amount of out-of-work potential agents that can just jump onto the job and pick up the slack. It’s not how it works.

Usually, when new agents appear, they are people who 1) started out at an agency (the one they worked for or a different one) as an assistant, learning the trade, reading the slush pile, making contacts. Then they took over some other work — coordinating with subsidiary rights teams, reading contracts, etc. Then they made some deals for the agency’s clients — maybe audio or foreign or for some small work or work in a different genre than the client’s main agent handles… Finally, they got a client of their own, made some deals, etc., and started building a list. Later they may do that thing where they move to another company who offers them a promotion, OR they are promoted from the inside, OR they decide to start their own agency.

Alternately, 2) they are a refugee from the editorial side of publishing who decides to go agent. They already have a lot of experience and contacts. Either way, there aren’t scads of these people, and the training process does not occur in an afternoon. I know a bunch of people (former writers, former editors, etc.) who have tried on the agent hat, realized what a tough job it is, and escaped.

4) Agents don’t make money off of writers. Agents make money off of publishers. Yes, the writer and the manuscript is the product that they sell, but again with the supply and demand thing. More writers does not necessarily mean more money. An agent can have one writer client, and if her name is J.K. Rowling, then they already make more money than most other writers and agents on the planet. An agent can have a handful of clients who consistently land six figure deals, and thus feel free to pass on clients who would require the same amount of work, but who they only believe would net four figures. Or they may fall in love with the “little book” and go for it.

And, again with the supply and demand. Every agent has the story about the book they couldn’t sell. Even though they loved it. Even though they tried really hard. Because even if, by some miracle, there were a gazillion good manuscripts, and a gazillion agents to represent them, there still wouldn’t be a gazillion publishing spots.

See how many different variables there are? Agents aren’t going to act the same. There are agents who like having six huge clients. There are agents who like having two dozen hard working clients in a very specialized market they understand. There’s a little bit of everything.

What there isn’t is a whole bunch of untrained folks hanging around on the street that would make good agents if only they had the jobs, and huge piles of unagented manuscripts that agents would pounce on if they only had the time.

Dismal enough, Di? Yeah, yeah, what a way to start a Monday. But before you decide to drown your sorrows in the first press of autumnal apple cider, remember Theresa Nielsen Hayden’s Slushkiller, in which she gives 13 reasons your book will be rejected, and one it will be accepted. If you’re an aspiring writer, and you read only one essay about the topic of rejection, make it this one. So that when you hear stuff like “this agent got 20,000 submissions this year, and rejected all but three,” remember: a good 15k of those were cookbooks or written in crayon on the back of a receipt. And that’s exactly why statistics don’t mean anything. Because if you’ve followed the primer (I should probably add to that soon, huh?), written a book, edited it, and targeted to an agent who actually does handle that kind of book, you’re already ahead of a large majority of the other submissions.