3.Pitching
The agent’s next step is to represent your book to commissioning editors in a way that is appealing without being misleading. It is important that an agent enthusiastically ‘gets’ your work. Whether they do or not will probably be apparent from the way they talk about it to you. But if not, I think it is reasonable to ask an agent how, in broad terms, they see themselves characterizing your work. How would they summarize the book, and what strengths would they emphasize?
4.Exploitation of Subsidiary Rights
Should a publishing deal be secured, there are early decisions for an agent to make about which rights are included. From a publisher’s point of view, the sale of subsidiary rights will often be an important means of recouping their investment in producing the book. So the question of which rights are being granted and which are being withheld will have some impact on the level of advance they are prepared to pay. The relative value of different rights will vary according to the project in question, and the agent will need to judge whether the advance is a fair return for the rights being requested.
If a publisher who has been granted the opportunity to sub-license these rights makes a successful sale, you will receive a portion as set out in the original publishing contract. However, as with the royalties from sales of the book, that share will initially go towards ‘earning out’ the up-front ‘advance’ sum the publisher has paid for the book, with the result that you may receive payments from sub-licensed subsidiary rights only some time later, if at all.
If, on the other hand, an agent handles the subsidiary rights, further up-front advances are guaranteed as soon as the sale is made. You are also one step closer to the publishing activities that will ensue, which results in you having much more control over what happens with your work.
So there are various considerations involved. Apart from the question of what a publisher is prepared to pay for subsidiary rights, another factor will be how energetically they will pursue the sales of these rights. This latter factor is equally true of your agent. So it is important to ascertain how an agent is set up for exploitation of the more important subsidiary rights such as US, translation and serialization.
A few will sell US and translation rights directly to publishers, some will work with a network of co-agents in the territories concerned, and some will have in-house foreign rights staff selling directly or via co-agents. Having dedicated staff selling your foreign rights is obviously attractive, but the impact on sales of the primary agent’s enthusiastic familiarity with a book should never be underestimated. So there are pros and cons whichever way you look at it. In these days of easy telecommunications, what is important is for the agent to have sufficient knowledge of the market in question if they are working directly, and a good network of co-agents (together with sufficient knowledge to oversee them) if they are working indirectly.
I am sometimes asked whether money can be saved by coming to independent arrangements with agents in several territories. In my view the savings are small and such an arrangement may prevent you benefiting from the strategic overview your primary agent can provide.
5.TV/Film Representation
Some literary agencies will offer TV and film representation, and some will partner with independent specialist agents. There are advantages and disadvantages to each: in a larger agency with a TV department, there is the convenience of having all the activities under one roof, but the TV agent is unlikely to commit to all their book department’s offerings. An independent literary agent may or may not be prepared to network with independent TV and film agents on your behalf, but if they are there is the advantage of a more bespoke service. If you’ve got aspirations in this direction, ask whether the agent feels that they are realistic and, if so, how they would help you.
6.Deal Negotiation
Rather than bombard the agent with too many questions about the deal initially, since they are somewhat hypothetical until the moment has arrived, it is worth remembering that at this point an agent’s time is best spent focusing on making the deal happen in the first place. They probably have a rough idea of what they might expect by way of an advance, but be understandably reluctant to make precise predictions. However, it may be helpful for both parties to touch on the question of their attitude to advances.
Since agents work on commission, they share an author’s financial interest, but a good agent will also take other things into consideration on their clients’ behalf. Too high an advance might put you under unconstructive commercial pressure, and if a publisher ends up making a large loss on a book, this can affect your future opportunities. At the same time, it’s worth bearing in mind that a publisher’s marketing budget for a book is often guided by the advance they have paid, with a higher advance meaning more to recoup and therefore more reason to put resources into making a success of the book. The agent is there to advise you in these matters and then secure your aim to the best of their ability within the circumstances.
7.Contracts
There are many negotiable points in a publisher’s contract. Some have financial implications, such as royalty rates and the way royalties are accounted. An agent’s commission is based on all future income, so it is in their interest to take care over these matters. Many points are to do with authorial control over the book in the longer term, your obligations to the publisher in the overall life of the book and sometimes even your next book. Negotiating contracts is a very important part of an agent’s duties, requiring willingness to fight a corner, attention to detail and not least patience to interpret the legalese to you insofar as you wish to be concerned.
8.Quality Control and Diplomacy
There are some areas that can’t be definitively covered in a publishing contract but do need to be looked out for. It is in a publisher’s interest to succeed with a book once they have committed to it, but every book will be published alongside a number of other books, and a publisher’s time and overall resources are finite. There’s rarely an exact science in the realms of publicity, advertising, marketing and promotions, and most authors find it difficult to press their own case even if they’re confident that there’s a case to be pressed. Indeed, it might be that your expectations are a little high; or that the publishing team as a whole is insufficiently behind your book; in these circumstances an agent may be able to step in and mediate, or contribute constructive support and ideas.
Most publishers will take an author’s views into account in matters like the book’s format, the cover design and the publication date, but these are ultimately the publisher’s decision. This is as it should be, given the degree of specialist expertise arrayed within a publishing house, but even then it is sometimes necessary for an agent to help you get your point of view across and liaise for both parties.
Sometimes an agent has to stamp a foot on behalf of their client, but most of the time their relationship with publishers is not adversarial. The author doesn’t necessarily know which things it is realistic to try to change, or how best to go about things if they have a complaint, so the agent’s role is to take all that off their shoulders. They can hopefully pre-empt any communication breakdowns between author and publisher, thus keeping the creative channels clear in everyone’s best interest.
9. Invoicing, Statement Processing and General Paperwork Relief
The agent will also invoice and check payments and statements for you. Aside from the advance payments, there are usually biannual royalty statements (and payments if the advance has been earned out). These statements can be complex and impenetrable to the layman.
There are also other bits of paperwork as you go forwards, such as when the publisher seeks consent to a sub-licence or to sell copies at a discount not allowed for in the original contract. The agent is there to advise you each time this happens, manage the paperwork and check that the receipts from these deals have been properly accounted for.
10.Career-Building
In the last 20 years or so, the role of a
gents has grown in importance and become better known. This is not just for all the reasons I have just outlined. Another major reason, at least if you have more than one book in mind, is that editors tend to move jobs a lot these days. They aren’t looking out for your overall trajectory in the same way as an agent, who is often your most reliable industry constant and ally. In theory your career is the agent’s career, so the agent is always thinking about your profile and taking care of it in the small world of publishing and the media.
In Summary
In all these ways and more, an agent earns his or her commission. If you are successful in securing an agent’s attention, remember that the effort they commit is based on belief in you and your work. I would certainly advise against signing up with an agent without first meeting them in person. A good meeting provides opportunity for comfortable informal discussion, and of course it enables both you and the agent to establish whether you are likely to enjoy a happy working rapport together.
ACQUIRING FICTION
What an Editor is Looking For
Penelope Hoare
In my world, it is rare to commission fiction. Fiction is acquired – in other words, I read novels (when finished or almost finished), share them with colleagues and readers, assess them and get them costed. At every stage in this process, I examine the pros and cons thus far and might decide to reject. Occasionally, I suggest improvements and leave the door open for the author to make a second attempt. And sometimes, with all aspects considered, I make an offer to publish.
The Difference Between Fiction and Non-Fiction
Two strangers meet on a train. One is an editor. The other is a would-be author who tells the story of how the previous stranger he met on a train was an assassin and spymaster who took him on a journey of adventure and mayhem. If he chooses non-fiction as his medium, then his amazing experiences might – just might – amount to a bestseller for author and editor. But if he decides to tell the same story in the form of a fiction, and he isn’t sufficiently talented as a writer, then no amount of adventure and mayhem will make his book into a first-class novel. This is as true of ‘literature’ as of ‘popular’ or ‘commercial’ fiction.
Contrary to the familiar cliché, not everyone has a novel in them. Getting a novel published is not a matter of selling an idea or a plotline. All depends on the execution – how cleverly that idea is explored and how thrillingly that story is told.
The Write Stuff
Getting a novel published also depends on making your approaches to the right publisher or agency.
Rule one is what I call ‘horses for courses’ – in other words focus or branding. Any novel that an editor acquires has to fit the profile of their publishing firm. More than that, it has to conform to the personal expertise of that editor – which can be a wide remit (’literary fiction’) or a very narrow one (’crime novels translated from Norwegian’).
Many an editor has lived to regret a rash foray into an unfamiliar world. I have acquired, in my day, science-fiction, only to discover that my choice happened to be a pale imitation of far better, already published SF novels – as any SF nerd could have told me.
A novel can be a splendid example of its kind, but unsuited to a particular imprint. Most imprints aspire to focus because it strengthens their powers of acquisition in their chosen fields, while branding maximizes their marketing and sales strategies.
Some imprints are rigid in their requirements – Mills & Boon, for example, used to be famous for laying down not only the subject area (doctors and nurses, Latin lovers, intrigue, historical romance) but also the precise number of words, and whether sex stopped at the bedroom door or was permitted to stray between the sheets. Other firms have a wide and eclectic range. But there is no point in sending raunchy adventure stories or perky chick lit to a publisher whose sole aspiration is to win the Booker or the Nobel Prize for Literature.
What I Look for When Acquiring Fiction
Originality above all.
Dialogue and characterization: if you can’t do these well, you will never be a first-class novelist.
Storytelling: as above – if you can’t tell a gripping story, you will never be a first-class novelist.
Opportunities for sales and sales of rights: hardback/trade paperback/mass-market paperback; book club; serialization and extract (including radio readings); sales in English all over the world, including America; sales in translation; etc.
Opportunities for publicity, marketing, literary prizes and author promotion.
Style, structure, set pieces, colour, wit and humour, denouement.
Metaphorical meaning, images and the ‘under-text’ – i.e. what the novel is ‘about’, under the surface of narrative and action.
A good novel is more than an exciting plotline, a clever wheeze or a terrific idea. If I am at all tempted, I want to read the whole thing, including the all-important denouement. I want to judge the narrative drive and the trajectory, and to see the characters developing. I lay emphasis on ‘reader satisfaction’ – i.e. closing the book with a warm feeling that reading it has been a worthwhile experience, both fulfilling and enjoyable.
Having made a value judgement (it’s good of its kind and I like it), I have to make a commercial judgement (will it sell? will it sell on my particular list?).
So from my side of the desk, for a novel to be publishable it has to be either a work of art or a work of commerce – or both. To get published it also has to fit in with a particular publisher’s profile. From your side of the desk, the first hurdle is to persuade someone actually to read your submission.
The Truth About the Slush Pile
Unsolicited submissions (known as the slush pile) very often don’t get over this first hurdle – i.e. no one reads them properly. This is for a variety of reasons, including:
Lack of gumption: my slush pile invariably contains submissions which are unsuited to me personally and unsuited to Chatto & Windus as an imprint. My instinctive reaction is that I can’t be bothered to read the slush pile, because so many of these authors have failed even to find out where to send their material. (I don’t, for example, ever publish any fiction for children – yet I am sent several children’s novels a year.)
Lack of focus: in a lifetime in publishing, I have discovered about five wonderful books in the slush pile. It is because of this low hit-rate that some publishers refuse to look at unsolicited material at all. Even those who do accept it tend to treat it shabbily: unsolicited submissions gather dust on the shelf for three months, and then a junior spends ten minutes with each one, turns down about 97 per cent of them and passes three per cent to a reader or an editor for a more careful perusal and a second opinion.
Poor presentation: when I look at a covering letter which is prolix or incorrectly punctuated, I am immediately put off the accompanying submission. This is not because I am rigid about grammar, but because I am looking for writers – i.e. those who can use words and sentences to best effect.
Why Novelists Need Literary Agents
It is partly because the slush pile is a low priority for fiction editors and an inadequate conduit for novelists that literary agents wield power within British publishing.
Focus: literary agents are intensely familiar not only with imprints, but also with individual editors; they know about current lists and their specialities, and also about future lists and any planned changes of direction or policy.
When I receive a novel from an experienced agent (addressed to me by name and professionally presented in a colour-coded folder that I recognize), I know that an informed choice has been made, and that Chatto has been selected for this particular submission because a) it’s the sort of thing we are looking for; b) we are likely to make a good job of publishing it, because it suits our profile; and c) I am quite likely to warm to it, because it chimes with both my personal taste and my professional brief.
Fine-mesh sieve: getting an agent to take you on as a client is just as difficult as get
ting your work published. Before an agented submission reaches an editor, it has already gone through a rigorous selection. The average agented submission is, therefore, of far better quality than the average unsolicited submission.
Doing business on a daily basis: editors deal with submissions from agents in a professional manner. If they fail to do so, they are in danger of missing out next time because the disgruntled agency will choose to submit its new bestseller to a different editor at a different firm.
Writing as the day-job: literary agents act for writers. If you are a celebrity chef, a violinist or a motor-racing driver, and you are invited to write a book as a sideline, you might prefer to consult a solicitor or an agent who specializes in your field. But if you aspire to be a novelist, you would be well advised to seek a literary agent (The Agent’s View).
Submissions
Whether you are seeking an agent or seeking a publisher, the same common-sense advice applies. The most important part of a submission is the covering letter, so here are some key points to bear in mind:
•Keep it short: editors/agents won’t read more than the first paragraph if your letter looks tedious.
•Say something! Some would-be authors think that a short covering letter means typing ‘Please read the attached.’ Editors/agents know full well that they are being invited to read the attached. The covering letter should tell them why they must read it, and should tempt and excite them into bothering to do so.
The Novelwriter's Toolkit Page 10
