Agent Process

Last week, my friend Wendy Lawton, an agent at Books & Such, wrote a series of posts that took a great deal of courage. She said a lot of things I’ve been trying to figure out how to say here on my own blog, but she did it first and said it better than I…

(Encore presentation of a previous post.)There comes a time in every agent’s life when one of their clients needs to move on. Yep. We all get fired by an author at some point. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s a reality in business. What are some reasons writers opt to terminate their agency relationship? I think…

A Woman Reading by Claude Monet, 1872Everyone knows that agents and editors are reading practically all the time. We read queries and manuscripts of people hoping to secure representation, we read the manuscripts of our clients, and we read as many published books as possible – partly because we love reading, and partly because we…

Me: Hello, may I speak with New Author? New Author: Speaking. Me: Hi, this is Rachelle Gardner. How are you today? NA: I’m fine…wait…did you say Rachelle Gardner? Me: Yep. NA: This is Kelly, isn’t it. Ha ha, very funny, Kelly. Me: Um, no. It’s Rachelle. Would you rather speak with Kelly? NA: No! Uh-oh.…

Lately I’ve been hearing complaints from writers that agents are not specific enough in telling writers what kinds of projects they’re looking for. On my post “Too Much Information?” I received several comments that echoed this opinion from A3Writer: Agents are sometimes a little closed-mouthed about what they are looking for. I love the agents…

Yesterday we started our week of discussing mixed messages, so today I want to continue by addressing some contradictory advice on signing with an agent. With so many agents and others writing blogs, it’s natural that many of us are saying things in opposition to one another. As a writer, it must be hard for…

As if it’s not stressful enough getting an agent based on that first book, it seems everyone wonders the same thing. What if they love my first book but hate my second one? I’ve had a few of my authors ask me this about their publishers – the ones that signed them to multi-book deals.…

Some of you may have read the post from agent Kristin Nelson last week about agents fighting over writers. She wrote that every single time she offers a writer representation lately, she ends up competing with several other agents who want the same client. You can go read her post now: Hot Commodity In response…

Lately I’ve gotten some remarks from people, both in blog comments and in response to pass letters, complaining that “agents are only looking for what they’re personally interested in.” And some have called into question whether that’s a legitimate way to do business. So is it true? Are we just looking for what we like?…

As you know, almost all agents have Submission Guidelines posted on their websites and/or blogs. Agents who blog and Twitter always remind writers to follow guidelines, and some agents reject without responding if you don’t follow them. But why are the guidelines so important? Are we just picky and anal people, obsessed with power and…

People are always telling me they’d like to hear about a typical day for an agent. But I have yet to experience a typical day. When you have a large number of clients, working on a wide variety of projects, which are all in various stages of writing or publication, the days provide endlessly changing…

We spend a lot of time on these blogs discussing what makes an agent say “yes, I want to see more” or “no thanks” after reading a query. And last week I tried to give you some idea of the things I’m looking for in a manuscript, things that make me want to keep reading…