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An Excerpt from
How to Find A Literary Agent Who Can
Sell Your Book for Top Dollar By Jill Nagle, Founder and Principal
GetPublished, guerilla guidance for your writing
adventure
http://www.getpublished.com
As an aspiring author, you may have heard, “If your work
is really good, you can get an agent. Getting the work
into shape is the hard part. If you get the work into
shape, the right agent will follow.” Is it really that
simple? Well, yes and no.
The seven essential points below prepare you for what to
expect when seeking an agent, or literary
representative.
Point 1: Fiction or nonfiction? Differences in Approach
As a novelist, or fiction writer, you need to complete
your whole book, format it properly, and find an agent
who specializes in selling novels. If you write
nonfiction (self-help, how-to, memoir), forget about
writing the whole book, unless you want to self-publish.
Instead, write your book proposal.
A book proposal is like a business plan for your book.
Its job is to convince the publisher to part with money
so you can get paid to write your book.
In either case, to minimize your chances of rejection,
you’ll need to have your proposal or manuscript polished
before approaching an agent.
Point 2: That someone calls herself an agent says
nothing about what she can do for you.
Some things haven’t changed in the century since the
first literary agent was born. Today, anyone can still
hang out a shingle and say she’s an agent—many people
do. Not all agents are effective, ethical, or even sell
any books.
Jill’s Guerilla Caveat
Don’t settle for just any agent. Agents vary
tremendously in their effectiveness and in what they
sell well. Get your proposal (for nonfiction writers) or
manuscript (for novelists) into tip-top shape, then go
for the agent who has a proven track record selling
work similar to your own.
Point 3: Membership in the Association of Author’s
Representatives (U.S.) indicates that the agent has
agreed to abide by the A.A.R.’s code of ethics.
• Has sold at least 10 literary properties (i.e.,
books) in the 18 months prior to application for
membership;
• Does not charge any fees for reading or
evaluating authors’ work.
However, not every legitimate U.S. agent belongs to
the AAR. Many extremely successful agents opt out of AAR
membership. A comparable agency called the Association
of Author’s Agents,
http://www.agentsassoc.co.uk operates in
Britain.
Point 4: Legitimate agents earn their living by selling
to legitimate publishers the rights to publish authors’
books.
In return for writing your book and granting a
legitimate publisher the rights to print it, the
publisher gives you, the author, a percentage of
whatever the book makes, otherwise known as a “royalty.”
In return for brokering the deal and acting as your
advocate, you in turn give your agent a percentage
(usually 15%) of this royalty.
This is how legitimate agents make their money. They
pick good literary prospects for the publishers to
consider, who rely on them to reduce the time and energy
it would otherwise take to wade through the enormous
amount of submissions the publishers receive.
Publishers know the legitimate agent’s living depends
on being able to separate the wheat from the chaff, so
they tend to look more seriously at submissions from
reputable agents.
To reiterate, legitimate agents get paid through
commissions on book rights only, period. If an agent
charges you any money, except a small fee for expenses
(and many people believe agents shouldn’t charge authors
even for those; they should simply be considered the
cost of doing business), she has little incentive to
sell books.
Successful agents use a well-established network of
relationships with editors in legitimate publishing
houses. They know the right editors to call for the
particular projects that come their way. They don’t have
time to do anything but sell book rights, because
selling book rights is how they make their money.
Aside from selling the rights to publish your book in
this country, many possibilities exist for making money
from your book both within and outside of the United
States. These include translating the book and selling
it overseas, making an audio recording of the book, or
having the book used as the basis for a movie. The legal
permission to do these things is called foreign rights,
subsidiary rights and options, respectively.
To help you make the most money possible from your
book, your agent should be able to negotiate for the
subsidiary and foreign rights to remain with you, and
then work either on her own or with someone else, to
help you sell and make yet more money on sales from
those rights.
Jill’s Guerilla Caveat
Apart from those agents who are simply mediocre, watch
out for scammers—there are plenty! Apart from trusting
your gut, and not paying an agent, avoid any agent who:
• Insists you hire a particular editorial or consulting
service (this is different from making a referral, or
even better, two or three referrals and letting you
interview them and make up your own mind);
• Refers you to a publisher who wants to charge you
money;
• Suggests representing multiple works of yours
simultaneously (unless they have a really good reason
for thinking this is a good idea—see Q&A below.)
Agents who profit from upfront fees for reading or
handling manuscripts, who affiliate themselves
financially with editorial, coaching or publishing
services, or who claim to need your money for any other
purpose probably aren’t selling the rights to your book
for a living.
Why should they, when aspiring writers who don’t know
any better are kind enough to bankroll their other
enterprises?
Point 5: At their best, agents advocate for author
interests, and earn their commissions by:
• Using their inside information, reputations and
well-oiled relationships with editors to approach just
the right publishers for your book—especially the
increasing number of those publishers who won’t take
unagented submissions;
• Applying their contractual and negotiating
expertise to garnering higher advances, more rights and
a lot of other stuff you might not be aware of;
• Helping you refine both the form and content of
your book so that it appeals to the publishers they plan
to approach;
• Intervening on your behalf if you get into a
disagreement with the publisher;
• Assisting you with making long-term decisions
about sequels, options, subsidiary rights, next steps
and other aspects of your career.
Point 6: Agents reject 99% of all material that comes
their way.
The best and most reliable way to up your odds of
getting published is to a) research your market, b) know
and communicate to the agent via a perfect query letter
how your work fits in with and stands out from others in
its class, c) deliver an original, well-written,
impeccably formatted manuscript or proposal, then d)
choose an agent who is obviously interested in and has a
record of selling work like yours. Read that again.
Point 7: Don’t initiate contact with a phone
call—really. Approach an agent with a query letter
instead.
Unless you are famous (and even then), approach an
agent with a query letter. A query letter introduces you
and your book idea, and invites the agent to see your
book proposal or manuscript. We’ll give you a sample
query letter below.
Don’t email unless the agent specifically states
somewhere in print or on the Internet that they welcome
email queries. Also, don’t call with general questions
about their qualifications.
Agents who haven’t expressed interest in representing
your work generally will not consent to have you
interview them unless you’re a journalist calling to
give them publicity.
Once an agent has expressed interest in your work, you
can and should ask questions of them, which we’ll cover
below, then take up to a week (or longer, my mutual
agreement) to decide whether to accept their offer of
representation.
If you’ve read this far, congratulations—you now have a
solid introduction to agents, a crucial piece of the
mainstream publishing world. However, as you might
guess, finding exactly the right agent for your
work, so you can beat those 99% rejection odds, takes a
bit more effort.
To that end, the book from which the article above is
excerpted, How to Find A
Literary Agent Who Can Sell Your Book for Top Dollar
answers questions like:
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How do I judge an agent’s effectiveness?
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What’s the hands-down best way to get an agent?
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How do I research an agent’s sales history, and how much weight should I
give that information?
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If I approach more than one agent, will that hurt or help my chances with
each?
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Under what circumstances should I refuse an agent’s offer to represent
me?
In a nutshell, we show you how to do for yourself
everything we do for our clients when they
pay us to help them
choose an agent. We include information from
a variety of sources, including recent interviews with
agents and original research on how current and former
editors at major New York publishing houses view
relevant agent factors.
Jill Nagle is a published author and the founder and
principal of GetPublished, which provides coaching,
consulting, editing and other services for aspiring and
ready-for-next step authors. http://www.getpublished.com
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