Since November 2009Agent Provocauthor by Fiona Cassidy
March 6th, 2010 by Leah
Following on from her first installment back in January (Where It All Began & What’s The Story?), I now give you Fiona Cassidy’s third (of twelve) blog we’ll be posting throughout the year!
On my quest to become a published author and after short listing a selection of agents and publishers from the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook I decided to contact a few of them and learnt several valuable lessons along the way!
First lesson of the day is…when you ring an agent looking for information expect to be greeted with the phrase “can you email that enquiry to me?” DO NOT expect them to be interested or gush about the fact that you are seeking representation…you are one of many eager little fish in a very big pond. Many agents will not accept manuscripts without first receiving some information regarding what the book is about, what genre it falls into, what the word count is etc. So it’s best to be prepared and send a polite email whilst saving your phone bill. I actually have a very amusing story about my experience of ringing one particular agent in my rather ‘green’ and naïve days….Picture, if you will, an enthusiastic wanna-be writer who was nursing the phone at her ear whilst balancing a laptop on one knee and jiggling a very small baby on the other. Add in a rather pompous agent who asked her for a word count which she wasn’t prepared for and hadn’t a hope off getting without dropping either the baby (who had decided to wail at 400 decibels) or the computer and you ended up with a rather red-faced novelist who vowed to be better prepared in future and simply email people her queries…whilst letting somebody else nurse the infant of course!
If you’re approaching one of the bigger agencies that have many agents working for them ensure that you’re in touch with the right person as some agents will represent various genres within the fiction sector whilst others are looking for writers of non-fiction, educational literature etc. Most of the bigger agencies will have websites which give information about each agent, what their role is and what they’re looking for. In other words DO YOUR RESEARCH!!
When penning an email to an agent I would advise you to be polite and to the point and always ensure that you spell their name correctly! They don’t need to know the entire ins and outs of the plot. A brief overview will do along with a word count if you are finished. They do not need to know that your mother absolutely loved it (of course she does; she was in labour with you for fourteen hours) and they do not need to know endless rants about how all your lifelong dreams will be fulfilled if you get the agent and publishing deal you’re after. They also never need to see any attached photos of yourself posing with the manuscript that you think may be the next bestseller (an agent speaking at a writer’s event I was at one day told that story and I nearly fell of my chair laughing…the word desperate also sprang to mind!)
Agents are busy people therefore don’t expect a response within a week or two. Give them up to six weeks and then perhaps give them a nicely worded nudge but don’t hassle them. If you’re a nuisance and they haven’t entered into a contract with you it won’t exactly instil confidence or make them want to jump at the chance to work with you.
When I entered into a contract with my own lovely agent (you’ll hear all about that later) she very wisely suggested that the relationship between author and agent should be compared to taking on a life partner. I think that this is a brilliant analogy and very wise advice. Just like within any monogamous relationship you must look for an agent with whom you can instantly develop a good rapport. You must have mutual respect for each other, learn to compromise and work as a good team to achieve the end goal of ‘a happy marriage’ or rather an excellent writing career with strong editorial support, good contacts and the promise that you will always work hard for each other and do your best.
Be under no illusion for the majority of writers this will be a lengthy process. For the privileged few who get snapped up right away it will be a painless journey that they will talk about at length making everyone else feel inadequate when they discover that it’s not quite that easy. For me it was a soul destroying experience that made me constantly question myself as to why I was putting myself through this torment (and concluding that I must have been a very bad person in a past life or a masochist?!)
I do promise, however, that perseverance will pay off as it did with me but that’s a blog for another day…
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