Posts by Elisabeth Weed
I’ve spent the last year offering agent advice on Writer Unboxed—everything from writing query letters to maintaining an open and productive working relationship with your representative. As I sit down today, I fear I may be fresh out of wisdom of my own, but as I think of some of the best advice I’ve learned during my 15 years in the business, it’s advice I’ve learned from the amazing group of authors I am lucky enough to work with every day. Whether they are on their first or tenth book, these men and women continue to teach me things about both the business and the craft of writing—and as I look at this list below, general tenants in which to live your life–each and every day. So without further ado, advice from my authors:
Slow Down. We are always being told to write faster, publish quicker, tweet more and sleep less. Okay, I added the last bit, but with all the focus on the “noise” authors are asked to make for their books, I sometimes wonder when they are supposed to sleep. I’ve had long conversations about this breakneck speed with several of my authors, who have simply decided that it’s not for them and that they are both happier and more productive when focusing on writing and the rest of their private lives.
Don’t Rush Others. This could fall into a subset of slowing down, but needs repeating. I represent a former editor who told me in the midst of auctioning his book that he wanted me to slow down and give editors time to really consider the book. There is a strategy in having a quick sale but he, rightly so, reminded me that it takes time for an entire house– from editor to publisher to sales and publicity–to make a decision about a book. They need to truly consider not just whether they like it but how they they publish it. And being the fastest to the plate doesn’t necessarily mean you are the best.
Read MoreWhen I chatted with Teri a few months ago about this post, I wanted to tackle the question of money and advances and marketing dollars. I was feeling frustrated that certain publishers continued to make seven figure offers on debuts which no doubt continued to take the wind out of the sales of every other book placed in the same publishing season as said book. Why put all your eggs in one basket? Clearly you don’t have a crystal ball to tell you that this one book is THE book that’s going to make it, so why not spread the wealth around a little more evenly?
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that that’s not totally a fair lament, certainly not for me, the agent, to make. Part of the reason these deals ratchet up into the seven figures is that agents are able to auction books up to that price in a bidding war. I am not innocent of this. I once had an editor say during a best bids auction that he was going to be really mad if he ended up paying way more than he should. He even added that it would hurt the publication. Well, yikes. I responded, I think fairly, that I didn’t have a gun to his head and that he should pay what he thinks it’s worth. But I do think he makes a good point. The whole set up of the auction and competition can lead some publishers (not all) to overpay. All to say that it’s not the big bad publisher that is entirely to blame for my initial frustration.
The general unspoken belief is that if your publisher pays more money for a book, they will inevitably put more marketing muscle into it. But in my own experience, I’ve seen things play out much differently.
Read MoreToday I want to talk about the literary agent’s role, not just in selling an author’s book, but in shaping their career. It’s a more nebulous part of the job description, beyond the editing, negotiating and contract work that comprises the nuts and bolts of the job. I’ve also found it to be both the most exciting and the hardest part of what I do.
I love thinking alongside an author about the direction in which they want their career to go. Thinking long term is an important part of the initial conversation an author should have with their agent as you want to be on the same page, and while of course that path isn’t set in stone, it’s a good idea for an author to have a general vision which she can share with her agent at the beginning.
I still believe in the old-fashioned way of growing an author–book by book, review by review, and fan by fan. And to that end, an agent’s job really begins after she’s helped edit the book and placed it with a publisher. It’s her job to then foster a relationship between the author and the editor, and in turn that editor’s publicity and marketing department, which means making introductions, setting up meetings at the appropriate time before publication, and actively participating in the outreach (either blurbs or advance reviews/conferences/festivals/film contacts/bloggers etc) along the way.
With long-term thinking in mind, an agent also has to work strategically alongside the author about what book two (or three or four) is going to be. That can sometimes involve a tough-love conversation when an agent doesn’t think that follow-up book is strong enough. I once heard an editor say (rather glibly, I might add) that everyone can write one good book but it’s the ones who continue to write better and better books that separate the good from the great. I don’t think that’s the case. I certainly can’t write one good book and I am guessing neither can she (those that can’t, teach and all that), but it is something that writers struggle with.
Read MoreA number of people have asked me to talk about what an author should do to raise awareness for their book for WU’s Inside Publishing month. This was asked in the context of “…if there are not a lot of marketing dollars in house to support said book,” but I think the answer to what you should do to support your book is the same for authors with huge marketing plans and those with modest ones.
Honestly, there is rarely the kind of money or manpower that you want/expect/desire in any publication so it’s always good to be prepared to do some heavy lifting. In fact, many of my authors, upon their second book’s publication, have said to me that they wished they’d had a better sense of the playing field the first time around as they would have done more, but that they also had to go through it to get to that kind of understanding. So, I am going to try to outline what you can do to be your best advocate in the hope that it sheds some light.
Be a squeaky wheel. I am a big believer that it never hurts to ask. You may have been turned down for certain marketing dollars, but those budgets are decided many months out. Closer to publication, it’s worth going back and asking for other things like online advertising, a blog tour or a flight to a well-attended conference or seminar. Hopefully you will be working closely with an agent who can help you decide what makes sense to push for. While you may not get everything you ask for, you are not going to get anything if you never try, right? So squeak away!
Make your editor your ally. I can not stress this one enough nor tell you that this is the first thing all editors say to me off the record when I ask them what they wish they could tell authors. Your editor is your in-house champion and your lifeline to all the major players within the publishing house (marketing, publicity, publisher, sales) and if you sabotage that relationship, you are really hurting your chances as he or she will be less likely to go to bat for you.
If your fiction has a non-fiction hook, publish as many op-eds as you can.
Read MoreMy client Allison Winn Scotch recently wrote a terrific post about her experience moving to self-publishing from the traditional model. We’ve both received many questions from agents and authors alike about the agent’s role in that process, so I thought, as her representative, I’d tell you more about it from my point of view.
Allison and I have worked together over the course of 4 books and 3 houses, so coming to the decision to self-publish her 5th novel was very much a mutual decision made over the course of many conversations between us. It was Allison who ultimately made the choice to go that route, and I endorsed and supported her decision, which was made after speaking to many within the industry and also after much consideration over what we both wanted for her career and her books.
Of course, I wasn’t sure what my role in the process would be – this is the great unknown for agents right now. After all, I wasn’t shopping the book or negotiating on her behalf with a publishing house. I spoke to several agents who have self-pubbing arms within their agencies about what was involved in setting that up at Weed Literary, and truth be told that part of the business didn’t interest me. Neither did the idea of commissioning someone who was self-pubbing. I love the job of agenting. I love finding that gem of a book in my slush pile. I love connecting with editors and getting to know their tastes. I love shepherding books into editorial shape, matching authors with editors and shaping careers. But hiring copy editors and jacket designers and printers and the rest of it held no appeal.
Read MoreI’ve posted about the author-agent relationship here on Writer Unboxed, and have come to the end of the cycle…parting ways with your agent. As someone who has been fired well and fired badly (it’s happened to every agent I know) I’d like to share what I humbly think one should do and not do.
First Step: Reconsidering
First, ask yourself why you want to part ways with your agent. If it’s just that your agent hasn’t been able to sell your book, that might not be enough of a reason. Sorry, but it might just be the book. Or the market. Or the sad state of affairs of publishing–trends, bad track, etc…
So, take a step back and assess the situation.
And backing up farther
If the agent did their job in honing the book and getting it into the right hands, and the feedback was that the book wasn’t there, then it might be a case of needing to rework the project.
(I ask myself that question before I take on any new project. If I can’t sell something right out of the gate, is it a book I am so passionate about that I will be excited to work on it through several more iterations? If I am not, then I ultimately step to the side.)
Hopefully, after asking these questions, you will come to the conclusion that it might be a matter of shifting gears, and even more hopeful still, you will be able to do this gracefully, with your agent championing your new approach.
Second Step: The Tough Talk
Of course there are a million reasons I can think of to fire your representation. I have heard some horror stories (and would welcome anyone to share stories here as I think it’s worth having an open dialog.) I work with an author who came to me after her prior agent sat on her book for a year. Yes, one year, without reading it. That is a pretty good sign that you are not a priority in that agent’s eyes. Or the agent who just ignores, point blank your calls or emails. Not acceptable.
But what about when things aren’t so black and white?
Read MoreIn past posts, I’ve talked about getting an agent and choosing an agent. Today, I’d like to discuss maintaining a healthy author/agent relationship. I chatted with several agent friends of mine recently about what makes a good client and there was many an overlap. (Note to any Weed Lit client reading this. Most of these examples are from colleagues, not my own experiences… hence I am not pointing fingers :))
1. Send in Clean Copy*—I know there are agents out their who don’t edit (or, gasp, READ your work) but in my humble opinion, a good agent edits your work. However, we aren’t copy editors. If punctuation/spelling/grammar isn’t your strong suit, find someone who can read your work before you send it to your agent. A good client will have another reader in their life (a spouse, a friend, someone from their writing group) read behind them. It’s a sign of professionalism and just a general indicator that said client is thoughtful about his or her work and that what is sent in is as polished as you can make it. “I” asked a client recently to please send me her next novel and she said she wasn’t sending it until it was perfect and she could really knock my socks off. That was much appreciated. ***
2. Be Nice—This may be the most powerful thing a client can do for herself. You don’t have to be Pollyanna, or 100% agreeable, but a good client is pleasant to talk to, has manners and respect for other people’s time. This is not something that just affects the agent. “I” once had a client who was so unpleasant, demanding and negative that she not only put me off, but the editor as well. It’s one thing to frustrate your agent, but once you poison the waters with the editor, you are in trouble. Your editor is your in-house advocate–the person that will sing your praises from the rooftops to everyone from marketing and publicity to sales. Without her as your advocate, you are toast.
3. Be a Team Player—This kind of goes in tandem with #2 but a good client is ready and willing to work with her agent and, by extension, her editor and the rest of the team at the publishing house to make the book the best it can be.
4. Be Your Own Publicist—I have so much to say on this topic that I may devote a later post to it, but for the time being, a good client is someone that not only gets the importance of publicity but is also ready to roll up his or her sleeves to be a big part of the process. Sadly, publicity at publishing houses is not what it needs to be. Much of the work falls on the author’s shoulders, from following up with an in-house person to, frankly, securing publicity on their own. Some of “my” most successful clients are the ones who have gotten the lion’s share of their own publicity. Often times publicists are young, overworked, underpaid and inexperienced. And while the level of in-house involvement from publicist to publicist does vary from house to house (and “I” have had authors who have had good experiences with publicists securing press) the […]
Read MoreAfter weeks (months? years?) of querying agents and getting nothing in return but radio silence, someone has requested your manuscript and followed up with an excited call or email offering representation. So now what? I think the best way to answer this question is to use the knowledge I have from being on this side of the fence and put myself in an author’s shoes. What would I do?
First things first. After taking my husband out for dinner to celebrate the fact that, no, I am not crazy for doing this thing called writing, I would ask myself, Is this agent the best representative for my book?
The easiest way to gauge that would be to get on the phone with the agent and talk.
After thanking them for loving the book, I’d ask them if they thought it needing editing before going out to editors and if so, what that would involve. (Warning bells would go off if they told me it was perfect and we didn’t need to change a thing. I am a big believer in revision.)
I’d also ask them if they had an idea of what editors to submit to. (Again, warning bells would go off if they didn’t. Knowing who to submit to is at the very core of what we agents do, day in and day out, and having a sense of editors’ tastes and interests is crucial. If I am not writing a submission list in the margins of a ms I am considering, then I am probably not the agent for the book.)
[pullquote]Questions to ask:
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After our call I would reflect on how the conversation went. Do I have a natural rapport with this agent? Is she easy to talk to? Are we on the same page? Does she listen? This is a more organic gut feeling than any specific question can answer, but I do think it’s crucial. (This kind of thinking goes both ways, too. Switching to the other side of the fence for a moment, I’ve been in a beauty contest with an author and felt less enthusiastic about representation after the conversation, and thus happy that we had the chance to see if we clicked before deciding to move forward.)
And while it only takes one, if I were in the position of having several offers of representation, I would really take my time and talk to everyone and also ask the agent if they were comfortable having me talk to a few of their clients. This last piece of advice is a tricky, as I know other agents who would be taken aback by this. But if I was really on the fence, trying to decide between two people, I would want to know from the authors who worked with the agents in question what it was really like on an everyday basis; and if those agents said that they were, […]
Read MoreTherese here. I’m so happy to introduce you to our new semi-regular contributor, my own agent, Elisabeth Weed. Elisabeth–who is also agent to WU’s Jael McHenry and Allison Winn Scotch–is a wonderfully savvy and well-connected agent, who is constantly evolving Weed Literary. I know that the insights she’ll post here will be valuable to those seeking a traditional publishing path. Please give her a big welcome, and enjoy her first post!
I am thrilled to join Writer Unboxed, a blog I have greatly admired since I first started working with the lovely and talented Therese Walsh. I thought I’d tackle the agent’s perspective, over the next several posts, starting with how to best find one. In the coming month’s I’ll talk about everything from choosing the best agent to maintaining a healthy relationship with your agent to parting ways with your agent (yes, it happens and no, it doesn’t have to be unpleasant for either of you).
A lot has been written on finding an agent and I am not sure I can offer anything fresh or new, but I do think that some of the advice that worked well for my authors is worth repeating. In fact I just signed an author that I am over the moon excited about. But guess what? She queried me, didn’t hear from me and after she got an offer, followed up with me again. Guess where her mail was hiding? SPAM. But that’s for my next post on getting an offer and making a decision.
So, you’ve written a book and now you want to find an agent to represent it. Where do you go from here?
Do your homework: I find myself saying this a lot at conferences, but I think it’s worth mentioning again. Because there’s so much online these days, authors really have all the information they need for finding the best fit for their work. Join Publishers Marketplace. It’s $20 a month, and I will probably get in trouble for saying this, but I’ve known authors who have shared a subscription and split costs. You can also unsubscribe whenever you like. PM lists recently made deals by genre and includes the title, publisher and agent. Get a sense of who is representing what you are writing. Then go to that agent’s website if they have one and make sure they are accepting submissions and how. I’d add that because so much is online these days, it’s really important that you double check at the source of an agent’s website if you can. (I am on some older sites that track agencies and all the info is outdated. People who only go to those sites and not my website often query me with YA or non fiction, which I am doing very little of and not currently looking for.)
Read: Read books you think are similar to yours so you can really educate yourself on the marketplace and be on track when you compare yourself to an author. I know some agents aren’t fans of comps, but I disagree wholeheartedly. I can’t tell you how many times an editor has asked me during a pitch […]
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