Do You Really Need A Literary Agent?
Of course, this depends entirely on what you want to achieve from your writing. If you write for pleasure, or for the enjoyment of a small group of appreciative fans, then an agent probably isn’t necessary for you to maintain that close, reciprocally-rewarding contact with your audience.
However, if you seek to build a professional career from your writing – be ‘an author’ – then you very definitely do need an agent, which is why it’s so hard to get a good one.
Gone are the days when you could submit direct to a publisher. Immense, global players control the market; the small firms with interesting names and eye-catching logos down the spines of their books on the chain-store shelves mere imprints of the hulking monoliths lurking oppressively in the shadows. The one person fighting your corner in this unfriendly world; your very own David facing those impenetrable Goliaths? The literary agent.
It's the twenty-first century - an agent is superfluous!
When it works, it’s marvellous: the ultimate partnership. Their prosperity is tied to yours. If you don’t earn, then neither do they. It’s therefore in their interest to make you a success, so they must believe in your capabilities to take a chance on you. That’s why it’s so hard. That’s why your submissions are met with silence at worst, a rejection slip at best…because agents can only take on so much, their piggy-in-the-middle position is a daunting one to occupy, and they have bills to pay, just like the rest of us. If you’re sending them unmarketable rot, don’t be surprised if they open the envelope, sneer disdainfully, and drop the whole lot straight in the bin. They’re running a business, not a support group.
If you want to achieve and sustain a commercial writing career, of course you need to be half-decent at knocking out a yarn, and prepared to shake a lot of hands and wear out a deal of shoe leather on publicity junkets up and down, back and forth, but no one knows you even exist without your agent. The first customer you need to impress is therefore the one that’ll put you in touch with all the others. There’s no alternative to scaling that first obstacle of the submissions process. It’s scary in a lot of ways. We writers are delicate, sensitive little souls. Our preciously-crafted prose is a) the best and most original thing ever produced; and, b) as worthy of gentle, indulgent treatment as a newborn infant, but, basically, we need to grow a pair. Rejection is an integral part of what we do. Fiction is so subjective, so nuanced, so varied, that criticism is inevitable. If you can’t handle it, either don’t become a professional author, or never, ever read a review of your work. For every hundred gushing fulsome five-star praise, it’s the sole, one-star derisive shredding of your endeavours that’ll haunt you for months.
One thing insulates you comfortingly from this nastiness: making sales. The arrival of a royalty cheque is like taking a baseball bat to a slating review. (Look at it this way – they may have hated it, but they still bought it in the first place. You still got paid. Suck on that, Captain One-Star!)
Your agent is your passage not only to the choosy few who bought your book despite not being quite convinced by the back-cover blurb, but to the hundreds of thousands who loved it, and subsequently loyally buy everything else you ever churn out. Agents aren’t the only route to market, but they’re the most effective one yet invented.
So many writers begin by having to scribble feverishly alongside their existing career until the balance tips sufficiently for them to become full-time professional authors, instead of part-time aspiring ones. However, these guys aren’t dentists or greengrocers trying to ‘agent’ a bit on the side. This is their profession. They spend all day immersed in the ebb and flow of the market they’re selling into, making contacts, building networks, experimenting with ways to push varied work into an increasingly-narrow sphere. They know who’s buying what, when, for how much, and can exploit the individual abilities of their authors to greatest advantage as a result. They know who to call, and which flesh to press at which industry ‘do’, because they’ve been there, done it, bought the t-shirt, and probably sold the movie rights to the script while they’re about it. What’s your specialist angle? Bin-man by day, Bard by night, do you know anything about publishing apart from its inaccessibility? Probably not. You need a pro in your corner!
What if it isn’t all I thought it would be?
It’s possible to end up with a bad agent; either one who isn’t working on your behalf, or one simply not on your wavelength. Everyone’s heard the horror-stories about the damage terrible representation can do to reputation, career, and self-esteem. Agents aren’t robots. For the most part, they are intelligent, incredibly well-read, highly-educated individuals with justifiable opinions. Sadly, quite often, authors are idiot dreamers with no idea what they want (apart from to be JK Rowling or Shakespeare), and no clue what it takes to get there. Inevitably, there’s going to be the odd personality-clash.
I’m certainly not saying any agent is better than no agent. Don’t endure substandard representation. If the relationship isn’t working for you, cut your losses and walk away. If you got one agent, chances are you’ll get another in the fullness of time. In the hiatus, whilst ‘un-agented’, at least no one but you is cocking up your career, and no one but you is spending the royalties you’re earning. (Just, please, read your contract before you sign it, or walking away might be more complicated than you envisaged.)
Who needs an agent; I can self-publish!
I agree that self-publishing without an agent is very easy nowadays and can seem attractive either if the relationship with your current agent has broken down, or you’re too intimidated by the whole process to attempt to secure one in the first place. As a self-published author, you have total control over the design and content of your books, can determine your own author brand without interference, and no one takes a percentage out of your earnings, either.
Upload your book’s content to one of the available online platforms, sit back smugly, secure in the knowledge you are one hundred percent on top of everything that’s going on, grin in satisfied delight as your Mum and everyone in her Pilates class buys a copy in the first week, and then what? Someone spots a spelling mistake and points it out to you. Someone else has a pop about your grammar. It’s your baby, you want it to be perfect. Your fragile, writerly confidence takes a dive. Proofreading costs money. Editing costs money. If your artistic flair only extends to stick men with smiley faces, or you’re a total computer dunce, then design and typesetting cost money.
What you’ve written could sell thousands of copies. Everyone who’s read it, loves it! It could pay your mortgage for the next five years…but how will you ever find out?
Sharpen and tighten that manuscript with professional help. Pay the bill.
Get a cover designed by a graphics whizz. Pay the bill.
Promote your masterpiece.
How? At whom? How do you target what you’ve written at the people who might buy it? If they don’t, because you don’t understand the market like you thought you did, and you’ve spent your life savings on aimless advertising for no return, what then? Makes your head spin, doesn’t it?
Wouldn’t it be nice if it was someone else’s job to think about all that for you, and you just stood where they told you, smiled when they said so, shook the hands that wafted under your nose, and spent your time actually writing for your living? Some agents have in-house design, proofreading, editing – or they know a man who can – and they understand what publishers buy, and what they bypass. You might have to relinquish a modicum of control, but to go further than you ever could alone. You can’t appreciate the majesty of a falcon in flight unless you open the cage door.
What do I need to do to get an agent to consider my stuff?
It’s hard to get an agent because it’s hard for them to make a good living. They will only pick up writers who’ll sell, so do everything in your power to ensure your work is commercially marketable. Do some of your agent’s job for them, and they’ll be more likely to consider your potential.
How? Again, there are no hard and fast rules, but the following will assist you on your journey:
1. Write the very best book you can. Obvious, eh? Stay true to your unique voice as a writer and produce the story you wish to read. Bask in your success at having done so. Even if you are never published, you’ve still done an incredible thing that most of the population will never achieve.
2. Eliminate spelling mistakes and iron out grammatical and punctuation errors from your manuscript to the best of your ability. If an agent likes your plot and voice but your spelling is iffy, they can/will sort this out in the edit anyway, but that’s no excuse not to try your best to get it right in the first place. (Spellcheck, anyone?) If you can afford it – and could do with the confidence-boost this can provide – pay for the services of a freelance proofreader and/or editor. It isn’t money wasted if it sharpens your manuscript ready for market, or helps you believe more in your own writing.
3. Get someone else to read it. You cannot be prissy and precious about this! I’ve lost count of the amount of Unpubs who’ve told me, ‘Oh no, I’d never let anyone else read it. What if they don’t like it?’
Give your manuscript to a trusted friend/relative/colleague and ask them to be truthful. One person sitting you down and telling you, in private, that your magnum opus is a steaming pile of poo is surely far less humiliating than torturing yourself with the mortifying imaginings of an entire agency sitting around a boardroom table tittering their condescending way through your submission before sticking it in the pile marked ‘Are you kidding?’.
If it’s rubbish, don’t shut yourself in the wardrobe for a week. Accept it’s rubbish, and Make It Better. If it gets you closer to your goal, a rewrite is never wasted time or effort. The time will pass anyway, whether you’re snivelling piteously in the cupboard-under-the-stairs or grafting to fix the holes in your plot, and you will learn valuable writing discipline and thicken your hide in the process.
4. Develop some sort of brand of your own. Get a website, even if it’s only one page. It enables you to be found by potential readers everywhere; it’s your shop window onto the world’s high street. Who you are, what you write, why you write it, who it’s aimed at – all these ideas can be developed via your website, and will help readers to engage with your ‘voice’. If you are clever at design, create yourself a logo or recognisable ‘tag’. Perhaps you use the same fonts on everything? Maybe all your images are black and white? A familiar, relatable style of presentation appearing on everything you do will begin to embed your brand in the consciousness of your audience. It’ll appeal to like-minded people who have the potential to become loyal consumers of your future output. Build an identity for yourself and occupy that niche you’ve created with purposeful pride.
5. Use social media. Love it or hate it, it’s ubiquitous and undeniably effective. You don’t have to be on everything. Find a couple of platforms that work for you and become a regular communicator on those.
You can’t be on social media all the time (and who’d want to be?). It takes imagination and effort to devise decent posts and execute them well – and you do have to do other things like eat, sleep, work, exercise, socialise…write! – but find the simplest methods to exploit the networks of your choice most efficaciously. For example, if you’re intending to be on Facebook anyway, use some of your posts to tease your writing, rather than just uploading pictures of your dinner, or sharing cat videos.
If a particular platform drives you crazy, you can’t get on with its functionality, and have no idea what to put on it, just don’t use it. It’s your life and your brand. As with your plots, craft your brand, your way. If you enjoy using a particular medium, that will come through in your posts and you’ll get more audience engagement as a result of your genuine enthusiasm.
6. Do some of the agent’s job for them. Obviously, your writing time is finite, and you must devote most of it to creating and polishing your manuscripts. However, if you want to turn this thing from hobby to job, from dream to reality, you must have an eye on your marketability. A literary agent can use their in-house team or industry contacts to tweak an already-strong manuscript that shows real potential. Can they tweak you as easily? Aren’t you way more attractive if you arrive at their door with some idea how to sell yourself, and having given some thought to what both of you are seeking from this relationship?
You’ll have more power and control over the career you want – and greater likelihood of achieving representation, publication, and the holy grail of book sales – if you are already forming a well-rounded picture of who you are as a writer, who might (or already does) buy your books, why you write them, and what makes them attractive to a curious reader. It all helps to drive an effective strategy from manuscript to market. Work on your books, but work on yourself too. You are as much a part of the sales process as those words on the page. Engage the world with what you do. That’ll attract the agent you need, the publisher you covet, and the sales you crave.
Still think you can make it alone?
Picture yourself as a little kid walking adventurously across the top of a high wall. You think you’re fine, then, all of a sudden, there’s a break you didn’t notice, and you’re going to have to jump it. What stops you from falling? The guiding hand of your competent agent, who’s come across this problem before and, like a watchful parent, knows how to get you safely over any obstacles along your career path.
At the very start, your agent chooses you at their own risk. Remember that you choose them too. If your career builds through combined effort, then your choice to remain with that agent as your saleability matures is as valuable to them as their input of time, money, and expertise was for you at the beginning. Look as it as a partnership, a working relationship of mutual benefit, and appreciate what both parties can bring to the table. They take a punt on you, investing in your potential, and you pay them back by being a hardworking, prolific client. A successful, long, and fruitful writing career is invariably not achieved alone.