Aspects of a Writer Project: The Writing Life Plan

How a Literary Agent Works and Why the Big Five Matter

Publishing your work with one of the Big Five or with a major independent is the dream of many authors. Publishing with these houses is also the goal of your agent and why you have one. These are the publishers that pay substantial advances, and without a substantial advance, your agent doesn’t make much money. They are also the publishers who have the resources and mechanisms to support an author at every step of the process, from acquisition through the various stages of editing to launching and book promotion. This doesn’t mean that as an author, you’re not required to do a great deal of heavy lifting along the way, especially in terms of responding to edits and promoting your work. But major publishers have been selling books for a long time, they know what they’re doing, and they have process and support in place.



They’re also extremely difficult to break into, even with an agent. Some reports say that only about 50 percent of agented manuscripts sell, while others say estimates are lower.



The good news is, once you’ve signed with an agent, they’ll want to do everything in their power to increase those odds. Most importantly, they will want to submit what they see as a perfect manuscript. I know, I know, you thought you had the perfect manuscript when your agent accepted it—you had certainly revised it again and again (didn’t you?). Well, you probably learned a lot from doing that revision, and it helped you get your agent. But you ain’t seen nothing yet. Your agent probably has a few more rounds of revision planned before your manuscript is submission-ready.



As the pressure rises on editors to acquire bestsellers right out of the gate, the agent–author relationship has become in many ways the kind of editing relationship that was once more common between editors and authors a century ago. This doesn’t mean editors will let you off the hook in terms of revision, just that they want the manuscript to be pretty far along by the time it gets to them.



After you’ve spent some serious time in back-and-forth revision (be prepared, this could go on for months), your agent will finally decide you are ready to go out “on submission.” She’ll share your plans for submission with you and how she plans to tell you about the responses she gets. Most agents are fairly transparent, and you should expect that. You need to know the kind of reaction your work is getting out in the world. My agent had an “A” list—a first list of publishers, editors, and imprints she planned to submit to. As the reactions began to come in, she shared most of the responses with me. Some agents will wait for responses to build up and summarize them. I was happy to see the responses, editor by editor. She also had a “B” list, which we eventually turned to as well.



You’ll be tempted, at this point, to check your email constantly, which is, of course, totally normal. But don’t watch it so closely that you don’t attend to other parts of your life, writerly or otherwise. The first thing you should start doing while you’re on submission, in fact, if you haven’t already, is begin work on your next project. You’ll want to do this because 1) It reminds you of the reason you do this, because you are a writer and that is what you do. You are not an e-mail watcher. 2) Being on submission can be a be a bit volatile emotionally, positive news one day, not so positive the next, and it’s good to have started on something else to distract you. 3) If you do sell your book, and your publisher is excited about it, they’ll probably ask what else you’re working on. If you can describe it to them, you may come out with a two book deal.



Your agent will negotiate your deal with your publisher, with plenty of input from you, every step of the way. Deals are confusing—think tons of legalese—and the agent will be able to negotiate the best deal, which includes all kinds of clauses, audio book rights, film rights, and so on.They can also negotiate your advance, how much and what kind of promotion the publisher will give you, and so on.



In fact, your advance and any other earnings will go to your agent first. She will take her 15% cut and then cut you a check. Advances are also usually divided into four or five increments, such as when the publisher buys the book, when the author delivers the manuscript with the revisions the editor requested (more revisions, get used to them!), when the book is published, and so forth.

Content by Stephanie Vanderslice

Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0


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