How To Get An Agent

Reprinted comments from Teresa Nielsen Hayden:

1. If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an
offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't
have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get.

a. If you're good enough to get published, having an agent may prove
helpful. If you aren't (yet), you definitely don't want the kind of
agent you're going to get.

i. There is no substitute for writing a book that people want to buy
and read. If you can do that, you can get published. If you can't, no
clever workaround will help, because we can't force people to buy and
read books they don't like.

b. Some ways you might get an agent without getting an offer: Be
obviously and extraordinarily good. Sell a lot of short stories. Have
some other seriously hot credentials.

2. Don't start by looking for an agent. Do your research first. Start
by learning about agents, submissions, publishing houses, the
industry, et cetera. Note: This is a huge subject.

a. No matter how you think it works, the publishing industry doesn't
work the way you think it does. This is true even for publishing
professionals. They know how their part of the industry works, and
they know a lot about adjacent areas, but the further afield they go,
the less reliable their expertise will be. People who aren't in the
industry generally don't have a clue.

i. A phenomenal number of articles about how publishing works are
written by people who don't know what they're talking about. This is
partly because writing about writing, or writing about publishing, is
what wanna-be authors do when they've given up on writing, but don't
yet want to admit it. It's also because a made-up version of the
publishing industry is going to be much simpler and more logical than
the real thing, and thus is easier to write about.

ii. Look askance at articles that credit some industry practice to the
stupidity of people working in the industry, who have failed to see
the simple and obvious solution the author of the article is about to
suggest.

3. There are easily as many scam agents, useless agents, and clueless
agents as there are real ones. They all swap bad information with each
other. The difference is that the scammers know it's bad information.

a. You can't research this subject just by getting online and looking.
You have to stick to good sources.

4. Did I mention that any idiot can write a book about how to be a
writer? When you see someone who's never sold a book, but who's
written a book about how to get your book published, and said book was
published by a vanity house, and said author is nevertheless accepted
as an authority on the subject by a great many aspiring writers, you
know you've wandered into strange territory.

a. The scary part is that I've just described more than one
Authoritative Source of Advice about Writing and Publishing.

b. Any idiot can put up a website, too.

c. Check out your source's credentials.

i. It's always worth your while to assess the quality of the info
you're getting, because bad advice can cost you such an inordinate
amount of time and effort.

Very interesting post.
There is a saying, "People who can't sell, teach." That's like "the blind leading the blind."
Knowing the source, before accepting advice, is good advice.
A loser can tell you how to lose because he/she has a lot of practice at it. Successful people give advice sparingly, and when they do, it is seldom an easy solution to a problem. Getting rich quick either doesn't work or doesn't last. It takes time, lots of work and persistence, to achieve anything worthwhile.

Quote :

b. Any idiot can put up a website, too.

c. Check out your source's credentials.

Hard to argue with that, we've just seen it demonstrated.

Here is an anonymous liar, who claims to be an authoritative source on publishing although virtually nothing he says holds water at all, who has not had his own work published, but comes by to give advice on how to do it.

Quote :

No matter how you think it works, the publishing industry doesn't
work the way you think it does.

I don't think you have to be a genius to see what's lame about THAT quote.

But perhaps it takes a little experience to realize that THIS is nuts:

Quote :

If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an
offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't
have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get.

Or maybe not.

But now this is hard to deny:

Quote :

Did I mention that any idiot can write a book about how to be a writer?

though technically, idiots don't do so well and book length, the woefully uninformed and stupid should be quite capable of writing posts about writing.

This was reprinted, verbatim, from an article from Theresa Nielsen Hayden, well regarded and respected editor. If you have a problem with it, contact her.

Contact Theresa Nielsen Hayden so that she can disemvowel my emails?

Well, she may do that, but she's the author of the piece.

Ah, then it's not just some anonymous turkey trying to pretend they know something... it's somebody putting out linkbait to try to convince people to come to her to get the real skinny?

Well, gosh, that's different.




Why are you still hanging around embarrassing yourself and everybody else?

I don't think that anyone can really tell you how to be an author or how to get publish. They can offer advice with the insight that they have gained, through working in the industry. Some of it may work for some yet others may find none of it useful. I may be wrong, misguided even but in this digital world things are changing, as they always have and getting that magic contract may not be like it once was.

I agree, Hairymob. Writing is a solitary business and what works for one does not for another.

I should have stayed away from this thread but the one that bothers me is:

"There is no substitute for writing a book that people want to buy
and read. If you can do that, you can get published. If you can't, no
clever workaround will help, because we can't force people to buy and
read books they don't like."

Hmm. I figured that one out a long time ago.

I don't mind good advice, but when advice talks down to readers, then I read it with a grain of salt.

Carol

Quote :

There is no substitute for writing a book that people want to buy
and read.

Really, Carol.

Why didn't I think of that????? It's good to have people cluing us in.

Then you go get a publisher for it, then you can get an agent. Who knew it was all that simple?

So?

First of all, the fact that somebody has "credentials" doesn't mean anything they put up on the web makes any sense.

Try reading the thing and deciding for yourself.

But since you bring it up, do you see anything on Ms. Hayden's bio to suggest that she has ever succeeded in getting an agent for a book?

Her awards are for blogs and fanzines and a NF book composed of collected essays.

If she has "credentials" it's an essayist or editor of whatever.

AND, let me point out, a person who would not have to go to any trouble to get an agent because she's plugged into things at a different point.

But that's aside.
What's significant is that it doesn't really make much difference who wrote something if it doesn't make any sense. You have to be able to figure that out for yourself, because that's who it matters to. That's what I did. And I commented on it.
The article is useless drivel, as is SO MUCH of the dreck one finds on the internet as linkbait and whatever the hell it is that makes people do that stuff. That's my hit on it.

See what I mean?

Amen, Elfie...

Here's my summation in one sentence:

THERE ARE A LOT OF IDIOTS OUT THERE.

Pretty much; that's what I got from the quote...good, or bad.

I must be doing something right...I already knew they were out there.

Marie Pacha wrote:

No, I don't really see what you mean. But it's obvious you also didn't understand me.

There is no link to the actual article, and because of that I don't know if Ms Nielsen Hayden actually wrote it. And since we don't have that information we don't actually know if the article was about getting an agent or about publishing in general and why it was written. The audience for which a piece is intended makes a difference in how it is delivered as I am sure you know.

Maybe you didn't see the mention of Tor Books in her bio. I did.

I happen to agree with many of the things in that article, although it wasn't anything new to me.

And I don't understand what your comment means, "a person who would not have to go to any trouble to get an agent because she's plugged into things at a different point." Would you clarify that please?

I didn't post the url, I just copied and pasted the relevant text but here it is, on Neil Gaiman's blog (warning: long article).
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I've known Teresa for a really long time. She's a smart cookie, and she knows the publishing business inside and outside. She is indeed an editor for Tor, and so is her husband.

There are a couple of things I disagree with in the article, but for the most part, it's accurate. She's...brusque, shall we say?

The methods to follow in doing a search for a "real" agent are pretty simple and specific.

I could list them if anyone is interested.

-Ann C. Crispin

Quote :

But it's obvious you also didn't understand me.

By no means. I understand you completely, just realize that you are missing the point. Which also causes you to think I don't understand that which is pretty clear-cut: you are not discussing the post, just yapping away that if it has the right name on it it must be worth assimilating. I wonder if you even read it, frankly.

She may be an editor at Tor. Does that mean she knows how to get an agent and sell a book? Why should we assume that? Has the gotten an agent and sold a book? I see no evidence of that.

The "advice" in that article is neither "brusque" nor helpful. It's a melange of non-information ranging fromt he almost arrogantly stupid "Write a book somebody wants to buy" (it's hard to even start picking that one apart, actually, it's so flawed and ridiculous) to common-knowledge to self-glorification that doesn't translate into any practical application for readers.

This is acdtually not uncommon among people who've spent their lives editing. Often they are failed writers who turned to editing to stay near it, many are people who have developed the talents required for editing other people's work, rather than creating their own.

They are often used to being able to just slip their opinions into print at a magazine or publisher general without having to go through the sales process. This could make SOME of them, and I've seen this before, believe that they know how to write a book and get it into print.


And still we have post after post about the author of the thread, nothing about whether or not it makes any sense.


And yeah, Marie, you pretty much have to get an agent to make sales with major houses. You can find this out yourself without having to rely on the judgement of others: go to the websites of publishers you are interested in, go to their submissions pages, see if they accept unsolicited submissions. You will find very, very few that do.

The ones you do find will tend to be in the romance or speculative fiction fields.

The house most noted for still having an "open transom" policy on books is, ironically, Tor. In case you missed the irony: we have an article on how to get a book agent from somebody who you see as authoritative on the matter--because they are an editor at one of the few publishers that don't require that all submissions be agented.

I'm going to say this: if you try to run a writing career based on uncritical acceptance of whatever dreck floats by on the internet, rather than using your own critical facilities and common sense to evaluate and plan, you will be in for a frustrating experience.

Another thought, do you think the smaller presses are looking and hoping for that book that will put them in with the big publishers, that will make them lots of money? This might sound like a silly question, but there are no silly questions. It is just a thought, that they are looking for that magic book that will put them over the top.

Carol

Bloomsbury did it:

Q: What has Harry Potter actually done for Bloomsbury?
A: We had only just started to publish children's books in June, 1994, and we hit it lucky with Harry Potter in July, 1997. [When Bloomsbury went public in 1995] our shares were worth 105p [$1.90 at the current rate]. Two years ago we did a four-for-one split, making the originally floated shares worth 26.5p [48 cents]. They have just been trading at 341p [$6.28]. Harry Potter is probably a total one-off. There has never been anything like it. It has no disadvantages. It has not skewed the company in any way.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I would say, Carol, that most small presses are happy being small presses. Just as self- or small-published authors might have a glimmer dream of crashing into The Big Show, they will not be happy or effective if that's their only reason for being there.

At the small end of the spectrum, most 6-title presses are just trying to have some fun and make their work available to be read.
At the top end, like BeWrite or Whiskey Creek, they aren't trying to be Schuster when they grow up: they're doing something new and different, doing it well, and making out.

Again, this is an attitude that most writers should also be comfortable with.


Marie, your thought there is, if you don't mind my saying so, backwards. I mention this because writers fall prey to a lot of backwards thinking that hampers us in our efforts.

I was in a discussion on Crime Space yesterday which reflected a discussion here about publishers possibly discontinuing royalty advances. There are a couple of guys there just adamant that it won't happen. Fine. But their reasons were all like "writers need those advances" and "I just won't approach publishers who don't give advances". Both comments from an unpublished writer, by the way.

In point of fact, I think it's pretty obvious that publishers don't make their decisions in order to please writers and make our lives happier.

Similarly, smaller houses are more accesible not out of any view from the writer's standpoint. They are more accessible because they are small and unknown and have to publish somebody in order to be publishers.

It's good (thought not always posible) to have an idea of why the industry does things and what their motivations are. These are not always strictly monetary, either. One reason certain books nobody reads get published over others that would be more widely read is because they are "cooler" books. Books that an agent or editor would be proud to mention over drinks at some Manhattan watering hole or pub industry hospitality suite. Holocaust "judaica" or multi-culti woman struggle or anti-fat chick lit is cool. Guys blowing each other up or lurid zombie romance or christians bashing gays is not cool. For instance.

This can have practical effects on how you work.

For instance, I wouldn't approach a small press with the premise that my book will put them on the map. They'd much rather hear that I'm a member of a 200 person reading club that is dying to get their hands on my zombie romance book so they can have lurid dreams or dish my book when I'm not there.

That is an issue called "platform". And it's a BIG ticket these days. The bigger your platform (from a 40 person family up to a radio talk show that reaches millions) the bigger press you can seduce.

Well, as I said, the reasons are not always monetary. And with really small presses ego can edge out money every time.

Marie, I will PM you with my suggestions for agent searching. I think that would be the best approach.

-Ann C. Crispin

Well some would say that it's a tiny bit rude to join a forum, then whisper privately instead of sharing with all.

But whatever.

So I guess we won't get to know if those suggestions prove to be more helpful than this link, already posted on thie forum:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

For that matter, Ann... you're obviously a bit of an insider. How would you rate the suggestions in the initial post here. I don't mean do you know or approve of the author of the cribbed link... I mean, do you consider it helpful information for searching for agents?

In what way?