What the New Generation of Agents Thinks

Discussion in 'Agent Discussion' started by EdFromNY, Jul 1, 2015.

  1. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    When I was querying, I came across a couple agencies that would let you address a sort of central sorting system, and they'd decide which agent would be best. (Of course I can't remember which agencies these were). And I've heard of agents handing queries off to colleagues when they thought the idea was good but just not for them.

    But I don't think either of those situations is exactly common.
     
  2. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    I've seen some agencies that say they do that, and it would make sense. OTOH, if some intern is the one 86ing the query, it's hard to imagine that actually happens.
     
  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Maybe the intern clears out the absolute failures, and then someone else decides who to direct the reasonably well-written ones to?
     
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  4. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I like the way you put this concept. However, unless you are busy churning out finished books at the rate of one per month, your agent probably does have lots of time on their hands to try to sell other people's books as well. Possibly you've hit a nerve, here. If they have 'you' as a successful client, they won't have to work as hard selling books similar (or in the same genre) as the one 'you' wrote. Agents are in the driving seat at the moment because there are so many writers out there, and so few books (in a relative sense) get published every year. So ...just wade through the query letters, pick the likely dopplegangers, ask them to send their finished work, and take them to the same publisher. The publisher is likely to buy these doppleganger books because it's the kind of book they already publish. Wow. Great agent, eh? Job done.

    You don't fit the mold? Slush pile.

    I know this doesn't apply to all agents, and I'm sure some people can list one who doesn't work that way. But research the topic in general ...how many articles and books are there out in the book-0-sphere these days telling writers how to get an agent? ...and I don't see how this trend doesn't seem pretty universal. And I find it discouraging. Of course you have to write well, but you also have to write-to-order to even get looked at. Style, book length, subject matter, etc. No wonder it's been so long since I read a book I really loved, or found an author whose uniqueness delights me.

    Unique isn't easy to sell these days, despite all the huffing and puffing about how this is the quality every agent is actually seeking. No they're not. Uniqueness carries risk. Sameness doesn't carry the same risk. Confronted with uniqueness, agents pass on you, more often than not. You might get lucky, if you keep at it long enough. Or even VERY lucky if you hit an agent who actually DOES seek uniqueness on the first go. But that's not the general rule.

    ...........

    By the way, I'm certainly not against traditional publishing; I just think it's taken a very bad turn of late. Unless agents and publishers wake up, change their methods, stop creating restrictive barriers between themselves and new writers, open their eyes and start actively looking for new and different authors—rather than just recycling old story ideas until the popularity fizzles out—I think our reading world suffers.

    My idea of heaven? An agent whose blurb says: "Send me something that isn't like anything else I've ever read or sold. I want the Next Big Thing, not a rehash of the last one."
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2015
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  5. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    I'd love it if that were the case, but I've never seen the process described that way anywhere (including the article posted above). I've only ever seen (and heard) it described as assistants and interns scanning queries and passing on the ones they find "promising" to the agent for further consideration. Back when publishing houses accepted submissions "over the transom", the lowest-paid, entry-level assistants performed exactly the same function for acquisition editors.
     
  6. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Some big publishers have moved to taking unagented submissions in recent years. Writers interested in those publishers are probably better off going without an agent.
     
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  7. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    Really? I know there are some small houses that do, hadn't heard of any big ones.
     
  8. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    MacMillan does, at least for their TOR imprint (SF/F), which is quite big. So does Penguin, with their SF/F imprint DAW. I think they both followed the lead of Baen, and that rounds up the three biggest in the industry in SF/F.
     
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  9. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I read a blog post from MacMillan's UK division for Tor, and as I recall they basically said, in so many words, that agents were missing a lot of good books and too many good authors weren't able to get an agent.
     
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  10. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Here's a website I found that lists publishers (in the UK) who accept unagented submissions. This is dated from 2011, so I don't know if these imprints still do. But worth a look. Some are only interested in certain genres, and may have restrictive requirements for submission, but some others might be worth a look. Let's hope this is the dawn of a new way of thinking.

    http://www.thebookshed.co.uk/publishers-who-accept-unagented-work/

    And here is another list:

    http://publishedtodeath.blogspot.co.uk/p/publishers-looking-for-authors.html
     
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  11. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Speculating.

    I think the trend makes a certain amount of sense. Publishing is changing, and these publishers aren't stupid - they're very successful for a reason. A lot of the self-publishing success that translated into also getting traditional publishing contracts seems to have occurred in SF/F (or maybe those are just the ones I'm aware of, but I don't think that's it). I think at some point over the past few years some of these traditional publishers have seen that for whatever reason highly-salable material wasn't getting these authors agents, and/or authors were more frequently starting to circumvent the agency model by striking out on their own when the technology became available.

    That's basically in line with what I remember from the Tor blog post, which is that the agency model was just missing a lot of material that did well in the marketplace. The publishers want material that is going to sell, and if the agency model is falling short it makes sense for them to accept submissions directly rather than relying on agents to determine (perhaps rather poorly in cases) what is salable and what is going to make the publishers money.

    I expect things will continue to move more in this direction. I also think we're going to see more and more traditional contracts coming out of successes in the self-publishing sphere. I can understand why SF/F publishers would be further out front on this than others, and it is in part because their readership is out in front of it perhaps to a greater extent than other readers.

    The industry is going to keep changing. The old way isn't coming back, it's just a question of where we're going to end up when the dust settles.
     
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  12. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    In the Writer's conference here in the Northwest, all of the pitches were to agents that worked directly with big publishing houses. I wasn't ready to invest $500 to attend the conference and any pitch sessions so I can't say what it was like except my critique group mentor went last year and Penguin requested his full manuscript, but didn't choose to publish it.
     
  13. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    And also of how to judge the shifting tides.

    @GingerCoffee - I think a lot depends on the format of the pitch session. I've already posted about my experience at the Algonkian Pitch Conference in New York, and I would definitely recommend it. You pitch one agent and three editors, but they are one-on-one sessions. I'd estimate I had about 15 or 20 minutes with each one and got some immediate feedback on what aspects I needed to emphasize and what might need to change (I also got an unofficial pitch in with another agent, one who was actually part of the conference team, when I helped her set up her room one morning). I've also signed up for the Writer's Digest conference at the end of the month, which includes one-hour "pitch-slam" sessions, which is to say that you have one hour to speak to as many agents or editors (both are there) as you can manage, at about 3 minutes per session - 90 seconds for a pitch and 90 seconds for Q&A (waiting in line time is extra). I'm a bit skeptical of this format, but since I've already been to a workshop to refine my pitch, I'm ready to give it a shot.

    All of which is to say that I do believe that the direct pitch format is evolving as an alternative to cold-querying agents. I also think that the publishing houses are waking up to the fact that when they outsourced management of the slush pile to agents to cut costs, they lost a key level of control. And while they're not about to take back that screening function (and its costs) in its entirety, some sharing of the function is bound to occur. Maybe that's why the agents in this discussion are so interested in collaborating after the sale.
     
  14. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    I just rechecked and my recollection was wrong. The agents worked for literary agencies. And there were editors.

    http://pnwa.site-ym.com/?page=agents_editors

    They list what kinds of books they are looking for.
     

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