Ask a Literary Agent

ASK BACK: an e-book original deal?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:55:00 +0000

ASK BACK: If your agent advised you, before shopping your unpublished manuscript, that in your particular case you would earn much more by self-publishing as an e-book, would you be happy to follow his advice and skip a publisher submission? If so, would you continue to want the agent to represent you, and under what terms?

Is editor turnaround so high that you can re-submit in just a few years?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:52:00 +0000

"Is the editor turnaround really so high that it only takes a few years for those who rejected your work to leave the industry?"
--Colin

Yes. The good news for unpublished authors is that it is true that editor turnover is so high that it is quite likely that, three years from now, most editors in their current positions won’t be there anymore. Some will become agents; some will become freelance editors; some will leave the industry altogether. And the ones who remain will likely, three years from now, be working at a different imprint or publisher. The editor who, three years from now, is still working at the same imprint is increasingly a rarity. I’d say that will be the case for perhaps only 20% of editors on any given submission list.

It has always been this way. Book publishing is a high burn-out industry, and it offers little compensation for a very high workload. Many people who enter will leave it within a few years. I still have submission lists from books I submitted in 1996: when I look back on them now, not a single editor remains in the same imprint (many of which folded), and 90% of them have left the industry.

So the good news for unpublished authors is that, if editors reject your manuscript, then if you are willing to wait two or three years, you will have a (mostly) clean slate to try again.

But in the big picture, I advise that when you finish writing one manuscript, you immediately turn to writing another. Don’t wait. The more books you have out there, the better your chances. Ultimately, it’s better to rely on the submission of multiple books over three years than it is for you to just sit there and wait three years to re-submit the same book.

This is one of the (many) reasons why I say that, when setting out to get published, one should prepare oneself for a marathon, not a sprint. Quite often, what makes the difference between authors who get published and those who don’t is simply the number of years they were willing to hang in there. Perseverance is everything.

ASK BACK: In this new digital age, what role do you envision a literary agent having (if any) in representing you for an e-book original deal?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:33:00 +0000

ASK BACK:

In this new digital age, what role do you envision a literary agent having (if any) in representing you for an e-book original deal? What value, in your opinion, can an agent add?

I welcome your thoughts and opinions.

Is it detrimental to have your book published as a trade paperback original?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:29:00 +0000

"Dear Mr. Lukeman,

Thanks again for creating your blog, and for generously taking our questions. I have a question (which you've probably been asked before) regarding hardcover vs. paperback. My debut collection of stories will be coming out with Ecco/HarperCollins, and most likely they'll do it in paperback (they'll also be publishing my novel, which is still in progress). I knew going into the deal that they were going to publish the stories in paper, but lately I'm having the anxiety that it won't be given the same kind of attention that most debut collections (in hardcover) get (reviews, award consideration, etc.). Most of my writer friends who've written debut collections had their books come out in hardcover, and were reviewed in the major venues, and went on to a paperback release. I worry that I won't have the same opportunities. I know these things can't be predicted, so I guess rather than a question, I'd like to know your thoughts on this, if perhaps I should have gone with a publisher who would've committed to a hardcover. I'm thrilled to be with Ecco-- they were at the top of my list--but as my publication date gets closer, I'm becoming less certain about the format I've signed on to. I appreciate your response and advice. Thanks so much, and Happy New Year.
--Brin Londo (timberlondo@yahoo.com)"

This is a very sophisticated question, and there is no right or wrong answer. In fact, whether to publish in hardcover or paperback is always a matter of heated debate even among publishing veterans. It is by no means a science, and anyone who says they have all the answers is wrong. That said, let me at least clarify what the issues are, and the pros and cons of both.

On the one hand, one could argue that it is always better to be published in hardcover first, for a number of reasons. First of all, there is the obvious reason that you stand to earn more money in hardcover royalties than in paperback. If the typical hardcover is $25, and your royalties escalate to 15%, you can end up making $3.75 or more per book sold. If the typical trade paperback is priced at $15, and you are making a 7.5% royalty, then you are making just over $1 per book.

And then, of course, there is the prestige and review factor. Many authors and publishers will argue that books published in hardcover are much more likely to get reviewed, and to get more reviews. Many also feel that a hardcover is more prestigious.

Finally, one could also argue that being published in hardcover gives your book two lives, two chances to make it: once in hardcover, and then again, a year later, in paperback. (As opposed to a paperback original, which only has one chance to make it.) One could argue that these two lives are crucial in making a book, since sometimes a book is published at a wrong time, whereas a year later the climate may be just perfect for a great reception.

There is some validity to all of these arguments, and one can't discount them. If your book becomes a true hit, and it sells for years in hardcover, then you certainly will stand to make much more money in royalties, for one. Look for example, at a book like THE HELP. That book has sold astronomically well in hardcover. If it had been published as a paperback original, the author and publisher would not have made nearly as much as they are making now. One could also argue that if it had been published as a paperback original, then it would not have received the critical reviews it needed to become the bestseller that it did.

All of that said, one can also make convincing arguments to publish a book as a trade paperback original. One could argue that publishing in hardcover can sometimes kill the crucial momentum that an author, particularly a first-time author, needs to build a readership. This argument can especially be made with certain types of books, and certain genres. For example, if the potential readership for a book is younger, and cannot afford $25 as easily as $15, then a publisher may take that into consideration and thus publish as a trade paperback original. Certain genres, as a whole, tend to do better in trade paperback than they do in hardcover, and that might also affect a publisher's decision. If, for example, they feel that your first story collection, or novel, is targeted towards a 20-something readership, that might tip the scales in their decision to publish as a trade paperback original.

Another argument for a trade paperback original is that sometimes a book is published in hardcover, and still gets few or no reviews. On top of that, the sales can be dismal – so dismal that the publisher won't even publish a paperback edition a year later. In that case, you are left with a hardcover publication that didn't get you anywhere. You could argue that, if the book had been published initially as a trade paperback original, it would have sold many more copies, and perhaps gained momentum, and perhaps crossed a tipping point – one which it will, in that case, never have a chance to cross.

The only thing harder to do than landing a book deal for a first time novelist is landing a book deal for a novelist already published to a bad track record. In many ways, it is easier to land a book deal for someone who has never been published, and who has no track record in the system. Once you are published to a poor track record, your numbers are permanently in the system, and it is extremely difficult to convince publishers to publish subsequent books. So another argument for publishing as a trade paperback original is that you don't take the risk of publishing in hardcover to dismal sales, and ruining your track record for subsequent books. In other words, publishing as a trade paperback original just may make a publisher more inclined to buy your subsequent books. It is more of a long-term approach, looking at your career in the big picture.

As far as the review issue is concerned, no one can say for certain that being published in hardcover will necessarily result in more reviews than being published as a trade paperback original. I have seen some books published in hardcover that received no reviews whatsoever (when they should have received many) and I've seen other books published as trade paperback originals that received many reviews. It’s true that, as a rule of thumb, hardcovers tend to receive, on average, more reviews than trade paperback originals, but it really is uneven and based on the book. So I wouldn't necessarily feel that you are jeopardizing your chance for reviews simply because it is a trade paperback original.

A more important factor than the format of the book in getting reviews is the prestige of the publisher and imprint. If a hardcover is being published by a very commercial publisher who is not critically well respected, it may not receive any reviews, whereas if a trade paperback original is being published by a prestigious press, it will more likely get review attention. In your case, Ecco is a prestigious imprint, and I'm sure that major review outlets will pay attention to your book, regardless of the format.

In your case, keep in mind that it is not easy to land a book deal for a story collection, especially with a prestigious publisher. If you had many publishers bidding on your book and several offers to choose from, then in that case, you certainly could have debated whether to go for a hardcover or paperback publication. It all depends on what your bidding situation was, and how thorough a job your agent did in shopping it around. But if your agent shopped it thoroughly and every other publisher passed, then you should consider yourself very fortunate to have landed a deal at all.

One final issue: in the long run, it is not helpful for you to compare yourself to fellow authors. There will always be authors who land bigger advances than you, receive more reviews, win more awards, and sell more books. Comparing yourself to others will ultimately make you unhappy. Just compare yourself to yourself. Focus on what you do, and make each book the best it can be, and challenge yourself to make each book better, and everything will fall into place.

Ask Back: Why is a print publication important to you?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:23:00 +0000

I would like to introduce a new feature to this blog, which I will call “Ask Back.” After I answer each question asked of me, I would like to ask a question back of you. I would welcome all of you to post your responses here in the comments section, so that we can encourage a lively dialogue. I value your opinions: as you are interested to know what I think on certain topics, I am interested to know your thoughts as well.

If you self published your book as an ebook/POD original, and it was a huge success online, would you still be interested in a traditional book publishing deal with a major publisher? From your perspective, what is that being published by a traditional print publisher offers you that being published as an e-book original/POD does not (for example, is it the advance, subsidiary rights sales, distribution, marketing, prestige, etc.)?

“Is it normal to have different agents for U.S. and international publication?”

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:17:00 +0000

"I have a question regarding non-US agents. I've written a suspense/thriller novel, which earned honorable mention in a fairly prestigious UK competition. The novel is set in Wales, and I received a manuscript request from a London based agent.

I'm in the US, and plan on submitting queries to US agents. Is it normal, or even proper, to have different agents for US or International publication?"

Thanks,
Rick DeMille

As a rule of thumb, it is best to focus your search on finding an agent in the U.S., for several reasons. First and foremost, if you submit your book to foreign publishers, whether directly or via an international agent, the first question they will ask is who is publishing it in the U.S. When you tell them there is no U.S. publisher, then in most cases they will either lose interest, or tell you to come back to them once you have a U.S. publisher, or make you an offer which is lower than it may have been otherwise.

There are other reasons to find a U.S. agent first. When a U.S. agent shops your book to U.S. publishers, he needs every option at his disposal in order to make a sale. Landing a book deal is not easy, even for an agent, and if an agent is forced to shop around a book in which world rights are not available, that could end up making the difference in his being able to place it at all. It may end up that a U.S. publisher likes your book, but is somewhat on the fence, and having the assurance of world rights makes the difference, and enables them to make an offer. Alternately, the advance that a U.S. publisher offers might be significantly smaller if world rights are not included as part of the deal. For example, a publisher might offer you an advance of $50,000 for U.S. rights only, or $75,000 for world rights. If you have already engaged one or more international agents to shop your book in their territories, then you will not be able to offer those rights to a U.S. publisher. U.S. publishers like to engage their own international co-agents, and will not want to use yours. That is not to say that in every instance you will give a US publisher world rights—but you do want to all have options at your disposal.

Additionally, once a U.S. agent sells your book to a U.S. publisher, if he retains the world rights, the first thing he will do is put your book into the hands of all of the international co-agents he has relationships with. If you have already committed your book to other international agents, it will cause a problem with your U.S. agent.

All of this to say that you should not query international agents as the first step towards getting published. I still recommend your approaching U.S. agents first, and, of course, that your U.S. agent approaches U.S. publishers first.

If your U.S. agent shops your book to U.S. publishers and it doesn't sell, then, at that point, you might want to consider shopping it in other countries. In that case, your U.S. agent may be willing to engage one or more of his co-agents in other countries to try to shop them. That, though, would be fairly unusual. As I said, making foreign deals without a U.S. deal already in place is not an easy sell, because the first question asked will be who is publishing in the U.S. That said, there have been some rare cases where a book did not sell in the U.S., but then landed some foreign sales, and then the agent came back to the U.S. with the momentum and made a deal here. That, though, is very unusual.

Of course, if your novel is set in a particular location overseas, for example London, then I could understand how you might want to query UK agents directly, and I could see the temptation to have it shopped in the UK first. Still, though, I would hold off and wait to see what happens in the US first. In your case, if you are unable to find a US agent, and have exhausted all possible submissions, then, in that case, you have nothing to lose by following up and submitting your manuscript to the UK agent who has already contacted you directly.

Along these lines, for you authors who are self published and have had foreign publishers approach you directly, possibly as a result of your sales on Kindle, even in that case, I wouldn't necessarily recommend entering into a book deal with foreign publishers directly. If a publisher in a particular country approaches you with interest in your book, then chances are that there are other publishers in that same country who may also be interested in your book. Your book should be shopped thoroughly in that country, as opposed to taking the first offer that comes your way. Additionally, and more importantly, it would be better for you to use the international interest in your book as a selling point to help convince US publishers to publish it in the US. As I said, it is not easy to land a book deal, and if you can prove to a US publisher that several international publishers are already interested, then that might make a difference.

Do some agents give up if a manuscript doesn't sell in the first round of submissions?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:24:00 +0000

"Do most agents stay with a book until it finds a home, no matter how low the advances might be? I honestly don't care about the advance. I just want to get published. But I've heard some agents bow out if the book doesn't sell to someone in the first round of submissions. Is this true?"

Thanks!
Barbara
--question asked by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett on behalf of The American Society of Journalists and Authors. Barbara is host of “Writers on Writing,” a weekly radio show airing on KUCI-FM (88.9) in California

This is another good question, and one which demands a thorough response.

To begin with, one cannot offer a blanket answer on behalf of every agent in the industry: some agents will indeed give up after a few submissions, while others will work tirelessly for months or even years. It is very much agent specific, and manuscript specific.

It is also genre specific: certain genres allow for a higher number of submissions. For example, if your work is narrative non-fiction, there may be 30 or 40 (or more) potential editor submissions, while if your work is commercial fiction, that number may shrink to the vicinity of 20. There tend to be more imprints setup to acquire non-fiction than fiction (particularly commercial fiction). But if your work is prescriptive non-fiction (such as popular psychology), there may be fewer potential imprints than for narrative non-fiction, and thus fewer potential submissions. If your work will be a trade paperback original, that, too, can limit the number of potential submissions, as fewer imprints publish trade paperback originals as do hardcovers and paperbacks. If your work is destined to be a mass market original, that will limit potential submissions even further. If your work is academic, that, too, will limit the playing field.

Thus a well-intentioned and hard-working agent may simply be unable to submit beyond a certain number of editors and may exhaust a submission quickly, depending on the genre. There are only a finite number of publishers, and if they all reject your work, then the agent cannot create options where there are none. So lack of success is not always the agent’s fault: if the agent has exhausted all submissions methodically, he has still done his job well (assuming, of course, he has chosen the most appropriate editors within each publisher).

That said, the converse may be true: an agent might give up after only submitting your work to 5 or 10 editors, when he could have submitted to 40. Such an agent’s motivation may be financial: it may be that he chooses his “A List,” the 5 or 10 publishers he thinks might pay the biggest advance, and when they all pass, he assumes that the B or C Lists won’t pay as much, and thus gives up. Or it may be that the agent is just easily discouraged, and that when 10 trusted colleagues tell him a book won’t sell, he believes them and sees no point in trying further. Or it could be that the first 10 rejections all tell him of a directly competing project of which he was unaware, and as a result he decides submitting further would be a waste of time. It may be that the agent is not as knowledgeable of the industry as he should be, and only knows 10 publishers, or only has contacts in those houses. Or it may be that the agent becomes unhappy with the author during the first round of submissions (if, for example, the author is pestering him) and uses the first round of rejections as an excuse to end the relationship. Or the agent may simply be lazy.

No matter what the reason or motivation, there is no excuse for an agent to give up and not exhaust a submission, submitting to every last possible player. If an agent commits to a manuscript, then he should see it through, should stay with it whether it’s been rejected by 5 editors or by 45. He should stay with it whether it takes a week or a year, whether it sells for an advance of one million dollars or one thousand.

The majority of legitimate agents will indeed exhaust a submission. Sometimes a termination of a submission is initiated by an author: an agent may work in good faith for months while the author, impatient, may fire the agent. As a rule of thumb, most proposals on submission (if submitted thoroughly by a legitimate agent) will sell within a matter of 4 months. But there are always exceptions. I’ve sold one book in a submission that lasted two hours, and I’ve sold another after a submission that lasted 14 years.

Unfortunately, once you sign with an agent, you cannot control his methodology. What you can control is who you decide to sign with. As I’ve said many times, you must spend months researching potential agents before deciding who to approach and sign with. If you choose a legitimate agent who represents great authors and who has a track record of recent sales to major houses, then you will have little to worry about. If you choose an agent who you know little about, or whose record is not as reliable, then you may have more cause for concern; in that case, make sure (as I’ve discussed before) that you have an out clause in your agency agreement, so that you can fire him if you are unsatisfied.

But even if you fire a bad agent, once he has already submitted your manuscript, it will be tarnished in the eyes of most new agents, who will likely not want to take it on. So while it’s good that you’ll at least be able to get free of the old agent, the damage (for that manuscript) is already done. You will likely have to give your new agent a new work and/or wait a few years until the editors who’ve rejected your first work have left the industry. So, again, choose carefully. Spending more time upfront on research will save you from worrying throughout the process.

Is my agent (even if fired) entitled to commission my option book?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:08:00 +0000

Hi Noah,

Great blog. I have a question unrelated to this post - after firing an agent, can she use the options clause in your publishing contract between you and your publisher to claim a commission on future works?

Thank you.

--Anonymous

This is a sophisticated question, and one which is rarely addressed.

For those of you who may not know, a standard publishing agreement contains an “option clause,” which gives your publisher the first and exclusive right to acquire the next book you write. The standard publishing agreement also contains an “agency clause” (for authors represented by agents) which assures your agent that he will receive his commission. The issue at hand is not the option clause itself: it would be quite unusual for an option clause to contain any language referencing the agent. The real issue is the agency clause: it is quite common for an agency clause to reference the author’s option book. This language usually states that if the publisher buys the author’s next book (the option book), then the agent will be entitled to commission that, too.

From the agent’s perspective, the agent is the one that introduced the author to the publisher, and thus if the author continues the relationship with that publisher for a subsequent book, the agent should be entitled to commission that, too. This is relatively standard, and in many scenarios, this is justified: an agent can work for years to finally land an author a deal, and in some cases, once the author is all setup, the author will fire the agent in order to not have to pay him a commission on future works. Alternately, the author may fire the agent in order to switch to another agent. In such a scenario, the original agent may feel burned, and feel entitled to commission at least one more book between the author and the publisher. This language exists to enforce that.

But there are a number of reasons an author-agent relationship can fall apart during the months or years it takes to complete a book, and it’s not always due to greed or a lack of loyalty on the author’s part. In some cases, the author may be working in good faith with the agent, while the agent may, along the way, become unresponsive or unsupportive. Thus the author may very well feel entitled to fire the agent, and may feel that the agent should not be entitled to a commission on an option book.

In most cases, this is not an issue, since authors who are setup with a publisher are usually happy, especially if they continue this relationship for subsequent books, and they’ll usually be grateful and want to continue have their agent represent them. And in most cases, agents, for their part, will continue to work hard, and continue to be eager to represent the author.

But if things do fall apart, and if it does become an issue, then legally, if the agency clause contains this language, then the agent does have a legal basis to receive that commission. In order to ensure he receives this commission, an agent may sue the author and/or publisher. It can get very messy. This is why a few publishers, who don’t want to get caught up in spats between authors and agents, will refuse to allow this language in agency clauses. Most publishers do, though, and it remains fairly standard.

Keep in mind that this language is fairly limited: it only entitles your agent to a commission if you sell your next book to the same publisher, and it only entitles them to commission that next option book (not subsequent books). Thus there are ways around it. For example, if your publisher rejects your next book and you sell it to a different publisher, then the agent cannot claim a commission. Or if your publisher rejects your option book, but then you write a different book and sell it to that same publisher, your agent cannot claim a commission on that either, since technically, it’s not your option book (even though you remain with the same publisher).

Finally, keep in mind that you may also have signed a separate agency agreement directly with your agent, and that, too, may contain pertinent language. You need to check both to make sure you are completely free and clear. (Also read my post, “Can I fire my agent mid-submission?”)

Ask a Literary Agent (Year One) (free e-book)

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:10:00 +0000

This blog has now reached its one year mark, and I thought it would be convenient for readers to have all the information from year one easily at their fingertips. I have thus assembled all of the questions and answers from year one into a PDF file, so you can conveniently have all of this information in one place, and can read it at your leisure, whether it's on your computer, or on your favorite e-reader. To download, visit: www.lukeman.com/askaliteraryagent.htm

“Should my agent let me know which publishers/editors have read my work, and provide me with copies of the rejection letters?”

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:09:00 +0000

“Is any agent, by the rules of the profession, obliged to inform you specifically of where your work has been submitted and give you copies of responses?”
--Anonymous

This is an excellent question, and one which speaks to many issues.

First of all, you must realize that there are no firm and solid “rules” that all agents unanimously adhere to; every agent operates differently. Some agents will provide their authors a detailed rundown of the name of every editor and publisher that he’s submitting their work to, along with copies of rejection letters, while other agents will not provide any such information to an author, at any point.

For those authors who are kept in the dark, it can certainly be quite frustrating. After years of working hard on your manuscript, after finally landing an agent, after knowing your work is being actively submitted, suddenly, you receive nothing but silence. As months pass, this silence can become ever more frustrating. If your agent is not letting you know how many publisher he’s sent it to, which publishers he’s targeted, when he’s sent it out, or how many rejections have come in, you may naturally wonder how hard the agent is working on your book (or if at all), or if the agent is even doing his job effectively. It can also be frustrating for authors to only hear back from their agent that X number of publishers have passed, without being provided with copies of the rejection letters, or hearing any of the reasons why, or without having any idea of how many publishers still have it, or what the strategy is.

From an agent’s perspective, however, providing an author with this information is not always such a simple matter. Some authors, if provided with this information upfront, can try to micromanage the agent, and tell him where to submit (or not to submit). Some authors can monitor the list too carefully, asking for too-frequent updates regarding who has rejected their work. Some authors, if kept in the loop and updated as rejections come in, may become extremely anxious when they hear about the rejections, and thus cause the agent anxiety (which the agent must be free of if he is to stay positive and do his job well). Some authors may, as a result of hearing of the rejections, second guess the agent’s submission choices; others may insist on revising their work mid submission based on a particular rejection letter. Some authors may even try to bypass the agent and contact the editor directly, either to try to desperately convince the editor, or to attempt to cut out the agent (this can be of particular concern if the author and agent have a falling out along the way). Other authors can become so upset at being rejected that, if they have a list of who has rejected their work, they may send vindictive letters to the editors (and/or call them), which in turn reflects poorly on the agent. Thus, agents have some cause to be wary in doling out too much information (at least upfront).

That said, this is still no excuse for an agent to keep an author in the dark. While a book is actively on submission, authors have the right to at least know when the agent is initiating the submission, how many publishers he will be submitting to, whether he plans additional rounds of submissions if the first round fails, approximately when that will take place, what is the ultimate number of publishers he will approach, and how long he estimates the entire submission will take. Authors also have a right to know whether their agent is approaching large or small publishers, and how many of each. Agents can provide all of this without releasing the names of the particular editors upfront , and there is no reason they should not.

Ultimately, if every publisher has passed, then when the submission is over, you absolutely have a right to ask the agent to supply you with the submission list, which should include the names of the publishers and the particular editors. This is crucial for you to have, since it will both allow you to evaluate if your agent did a thorough job, and, if you need to switch agents, it will allow your future agent to evaluate whether there are any stones left unturned that he can submit to. Your agent should also provide you with copies of the rejection letters from editors. It will be especially helpful for a future agent to know if you have any editor fans out there that should be included in your next submission.

In the big picture, this problem can be averted if you spend more time thoroughly researching potential agents upfront. If your research demonstrates that an agent has recently sold many books by high profile authors to major houses, then there is not as much to worry about, even if he’s not as in touch with you as you would hope. On the other hand, if research shows that he represents few authors, and has made few sales and to only smaller houses (and a long time ago), then there is more cause for concern. So (as I discuss at length in my books) be very thorough in your research, and choose carefully. If you make the right choice, then issues like submission lists will not be a major cause for concern.

“I am just starting out and have never been published. What should I put in my bio?”

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 20:32:00 +0000

"First of all, thank you so much for all of your posts and your free e-book. I have learned a lot and I greatly appreciate it.

Anyway, I recently read your HOW TO WRITE A GREAT QUERY LETTER and I had one question. You mention that a writer should not mention his smaller accomplishments, because it makes him seem like an amateur. I was wondering then, if a writer is just starting out, has never had anything published, and doesn't have a lot of notable things to put in a bio section of a query letter, then what should he put? What can a beginning writer add into the section that will both attract the agent and not make him doubt the writing abilities of the writer? Basically I am young and I have written one novel (which I have tossed) and I am half way through my second one (which I hope to publish one day). Unfortunately I don't have a lot of writing experience that would make an agent interested in reading my manuscript. I don't feel this takes away from the quality of my work but I understand that it may be harder to get someone to look at it in the first place. So anything that you could tell me would be of great help.

Thanks again for all of your work. It helps immensely!"
--Jake

This is a good question, and one which gets asked frequently.

Aspiring authors who don’t have any writing credentials, writing-specific education and/or publication credits (or who only have minor credits), wonder if there exists some magic language that they can add to their query letters to make up for this fact—unfortunately, there is not. No matter how eloquently you phrase your bio, if you do not have the credentials, an agent will know right away; no fancy language will be able to hide this fact, or make up for it.

Thus it’s best to just say it like it is, and state that you have no credentials and that this is your first work (this is not necessarily a strike against you, as there always remains the thrill of discovery). Even better, you can keep the query letter short and not mention anything at all, ending the letter abruptly after your synopsis and concluding sentence. This at least demonstrates self-awareness and word economy.

The alternative (and unfortunately, more common) approach, is for writers to use up several sentences to either list very minor credentials and/or to dance around the fact that they have no credentials, which can end up comprising a good deal of the letter—and, ironically, serves to emphasize a fact you’d prefer to avoid. It also demonstrates lack of word economy, and wastes the agent’s time. The only time it might make sense to elaborate on non-writing related experience is you have had unique life-experience which is directly related to the subject matter of your book (for example, if you have written a crime thriller and spent 30 years working for the FBI).

So, again, if you don’t have credentials substantial enough to impress an agent, then simply don’t say anything, and allow yourself a shorter query letter.

That said, in the big picture, ultimately the solution is for you to make a sustained effort towards gaining those very credentials which will indeed impress an agent. Just because you’ve never been published in a major literary magazine, or attended a prestigious writing program, or hold endorsements from famous authors, doesn’t mean that you can never attain those things on your own: indeed, many authors who land agents have already managed to attain these things on their own.

This points to a greater issue, which is that many first-time authors approach agents with no credentials whatsoever, expecting agents to build their career from scratch. More seasoned authors understand that a successful publishing career is more often a collaboration between agent and author, with the author already bringing much to the table (and continuing to all throughout his career), with the agent there to take him that final step and land him the book deal. Most agents can’t, for example, be expected to devote years to building your resume for you by sending out your short stories to magazines, or applying to writing programs on your behalf, or networking on your behalf for endorsements; there is a certain amount the author must take into his own hands. This proactive, go-getting mentality tends to be present in many successful authors, whereas it tends to be absent in many unsuccessful authors, particularly those who approach agents for the first time (without any credentials).

You can attain major credentials on your own, but first you must prepare for a sustained effort. Instead of a three or six month plan to attain all the credentials you need, why not give yourself a three or six year plan? With that kind of time, you can attend writing programs, workshops, conferences, colonies; spend extensive time networking and build an endorsement list; get stories published in magazines and online; begin to build a platform; and most importantly, hone your craft extensively. This doesn’t mean you need to refrain from approaching agents before you accomplish all of this; on the contrary, as I said, there is nothing wrong with approaching agents with no credentials whatsoever, and you can work to achieve all of this concurrently with your approaching the industry. But you should always be working to this end, regardless. There are many specific, concrete steps you can take to help get you there (which I explain at length in my book How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent), but perhaps the most important step of all is your willingness to devote a sustained, multi-year effort to building your bio on your own.

“My agent is unwilling to sell world rights to my book. What should I do?”

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 22:35:00 +0000

"I think my book's topic resonates with people from other cultures. I know it does--several readers from other countries have contacted me. I used that fact to buttress my request in asking my agent to please try to sell foreign rights. (They never came up initially.) My agent doesn't seem to think it would sell well in other countries and won't try. My publisher says it's not their job. I'm disappointed and aggravated. Your thoughts, please?"

--question asked by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett on behalf of The American Society of Journalists and Authors. Barbara is host of “Writers on Writing,” a weekly radio show airing on KUCI-FM (88.9) in California

Whenever an agent negotiates a book deal with a publisher, a few major issues are negotiated immediately (usually, verbally), such as the advance, royalties, delivery schedule and payout, and major subsidiary rights, like translation and UK rights. (Dozens of smaller issues will also be negotiated later, during the contractual process.) Thus before the contract is even issued and the deal signed, your agent will know whether he or the publisher will be controlling the world rights to your book.

Publishers will often want to control world rights, because it is to their advantage to do so. If a publisher sells world rights, they will make a commission off of each sale and more importantly, any foreign income will be lumped into your royalty account and never paid to you unless you first earn back your royalties—thus giving a publisher security should your book not sell in the U.S. But agents will also want to control world rights on your behalf. It is a negotiation. In some cases, publishers will end up controlling them; in others, agents. For example, a publisher might offer a major six or seven figure advance, but insist that such a high advance is predicated on their controlling world rights. In other cases, the advance offer may be low, and the agent may insist that the publisher can only acquire the book for such a low advance if the agent can control world rights. In some cases, three publishers might offer matching or similar advances, but one of them may be willing to give up world rights, and that may be what makes the difference. In some cases, the world rights may be very valuable (for example, with a book about European history), while in other cases, world rights may be unlikely to sell at all (for example, a book about American history), and this will affect the publisher’s or agent’s fervor in fighting for them.

If an agent ends up controlling world rights, then it is the agent’s responsibility to shop them around the world. Most U.S. literary agents engage co-agents based in the major bookbuying countries of the world; once they sell a book for which they have retained world rights, they will contact all of their agents, let them know of the sale, and ask them if they would like to represent the book in their territory. If particular co-agents in particular countries don’t feel that the book would be successful in their country, then there is not much the primary agent can do; but the primary agent must at least query these co-agents and try.

In your case, you should ask your agent if he has done this. If he says no, and if he refuses to even query his co-agents, then you should ask him to write you a letter which formally reverts the foreign rights back to you and which absolves his agency of any commission for foreign sales. (Your publisher is correct in saying that it is not their job if your agent controls the rights.)

Once you have the rights back, there is not much you can do on your own; international co-agents will rarely want to do deal directly with authors on individual books, as they prefer to deal with established literary agents with whom they have dozens of deals. But if you ever switch literary agents down the road, then at least you will have the legal right to allow a new agent to shop the foreign rights to this book. Agents will rarely want to represent someone merely for the sake of representing foreign rights for a particular book, but if you write a second book, and a new agent wants to represent that in the U.S., then he might also want to represent the foreign rights to your previous book.

Perhaps most importantly, all of this points to the fact that your current agent is not doing his job if he will not at least ask his co-agents to represent your book overseas. If that is the case, consider switching agents for your next book. Keep in mind, though, that foreign rights are not always easy to sell (it varies greatly, depending on the genre), and it may be that your agent ran it by his co-agents and they rejected it. Don’t make assumptions until you’ve gathered all the facts.

How does one land a job as a literary agent?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:25:00 +0000

"My daughter will be graduating from high school in June and will be pursuing a degree in journalism in the fall. Her goal is to become a literary agent. Although I trust she will receive good advice at the university she plans to attend, she has many questions now about coursework and internships that I can't answer. Can you help me to advise her?"
--Anonymous

Your daughter is very wise to plan so far in advance, and this alone will give her a great advantage. Indeed, one of the best ways to land a job in the publishing industry is to simply allow yourself enough time to do so—in her case, with 4 years of planning, her chances will be very strong.

You should not assume that her university will prepare her: most universities do not, in fact, teach students much practical information about the publishing industry, or prepare them for a job in it. When I attended Brandeis, for example, I was a double major in English and Creative Writing, and yet there wasn’t a single course offered about the publishing industry. So unless she is attending a college which specifically boasts a publishing program (like Emerson), then you can assume there will be no instruction or guidance. Some schools will host guest publishing speakers from time to time (Harvard, for example, has a “Writers in the Parlor” series, where I spoke last Fall)—but this is still not the same as having a full-fledged publishing program.

As far as her coursework, the best thing she can do is to major in English and/or Creative Writing. This is by no means a prerequisite for working in publishing, but it is certainly the most relevant major. Having a legal background (particularly entertainment law) is also good preparation for becoming an agent, since a good portion of what agents do involves deal-making and lengthy contracts.

Much more important, though, will be internships. She must intern in the publishing industry before she graduates (for example, during the summer months). Internships are probably, in fact, the single most important thing one could do to lay the groundwork for a job, since they provide practical (and resume) experience, allow her to see if she really likes the profession, provide knowledge about the industry, and perhaps most importantly, give one personal connections. These contacts (and the resume experience) will be all-important when it comes time for the job search. If two candidates compete for a job, and one has publishing internship experience and the other does not, it is nearly certain that the former will land the position. But she mustn’t assume that, because she has a dozen contacts, she will be assured a job upon graduation; publishing is all about timing, and if there are no openings when she graduates, her contacts may be useless. Thus she mustn’t become complacent. If she can’t find any internships with a literary agency, then she should be open to finding one in a publishing house. And it should be in New York if at all possible.

Although it is still a bit early for her, at some point before graduation she should start reading the industry trades on a weekly basis (publisherweekly.com and publishersmarketplace.com are good places to start). She will absorb much industry information, and she will start to learn the names of companies and of people in the industry. As a starting point, it will be crucial that she has the names of all the major publishers and imprints memorized—it is a crucial foundation for becoming an agent, and it will be necessary, too, for her to know which publishers to apply to.

Finally, when she graduates and it is time for her to actually search for a job, she should 1) move to New York City (if she doesn’t already live here); 2) submit her resume as widely as possible to literary agencies; 3) give herself at least 6 months of searching (the biggest mistake candidates make is giving up after a few weeks or months); 4) not settle for a job which is not to her liking, or work for a boss who is unpleasant; and 5) apply for assistant jobs at book publishers if she cannot find one on the agency side. Working for a major book publisher is also great for the resume, and will help her land an eventual agency job. She should also remain open to the idea of working for the Subsidiary Rights departments of major publishers. This is something that few candidates consider, but which can end up being the most effective technique: it can be a much easier job to land, and literary agencies like to hire employees with Sub Rights experience, because many of the job duties overlap.

In the ideal world, she will land a job at a literary agency as an assistant literary agent, work for an agent who is encouraging and supportive, and within a year or two will be promoted, handling a list of her own authors. Some agents (and agencies) are more supportive of promoting their assistants than others, though; if she finds herself in an environment where assistants are not promoted after several years (or at all), or where her boss is not supportive, she may need to eventually switch agencies in order to become a full-fledged agent.

Should I revise my work for a prospective agent?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 14:53:00 +0000

"I'm a little confused...my manuscript has been back and forth to my agent now for almost a year and a half with only positive and encouraging verbal feedback, but no written reports. I have now sent the second book after the agent says he wanted to see it, but feedback is still having to be prompted. The agent only reads exclusively, so I just don't know what to do. Is it normal to take this long? Should I expect more feedback? Would it be okay for me to maybe send it to a few other agencies?"
--Louise

You are really asking three questions here: 1) How long should you wait to hear back from an agent about your manuscript? 2) Should you grant an agent exclusive reading time? and 3) If a prospective agent asks you to revise your manuscript (with no guarantee that he will represent you), should you do so?

I already answered the first two questions on this blog. Please see the September 22, 2009 posting titled, “How long should I wait to hear back about my manuscript?” The only point I might add to that is that if you do indeed grant an agent exclusive reading time, then you should not give him more than 3 months exclusive reading time for a finished manuscript, or more than 2 months for a proposal. In your case, given that it has been over a year, you should certainly not grant this agent any more exclusive reading time. You should start querying other agents simultaneously.

In general, if you are debating revising your manuscript for a prospective agent, keep in mind the following: if an agent asks to see a revision of your work, and his comments are specific for what he’d like to see revised, and you agree with those comments, then go for it. However, don’t assume a nice or long rejection letter detailing problems is an invitation to revise and resubmit—only assume so if the agent specifically requests to see another version. In most cases, if an agent rejects a work and does not specifically ask to see a revision, then the agent does not truly want to see it again, even if it is revised. You don’t want to fall into the trap of following false leads and revising a manuscript endlessly.

Additionally, if your gut tells you that the agent’s comments are wrong, or that he doesn’t get your work or share your vision, then don’t revise. At the end of the day, you are the one that needs to live with your work.

Can I fire my agent mid-submission?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:32:00 +0000

"My agent did a first round of submissions for my book, all of which resulted in passes. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about my agent. We don't click. Honestly, I don't think he likes me very much, and the feeling is mutual at this point. Is it possible to change agents at this point? The book has only been submitted to about seven or so publishers. There are still many left...."

--question asked by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett on behalf of The American Society of Journalists and Authors. Barbara is host of “Writers on Writing,” a weekly radio show airing on KUCI-FM (88.9) in California

Legally, you may not have the option to fire your agent--it will depend on the agency agreement you signed (if any). If you did not sign an agreement, then you can legally fire him at any time. If the agreement you signed does not have a clause which specifically states that you have the right to terminate, then you are not allowed to terminate, and that agent has the legal right to represent (or at least be entitled to commission on) your book in perpetuity, whether you like it or not. If the agreement you signed has a clause which states that you have the right to terminate if you follow certain procedures (for example, giving 30 days notice in writing), then if you follow those procedures, the agreement will be terminated on the effective date, and you will be free to do as you like. Some agents work without agreements, some use agreements with no termination clauses, and others will use different language in their termination clauses, so it can be complex, and is case specific.

Furthermore, terminating mid-submission can be particularly complex. Some agency termination clauses anticipate this scenario and offer language which states that if you terminate mid submission, then the agreement will terminate—BUT if one of the publishers still considering should make an offer at some point in the future, then the agency will be entitled to the commission.

If you don’t have a legal basis to terminate, all is not necessarily lost. Practically speaking, many agents are often willing to just terminate an agreement if an author is unhappy with them (and vice versa); some agents, though, will insist on holding an author to the language. Sometimes simply asking nicely will get you released from the agreement, whereas if an author is demanding and threatening, it may backfire, and an agent may insist on his commission. In any case, it will be vital that you obtain a copy of the submission list from the agent (a new agent can’t submit without it), so it is best not to alienate him.

The best way to avoid such a legal mess to begin with is to spend more time doing research upfront, and to choose your agent very carefully. As I often say, if there’s anything worse than not landing an agent, it’s landing an agent who is ineffective, and who keeps you bound to an agreement.

The other issue you must consider is that, just because an agent exhausted a first round of submissions and received seven passes, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s doing a bad job. Many books can take 30 or more rejections until they find a publisher, so one needs patience, and mustn’t leap to conclusions. Whether your agent is doing a good job depends not on the number of initial rejections, but rather on 1) which publishers he submitted to; 2) how appropriate they are for your work; 3) which particular editors he submitted to; 4) how he timed the submission; and 5) how much time it took to complete the first round. If, for example, it took him an entire year to submit to just 7 editors, and they are the wrong 7 editors, then he’s doing a bad job and you should fire him. But if he’s received 7 responses in just 2 weeks, and they are all from excellent editors at excellent houses who read your book carefully, then you don’t have cause to fire him. I actually discuss this very issue at length in my book, How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent. In the chapter “How to Keep Your Agent (and When to Let Him Go),” I discuss what it’s like to work with an agent on a daily basis, what you should expect from him, and what he should expect from you. Too often, author-agent relationships fall apart simply because of mutual misunderstandings and lack of clear communication. If an author has a better idea of what to actually expect from an agent (and vice versa), then it can be much easer to maintain a happy, working relationship.

Should I query an agent with several books at once?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:43:00 +0000

"Mr. Lukeman: My second book was just published in November. Is it too late for me a find an agent to represent my financial interests going forward on this work? If it is not, do agents typically expect a lower percentage of the revenue since the book is already placed and published? I have a third almost completed. Should I look for someone to represent both? What are your thoughts? Thanks."
--John Bingham

You are asking several questions here, and we’ll start by addressing what is one of the more universal questions for aspiring authors: if you have written multiple books, or if you have multiple book concepts, should you query an agent about all of them at once?

As a rule of thumb, when researching and querying agents, it’s best to choose one concept and stick to it. This will enable you to be more targeted when researching and approaching agents, and to be more focused in your query letter. It will make you seem less scattered, and will help an agent quickly and easily get his mind around the concept at hand. (Some queries are so scattered that half the agent’s battle is trying to figure out exactly what the work is about.) Querying with one concept at a time will also make sure it gets the attention it deserves: when someone pitches ten concepts at once, it can cheapen all of them.

The downside of querying with just one concept is that there is always the remote chance that agents dislike the concept you queried about, but would have been interested in a concept you never mentioned. But then again, if you choose one concept and are rejected, there is nothing to prevent you from querying agents all over again with one of your other concepts.

While this is a basic rule of thumb, as with everything in publishing, the answer can become infinitely more complex, depending on the particular scenario. For example, do you have one fiction and one non-fiction concept? (In which case you should most likely query separate agents for each.) Have you written four novels, and are they all part of a series? (You should query with the first book alone, but mention that it is part of a series.) Are your six concepts all non-fiction, and all in different genres? (Many agents will focus on certain genres, and an agent who represents serious history may not be interested in representing a commercial fitness book.) Have you written one academic work and one for the trade? (Agents will rarely represent purely academic books, and you may need to submit directly to a university press.) Is one of your books heavily illustrated and the other straight text? (The agent who represents a book of straight text may not want to represent a coffee table book.) Etc. etc.

As you can see from these few scenarios, agents’ needs differ radically, and it would be fairly unusual to find an agent who is eager to represent one author for a broad array of genres. Additionally, an important part of landing an author a deal, particularly when it comes to non-fiction, is her expertise and credibility in a particular genre—thus it may be easy to land a deal for a work of history from a history professor at Harvard, but impossible to land this same author a cookbook deal. Likewise, the agent who represents literary fiction may not want to represent commercial fiction—and vice versa.

In your particular case, you also asked, “Is it too late for me a find an agent to represent my financial interests going forward on [an already published] work? If it is not, do agents typically expect a lower percentage of the revenue since the book is already placed and published?” The bulk of the agent’s effort takes place before a book is published: the primarily role of the agent is to help find a publisher, negotiate a deal and negotiate a contract; they may also help brainstorm a concept, edit a proposal, and work on subsidiary rights. What an agent does not do is get involved in publicity and promotion—that is the job of the publicist. Thus in most cases, there is very little, if anything, for an agent to do once a book is published, and thus it would be unusual for an agent to want to represent an already published book (unless there is sub-rights work to do), and you may not even want this, as you may end up paying him for nothing. The standard industry commission is 15%, and it is unusual for an agent to vary from this, regardless of what stage a book is in.

Once I land an agent, how long does it take to land a book deal?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:50:00 +0000

"How long does it take for publishers to make a decision on a MS? My agent has had my MS to some publishing houses for almost a year."
--Anonymous

It would be convenient to tell you that an agent’s submission takes exactly 10 days, or 3 weeks, or 2 months—but this would be simplistic. To give you a thorough response, one must take into account many variables. No two submissions are the same, and no two agents operate the same exact way.

To begin with, the length of time it will take your agent to get a response from publishers will depend on whether you have written fiction or non-fiction, and on whether your proposal (if non-fiction) is, say, 10 pages or 80 pages, or whether your finished manuscript (if fiction) is, say, 200 or 500 pages. Obviously, the shorter the proposal or manuscript, the greater the likelihood of a swift response.

Also affecting response time is your particular agent’s methodology. Some agents will submit a work to, say, 40 publishers simultaneously, in one massive round, while others will submit to only a few publishers at a time, in rounds, and wait to hear back before submitting another round. If your agent’s methodology is the former, then you may have an answer in a matter of weeks or even days, while if the latter, a submission can drag on for many, many months.

Also affecting response time is how aggressive your agent is in following up with publishers. Some agents send out proposals or manuscripts and don’t prod publishers for months; others will get on the phone the next day and ask if they’ve read it. Another factor is how well-respected your agent is: submissions from some agents will get read right away, while submissions from others might sit on a pile for many weeks. Another factor is your agent’s choice of editors: some editors are known for fast responses, while others are known to take their time. Additionally, if an editor likes a work he will often have to share it with colleagues; thus even if he reads quickly, his colleagues may take longer, and this can affect response time.

In general, if I had to make a blanket estimate, I would say that a good agent should be able to hear back from a proposal submission within 8 weeks, and from a manuscript submission within 12 weeks. If your agent submits in rounds, then you will have to tack on that period of waiting time for each additional round.

There are exceptions, but in general, there is no reason why any particular round of submissions should take much longer than this. And even if your agent works in rounds, there is no reason why any given submission should drag on for more than a year. It sounds, in your case, as if your agent is submitting to too few houses, in rounds which are too small, and is waiting too long to hear back.

When you sign with an agent, always request an out clause, which will give you the option of terminating the relationship after, say, six months or one year, if things aren’t going the way you’d hoped. This way, if your agent is non-responsive, or taking too long to submit, you can always terminate and go elsewhere. If you terminate, make sue you request that he supply you with the submission list of where your work has been.

That said, keep in mind that if a year has passed and your book hasn’t sold, that is not necessarily a reason to fire your agent. It may be that your agent showed your work to 40 publishers within 12 weeks, and did a good job, but your book just didn’t sell. There have been times, for example, when I shopped a book around and it didn’t sell, and a year or two later I happened to have lunch with a new editor at a new house, submitted it, and it suddenly sold. If an agent is willing to keep your work on submission like this indefinitely, that is a good thing—as long as he has first thoroughly exhausted his primary rounds of submission. Thus I wouldn’t necessarily advise you to fire your agent because your book hasn’t sold, but I would advise you to fire him if his methodology is inadequate—if he has never submitted it widely, if he has submitted it to the wrong places, or if he is taking months or years to contact only a few editors.

In any case, at the very least, your agent should not keep you in the dark. He should give you some idea of the strategy, of how many places he’s submitting it to, and of when he roughly expects to hear back. And he should give you periodic updates, even if it’s only once every few months. If he’s unwilling to do this, then find someone else.

What is the ideal page count for a first novel?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:13:00 +0000

"Mr. Lukeman, If I have a debut literary/historical novel that's 110K... is this too long? What would this wordcount mean to agents and editors and how would it affect my chances of representation/publication?"
Thank you,
Renee Goudeau

It’s hard enough to land a book deal—don’t make it harder on yourself by writing a book which is shorter or longer than industry standard. That means, for example, don’t submit a 100 or a 1,000 page novel (I have had both cross my desk). The average manuscript for a novel comes in anywhere between 250 to 400 manuscript pages. In most cases, it is safe to say a first novel should not be shorter than 200 manuscript pages (approximately 50,000 words), and not longer than 500 manuscript pages (approximately 125,000 words). If so, it will raise a red flag for an agent, and may make him less likely to represent you. There are rare exceptions, of course, and there have been times when I have landed a six figure deal for a novel as short as 150 manuscript pages. But again, this is the exception, not the norm, particularly for a first novel. (Once you are an established author, there is more leniency.)

If this seems too strict, keep in mind that the publishing industry as a whole is far more lenient with page count than the film industry: a screenplay must come in at 120 pages, and if it is even a few pages off, it is automatically considered “short” or “long”—so much so, that the first thing a Hollywood executive does is flip to the last page. If it comes in at 130 or more, some executives will not even read it. Book publishing is not nearly as strict, but that doesn’t mean you should take advantage of its relative leniency. Do your best to fall within the range of normalcy.

To speak to a bigger issue, artistically, it is rare for a first novel to truly need to be over 500 (or less than 200) manuscript pages. 99% of the time, this sort of page count will point to the fact that there is something wrong with the author’s execution. If your first novel is longer than 500 pages, then you may want to ask yourself, for example, whether there are too many characters, settings or subplots. Go through each scene individually and ask yourself whether you can achieve the same goal if that scene were half the length. Conversely, if your page count falls under 200 pages, you may want to consider whether your novel could use a more robust cast of characters, more settings, or more intricate subplots.

“How many agents should I approach?”

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:08:00 +0000

On page 24 of your book The First Five Pages, which you wrote in the year 2000, you state: "Instead of feeling you have to query twenty or thirty agents, narrow your list to two or three." Lately, however, in your recent blog posts as well as in your newest book, How To Land And Keep A Literary Agent, you seem to advocate a different approach, one of submitting to 50-100 agents simultaneously. Could you share with us the sorts of factors that have inspired you to evolve your thinking in that regard? Thanks in advance.
-Eric Vincent

A good question, and I can see, in retrospect, how this may seem confusing. If there is ever a future edition of The First Five Pages, I will be sure to clarify this. Thanks for pointing it out. Let me clarify here:

In general, I advise that aspiring authors approach at least 50 agents when submitting their query letters. If they can find 100 or even 150 agents who are appropriate for their work (and effective), then so much the better. Publishing is enormously subjective, and sometimes you just need to have a large number of people look at a manuscript in order to find someone who gets it.

The reason I emphasize this point is because I have encountered so many authors who have given up after receiving rejections from merely a handful of agents. It is quite possible that in many of these cases, if these authors had simply queried 50 agents (instead of 10), it would have made their difference in their getting published. As an agent, when I submit a book to publishers, I will often receive dozens of rejections before I sell it. And in many cases, these books go on to become bestsellers. If I had given up after 5 or 10 or 20 rejections, these books may never have been published.

When I wrote that sentence which you quoted from my book, The First Five Pages, it was in the context of urging aspiring authors to take greater care when researching and approaching agents. So many queries I had received were addressed “To Whom it May Concern,” and were about topics that I clearly did not represent. It was obvious to me that these authors had not taken much time to research agents, and were merely sending out as many letters as they possibly could. In the book, I wanted to make the point that it is better to mail off queries to a few, select agents who are well researched than it is to merely shotgun it off to 100 agents whom you have not carefully researched. My intention, though, was not to suggest that one should terminate the submission after only a few queries. On the contrary, as I say throughout the book, one should never give up.

“If my agent doesn’t like my next book, should I fire him?”

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:11:00 +0000

“If you submit something to your agent and he/she doesn’t like it, do you believe him/her that it’s not up to par, or do you spring free and find another agent who does like it?”
--question asked by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett on behalf of The American Society of Journalists and Authors. Barbara is host of “Writers on Writing,” a weekly radio show airing on KUCI-FM (88.9) in California

To be thorough, one cannot give a blanket answer for this question, as each case will vary, depending on a number of factors. This really must be answered on a case by case basis. That said, here are a few general issues to consider:

If your agent has represented you for a number of years, sold many books for you, made you a lot of money, and has always been right in the past, and one day you come to him with a new manuscript and he doesn’t like it, then chances are that he knows what he’s talking about. You should respect his opinion, put it aside and write something new. Having representation with a good agent is very valuable in and of itself, and it may be worth setting aside a particular book to continue that relationship, particularly if you trust your agent’s opinion. You always need your agent to be excited about what he’s selling: if he’s not, then you don’t want him to be out there selling it. (Keep in mind that I say “chances are,” because this business is not a science, and there is always a remote possibility that your agent, who had always been right in the past, makes a mistake in this case, and steers you away from writing the next Da Vinci Code. One never knows.)

On the other hand, if your agent has never landed you any book deals, and if you come to him with a new manuscript which you feel strongly about and he rejects it, then it may be time to look elsewhere—particularly if he is unwilling to give you good reasons for his rejection, or to help brainstorm with you to come up with something more marketable.

In either case, before making the decision to terminate the relationship, get some objective feedback: share your manuscript with several trusted readers. If they all have issues with it, too, then it may help you realize that your agent is in the right.

More importantly, there are steps you can take to make sure you don’t end up in this situation to begin with. First, you can—and should—bring your agent in at the very beginning of the process: share your concept with him before you begin writing. If he doesn’t like it, ask him why. There may be a good reason: perhaps he knows of competitive proposals, or recalls similar proposals that weren’t able to find a publisher or that performed poorly as published books. Perhaps he can help you fine-tune the concept, or brainstorm to help you come up with a new concept altogether.

If you are writing fiction, you can share pages with him as you go: for example, before spending years writing 500 pages, stop at page 50 and show him the pages and a detailed synopsis for the rest. If he’s a good agent, he should be able to make an evaluation based on this. If he doesn’t like it, it can save you years of writing.

Agents will appreciate that you respect them enough to bring them in early, and it will make them feel more invested in the project. If you don’t trust your agent’s opinion enough to do this, then he probably shouldn’t be your agent to begin with. And if you are the type of author who writes whatever he feels like writing, regardless of what others think, then you need to realize that a long term career in publishing needs to be collaborative.

That said, there is always the human factor: agents have been wrong about many famous books in the past, and they will be wrong many times in the future. In this industry, one can only make an educated guess. If you have a burning passion for a particular manuscript you’ve written, and your gut screams that you should go elsewhere, then sometimes you will need to listen to that. Just don’t make the decision hastily: in my book, How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent, I discuss the six reasons to drop an agent, and all the factors you must consider carefully before doing so. If you terminate the relationship over a particular manuscript, you may find yourself in a position where you cannot sell the new manuscript and cannot find a new agent.

Why won’t publishers respond?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:24:00 +0000

“Mr. Lukeman, maybe you could comment on the problem of even getting publishers to look at a manuscript. My frustrating experience has been that they simply ignore it, do not send it back even when you've included an SASE, and do not answer your polite inquiries by mail, even a year or two later. This has happened to me more than once. I've submitted the first 20 pages of my novel as per submissions requirements for a number of publishers, and even though their website says they'll answer in, say, four months, they just ignore my submission and keep it for years. I never hear a word from them. I can't even get my 20 pages back from them because they don't bother answering inquiries. This seems to be standard practice in the publishing industry these days. How does a writer get around this?”
--Anonymous

To begin with, you need to find a literary agent first. In the vast majority of cases, editors at major publishers won’t even consider a submission (whether it’s a query letter, 20 pages, or an entire manuscript) unless it comes from a reputable literary agent. They will likely just send back a form letter stating that you must submit through an agent--or they may discard your pages and not respond at all. Most likely, your package was opened by an assistant (or an intern), and the editor in question never even knew of its existence.

Second, in your case it sounds as if you are concerned about getting your submitted pages returned to you. As a rule of thumb, when you submit pages, assume that they won’t be returned. Even if they are returned, they will rarely be in pristine condition, and you certainly won’t want to re-circulate worn pages for a new submission. If your submitted material is so important to you that you absolutely must have it back (for example, original documents or photographs), then you must be certain in advance that the recipient is aware that you are sending it and is willing to return it.

Third, when you do approach agents, I would strongly recommend your approaching them with a one page query letter, as opposed to sending 20 pages (I discuss this topic at length in my free book, How to Write a Great Query Letter). I would also suggest your approaching a large number of agents simultaneously (at least 50), so that you are not sitting around for a year waiting to hear. As a rule of thumb, a query letter should be responded to within 2 to 6 weeks, a proposal within 4 to 8 weeks, and a finished manuscript within 6 to 12 weeks; there is no reason you should ever have to wait an entire year for anyone. If you haven’t heard after 4 months, you likely never will.

How long should I wait to hear back about my manuscript?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:53:00 +0000

"There is a local, regional publisher interested in the project I have submitted to her, however she says she doesn't have time to read it all now. Would it be disloyal for me to submit it to another publisher?"
--Anonymous

Waiting time can be a major issue in most authors’ writing careers. I can’t begin to tell you how many authors I’ve met who tell me that they won’t submit their manuscript elsewhere—or even begin to think about writing a new book—until they first hear back from a particular agent or publisher. When I ask them how long they’ve been waiting, they often say several months. Some tell me they’ve been waiting for years, putting their career on hold all of this time.

This is problematic for several reasons: first, because publishing is so subjective, and because agents’ and editors’ needs change so often, it is impossible to predict if any given agent or editor will like your work, no matter how likely they may seem. You must understand that, statistically, the chances are that any given submission will end in rejection. This is why getting published is mostly about the numbers: the author who submits to 50 or 100 agents or publishers will stand a much greater chance of getting published than the author who submits to 10. Thus the author who submits to only a few people and who then sits back waiting to hear is in all likelihood just wasting his time.

Second, publishing is a slow industry to begin with. It takes time to read a 300 or 400 page manuscript: the average response time for a 400 page manuscript will be at least 6 to 8 weeks. If you want to submit to 50 agents, there is no way you can do so by submitting to one person at a time, unless you are willing to spend five years submitting a particular manuscript (which I would never advise). An aggressive submission can—and should—successfully reach 50 or 100 agents within 6 months. You cannot achieve this unless you are submitting widely, and simultaneously.

Third, if you put your life on hold and spend months waiting for just one response, chances are that, with nothing else to do, you will dwell on this person, and will invest a lot emotionally on his response. If the response finally comes and it is a rejection, it will upset you much more. But if you had had your manuscript out with 100 agents, and 5 rejections had landed in a single day, it would hardly phase you: you would tell yourself that it is still out with 95 others. This will make the psychological roller-coaster of a submission much easier to handle. And it is important to manage the psychology of a submission.

Fourth, you should not look to the industry for validation. Many authors tell me that they will wait to hear whether the industry accepts their novel before they consider whether to continue writing. This is a big mistake. You must remember how subjective the industry is, and realize that even if 100 agents reject your manuscript, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t eminently publishable. You must reach a point where you are satisfied with your work. When you do, get behind it and stay behind it, regardless of how many rejections come in.

Finally, there should never be any downtime in your writing. Writing is a muscle, and the more you write, the better you will become. When you finish one book, turn immediately to the next, and don’t use a submission as an excuse to take a break and not do the hard work of continuing to write every day. A writer should never be “waiting”— only “writing” or “submitting.” In fact, the word “waiting” should not even exist in the successful author’s vocabulary.

You may encounter some agents or editors who demand that you give them exclusive reading time. If they are legitimate, and sincerely like your work, then in select cases, you might grant them exclusive reading time—but only for a finite period of time, which should be clearly stated in your letter. Otherwise, don’t submit exclusively. You don’t owe “loyalty” to an agent or editor who you’ve never met and who may not even like your work. You do, however, owe loyalty to yourself. As an author, there are so few things you can control in this industry. Waiting time is one of them. And it should indeed stay in your control.

How many copies must a book sell to be considered a success?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:49:00 +0000

"I would be curious what it means to 'sell poorly' at a major house. Isn't this subject to interpretation? Okay, we can all agree that selling 500 or 1000 books from a major house means that a book did poorly. But a first novel by a first-time author except in some rare cases) isn't going to sell 50,000 copies anyway, so what kinds of numbers do big houses expect? And how do those numbers change depending on the genre?"
--J.L. Powers

This is a sophisticated question, and to answer it thoroughly will require a sophisticated response, one which first takes a step back and educates you on the mechanics and realities of how book sales truly work.

To begin with, one must know precisely what they speak of when they say “copies sold.” That term is used too loosely, often by authors who don’t truly know what it means, and as a result, publishing professionals are skeptical of any declaration of how many copies a book sold until they’ve have a chance to review all of the information for themselves. To accurately gauge book sales, the publishing professional needs to actually know four factors: 1) the number of copies printed; 2) the number of copies shipped; 3) the number of copies returned; and 4) the format of the book. For example, a publisher can print 100,000 copies of a book, but might only get bookstore orders for 10,000 copies, and thus only actually ship 10,000 copies. This would leave 90,000 copies sitting in the warehouse, and would be a disastrous (and extreme) scenario for a book publisher. A more likely scenario is that a publisher prints 15,000 copies and ships 10,000 of them to start. Thus, to begin with, we have the (important) difference between copies printed and copies actually shipped.

Further complicating matters, bookstores retain the right to return unsold copies of books to publishers, and these “returns” start to trickle back within a few months after a book ships. (Nearly every book suffers from returns, and the average return rate for a book is approximately 25%. This is why publishers will hold back money due you at royalty time, as a “reserve against returns.”) Within 6 to 12 months of a book’s shipping, most returns will have come in, so it usually takes at least 9 months from the time a book is published to know how many copies the book “netted.” If a publisher prints 15,000 copies of a book and ships 10,000 copies, and six months later 8,000 copies are returned, then that book has only netted 2,000 copies. That is the real number. In this scenario, an author might unknowingly boast that his book sold 15,000 copies (based on the print run) or 10,000 copies (based on the copies shipped), but in reality, after returns, his book has only “sold” 2,000 copies. It is all about the net.

Finally, to complete the picture, a publishing professional must also know the format of the book. A book might be published as a $50 coffee table book, or a $25 hardcover, or a $14 trade paperback, or a $7 mass market. If a book sold 2,000 copies at $50 or at $7, that makes a huge difference. 30,000 copies sold of a hardcover, for example, could be a huge success for a publisher, while 30,000 copies sold of a mass market edition might amount to a huge loss. So getting a complete picture of what a book truly “sold” is all about the net and the format.

Additionally, many books are published in multiple editions—often first as a hardcover, then a year later as a paperback—and it may be that a book only sold only 2,000 hardcover copies, but later sold 60,000 trade paperbacks. So to get an accurate picture of how many copies any book “sold,” one must tally up and take into account all of the editions of that book.

Now that you know what it means to accurately talk about how many copies a book truly “sold” from a publishing professional’s perspective, let’s look at some actual numbers.

We would all love to have that magic number, to know that, for example, 14,000 copies is the number you need to assure success and a life of future book deals. It is only natural that any author, after being published, would want to know how many copies he or she would need to sell in order to be considered a success. Yet if you ask your editor or agent this question, it is quite likely that they will hesitate in giving you a response. It is easy to gauge if a book is a huge failure, selling only 100 copies, or if it is a huge success, selling 100,000 hardcovers—but what if it falls into that gray area? What if it sells 7,000 hardcovers? Or 11,000 trade paperbacks? Indeed, this is one of the hardest questions for any publishing professional to answer. Most won’t even try to answer it, for fear of quoting a wrong number, or simply because even they don’t know how. That said, let me attempt to give you an answer here.

The most important factor in considering whether a book is a success is comparing the size of the advance to the number of copies sold. If a publisher paid a $3,000 advance and netted 10,000 hardcovers, then that book was a success. If a publisher paid a $200,000 advance for that same book, then those same number of copies amount to a failure.

Interestingly, for this very reason, some agents could argue that it is best not to negotiate too large of an advance for an author, thus assuring that the author will always be profitable for their publisher and will thus publish as many books as possible—and thus have more chances to land a major hit. These agents would reason that the author will make up the money on the backend, through royalties. Other agents could argue that what is most important is landing the largest advance possible—whether or not their author lands a subsequent book deal—since the majority of books won’t earn back their advance anyway.

All of this still begs the question: if you sold 7,000 hardcovers or 11,000 trade paperbacks and have to go out and find a new publisher for a subsequent book, would that sales record be sufficient to impress? What is the actual number of copies that will assure success? Here are some real numbers:

Most debut literary story collections net approximately 2,000 hardcover copies. Most literary first novels net between 3,000 and 7,000 hardcover copies. Most commercial first novels net between 5,000 and 10,000 hardcover copies. Non-fiction is genre specific, so one would have to take into account whether one were dealing with relationships, parenting, dieting, health, business, history, memoir—or whatever the genre—before one could offer approximations. That said, netting at least 20,000 hardcovers in any genre will usually be enough to make any publisher pay serious attention to your next book.

This is not to say that if one sold only 2,500 hardcover copies of a literary first novel that he is a dismal failure, or that if one sold 7,500 hardcovers of a literary first novel that he is guaranteed a subsequent book deal. Again, publishers will look at the whole picture when making a decision, including the number of copies you sold relative to the publisher and to the advance paid. If you sold 7,500 hardcovers after a $200,000 marketing campaign, it will not bode well; and if you netted 2,500 hardcovers after being published by a tiny press with no reviews or publicity, then that may bode well.

To further complicate matters, the concept and quality of the writing at hand might just make all of these numbers irrelevant. If a publisher falls in love with your new concept, he may very well want to buy your next book, even if your previous book sold miserably. I recall a situation where I had an author who didn’t earn back his $15,000 advance with one publisher, yet I sold his new proposal to a new publisher for a $200,000 advance because they loved the new concept so much. Conversely, you can sell a ton of copies and not land a subsequent book deal if no one likes your new concept, or if they don’t feel your writing is of the quality that it was in the past. I have seen situations like these, as well.

Obviously, if you are selling 100,000 hardcovers, you have little to worry about. Excluding that, there really is no magic number that will guarantee you a life of successful publishing. As I discuss at length in my book How to Land (and Keep) a Literary Agent, there will be always be so many factors taken into account, in addition to past sales figures, when trying to land a new book deal, including timing, the current market, and personal, subjective taste. Unfortunately, even selling well will not necessarily assure you a solid future in this precarious business; yet the good news is that selling poorly will not necessarily seal your fate either.

The most important thing for you, as an author, is to try not to pay attention to any of this, to keep writing, to keep querying, and to never, ever give up—whether it’s after one book, or after ten.

Will being published by a small press help my career?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:37:00 +0000

"I'm curious how small-press published books are viewed by industry professionals. My book was repped by a top agent but didn't sell. Now I'm at a crossroads: seek out a small/mid-size press or scrap the book. I've heard from more than one source that publishers and bookstores will look only at the number of books sold without taking into consideration the size of the press. I guess the larger question is, is a small/mid-size press really a good stepping stone? My goal is to have a thriving career as a mystery author. Thank you."
--Anonymous

The first thing you must know is that the term “small press” can mean anything, and that there is a world of difference between one small press and another. Anyone can launch a “small press” from their living room by publishing one or two titles, giving them tiny print runs, and sending them out into the world with little or no distribution or review coverage. With a fancy website, a nice logo, and some key listings in small press directories, this “small press” can appear, at first glance, to be as much of a small press as one that has genuinely published dozens of titles over many years.

If you are talking about one of the legitimate and prestigious small/mid-size presses, such as Algonquin, Overlook, Coffee House, Graywolf, Soho, or Pegasus (to name a few), then yes, being published by them can certainly make a major difference in your career—indeed, a publication with any of these can lead to more review coverage, better distribution and better sales than with a major publisher. The excellent small/mid-size presses tend to put a lot of time and attention into each and every title, and sometimes this can pay off. I recall a situation about ten years ago when I represented an author who had two books published at nearly the same time, one with a prestigious small press, the other with a major publisher. The small press publication sold triple the copies and garnered far more review attention.

That said, I have encountered many authors who have a fantasy that, if their book does not find a major publisher, they can always turn to a small press. Not true. While there are hundreds if not thousands of “small presses” out there, there are actually very few prestigious and influential small/mid-size presses. These few small presses tend to receive as many submissions as the major publishers, and it has been my experience that they are at least as selective as the major publishers, and sometimes even more so. I recall many submissions where a prestigious small press rejected a book, only to have a major publisher acquire it.

If you are considering being published by a small press, and it is not one of the few prestigious small presses, then in most cases I would say, don’t do it. Instead, put your manuscript in a drawer and write another book. If you sell subsequent books to major houses, then your unpublished manuscripts can be valuable, as your new publisher may want to acquire them all at some point down the road. I recall an instance where an author I represented could not land several novels, and his three unpublished novels sat in his drawer for ten years. When I finally got him his big break with a major house, that house wanted to take all of his novels, and he suddenly found himself with four advances and four books coming out in quick succession. In this case, it was better for him to have these rights free when the time came than to have had them tied up by an ineffectual press.

Finally, keep in mind that many of the prestigious small presses won’t consider your manuscript unless it is submitted by an agent—or at the very least, they won’t take it as seriously. So it is really best to focus your energy on writing the best book you can, and then finding an agent. A good agent will know which small presses to keep in mind, and when to include them in a submission.

Can self-publishing damage your career?

noreply@blogger.com (Noah Lukeman) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:05:00 +0000

“More than a few writers are turning to POD publishing after their agent cannot sell their book, or after they can't get an agent to rep their book. When they go to sell the next book, will this POD or self publishing work against them if they end up selling only a few thousand books? Is it better to do an ebook or think of another way to get their material before their readers that doesn't generate an ISBN number?”

--question asked by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett on behalf of The American Society of Journalists and Authors. Barbara is host of “Writers on Writing,” a weekly radio show airing on KUCI-FM (88.9) in California.

Understandably, authors worry that self-publishing their book with a print on demand (POD) service could end up hurting them in the long run. They worry that an assigned ISBN could track their book’s sales, and that if sales are weak, a future publisher will reject future books based on their track record.

But there is nothing to fear. Publishers are sophisticated enough to differentiate whether an author’s prior books sold poorly as a result of being published in a POD format or as a result of being published by a major publisher. If an author’s books were published by a major publisher and sold poorly, then yes, this would be a major problem for a future acquiring editor. But if the poor sales were the result of a POD edition, then all is forgiven, and the author is treated as if he had never been published at all. And if the sales were strong, the POD edition can become an asset.

This has been my experience as a literary agent. I also discussed this question with an editor at a major publishing house, and he concurred.

This topic also begs the broader question: whether to self-publish at all. Keep in mind that the majority of authors who self-publish will find that just because they “published” their book and perhaps even built a website, it doesn’t necessarily mean the masses have shown up to buy it, or that they’ve been able to draw review attention. I would guess that most self-published books sell but a few dozen copies to family and friends, and sadly, never lead to a book deal.

If you want to self-publish merely for personal satisfaction, or to share your book with family and friends, then by all means, do it. But if you are embarking on this path solely for commercial reasons—as a way to land a book deal with a major publisher—then I would say only do it if you realize that 1) the chances of this happening are remote; and 2) you are going to have to put a huge amount of time and effort into bringing traffic, attention and publicity to your book online. If you have 100,000 followers of Twitter, or a video with 500,000 views on youtube, or an e-zine with 100,000 subscribers, then you may be a good candidate for self-publishing. If you can manage to sell 5,000 or 10,000 copies on your own, if you can manage to land one or two major reviews in established venues, you may be able to defy the odds and land an agent or publisher. Online, it’s all about what you bring to the table and how hard you are willing to work. Which is, in fact, good training for being published by a major publisher. Successful traditionally-published books also have in common authors who bring their own resources to the table, and who push their own books relentlessly over extended periods of time.

Ultimately, the same factors that affect a traditionally-published book’s success will also affect the success of a self-published book: does your book have a unique concept? Does it have competition? Is there a large market for the genre? Do you have the means to reach out effectively to the market that needs to know about it? How strong are your writing skills, and how well-written is your book?

If you have something important to say and say it well, your book will eventually find its audience. If not, technology can never replace quality.