Getting a Literary Agent
Kelp on rock — Nov. 9, 2024
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try .” – Beverly Sills
If you want to publish with the Big Five (Penguin/Random House, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, or Macmillan) you need a literary agent. I know that. But I’ve always envisioned this person as someone sitting in a high-end office too busy to look up from their computer. Their job is to pick a single manuscript from thousands of submissions and reject the rest. I never saw an access point for me in that vision.
But after doing a little research, I’m thinking about it differently. Working strictly on commission, an agent receives no income until the novel they’re representing sells. All that trolling through pitch letters and manuscripts doesn’t buy them a bag of groceries or a tank of gas.
Let’s say they decide my manuscript is the one they want to represent. Maybe they work with me on revisions before writing to editors to pitch my novel. If they get no bites on their line, they don’t get paid for any of that either.
But say they do get an offer. Then they negotiate the terms, track payments and key dates, and shepherd the project to completion. They help me navigate through the morass, acting as my cheerleader, my project manager, my contract negotiator and my mentor. Finally if my book sells, and only then, they get paid.
From this perspective, I can see why a literary agent needs to be so discriminating. And I understand what my role is. It’s up to me to convince an agent that my manuscript is worth their time. And I had had better be sure it is. I’m up for it.
