How Agents Help Authors
Almost every first-time author asks this question: Do I really need a literary agent to help me sell my book?
Yes — and no. You don’t have to have an agent. Some authors have found a way to get publishers to notice them and their books without an agent. And perhaps they feel comfortable dealing with contracts and other legal details, possibly because they have a background in law or have done that kind of work in their professional lives. Some authors just want to handle everything themselves, and they’re willing to put in the time it takes to do that.
But there is a real advantage to having a literary agent: They make the process of selling your book a whole lot easier, and put you on a level playing field with editors.
The Agent Advantage
When you hire an agent to represent you, you are hiring someone who knows the whole business — who the players are, which companies have been bought by which conglomerates, which are up for sale, what’s going on with publishers’ lists (shrinking or growing, pulling back from some categories, expanding into others), which editors might be most partial to your topic, and, most important, how the publishing business runs. Agents can advise you on what’s important and what’s not. They can help you think about your project, potential publishers, and the deal as a whole, including risks, tradeoffs, and options. Because — in the happy event that you receive a contract offer from one or more publishers — there will be differences in outcome, even if the specific financial terms are the same.
More than anyone else you will interact with — from editors to publicists to salespeople — agents have the most in common with you and your business interests. Simply put, when you make money, they make money. Even authors who have been modestly successful on their own often hire an agent later on to help them handle their careers, negotiate contracts, and figure out strategies for getting the best deal on their next project.
What an Agent Can Do for You
Writers hire literary agents to represent their interests across all the phases of finding a publisher and seeing that their books are well-published. In the first phases of the search for a publisher, agents have three primary responsibilities:
In the best of all worlds, agents try to make sure your book receives more than one offer, although that is not always the case. (More than one offer is advantageous, of course, because it can create competition and thus sweeten the deal.) Once offers come in, the agent is responsible for a number of things:
A Caveat About Agents
Please do keep in mind that agents have have preferences about which publishers they will approach about your project. Those preferences may be personal, based on experience and history. The other projects that the agent has sold to a publisher (and to a specific editor) may have done very well, so of course the agent wants to do business with that publisher again and again.
The preference may also be based on financial considerations — on which publishers are known to pay larger advances and offer more attractive financial terms in their contracts. Since agents receive a percentage of what an author is paid (either advances or royalties), it is in their interest to get the best terms possible. But financial terms are not the only factors to consider in choosing a publisher, nor does an agent's comfort zone with certain publishers always lead to the best situation for a writer, especially a relatively new one.
The caveat about agents, then, is this: You want to make sure that your project is being presented to the best publisher, based on determinations of which ones have done well with your kind of project, which editor seems most enthusiastic about your book, and what kinds of marketing and other support is available.
Depending on your book and a variety of other factors, the largest, biggest-name publisher may not be best for you. You could be a tiny fish in a very large lake, whereas at a small but equally aggressive publisher (who is also competitive on the financial terms) you could be the proverbial large frog in a small pond. Talk over your agent's plan for submitting your project, and ask which publishers have been chosen and why. Make sure the agent isn't on automatic pilot, submitting to the same four or five who recieve all of his or her other projects, but has made the effort to select the best potential publishers for your book.
Ultimately, you will have to trust the agent. You can't know what he or she knows about the business, about which publishers are buying what kinds of books, about which editors are the best fit, and so on. But you also want to make sure that other factors besides money and business as usual are being consideredin the submission strategy. And if you are aware of a publisher who would be right for your book, or if you have somehow connected with an editor who is not on the agent's list, be sure to speak up.
Remember: The agent is working for you, on your behalf.
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