An Agent Agent? Just Say No

Earlier this week I read an enlightening post at Jennifer Represents, the blog of literary agent Jennifer Laughran. In this particular entry, Jennifer posts a great mock conversation with her and an agent agent (which I won't reproduce her but I urge you to click the above link to read the entry), as well as the following, which I've included here to explain what an agent agent is:

Much more often -- every couple of weeks at least -- I get the same basic thing but in email form:

Subject Line: AUTHOR REFERRAL!

Hi Agent, I'm Random McNoname, and I'm writing to reffer [sic] my client Author Sapsucker to you. Sapsucker has a pHd in Neurocathology [sic] and 78 followers on twitter so he's the real deal. The manuscript is attached, I look forward to hearing from you by next week.

If you're not quite following, this is the gist: Jennifer is an agent. Authors need agents to send their manuscripts to publishing companies that won't deal with unsolicited submissions. Agents are easy to get hold of - they have to be, because their livelihood depends entirely on having authors to represent. Somewhere along the line, deceitful cunning people have created a new job, that of the agent agent - an agent that an author pays to find them an agent for their book. As if getting published wasn't hard enough...

Jennifer further explains:

These are what I call "agent-agents" or third-party queriers. They convince authors that their "services" are necessary to query (aka spam) literary agents*. Authors who are totally new and/or desperate will take the bait and pay, in the hopes that it will give them a leg up on the competition. 

But it won't give a leg up on the competition, all it will do is frustrate or anger the agent, cost the author a lot of money, and all but guarantee their work is rejected on the basis that the agent agent is causing problems. The agent agent works on the premise of 'if you throw enough mud at a wall, some of it will stick' i.e. hit up enough agents and one may show interest. As such, they don't take the time to research each individual agent and find out what books or categories they represent; after all, a rejection doesn't matter to them, it matters to the author, so they need no qualms about accuracy. Spamming an agent is the quickest way I can think of to alienate an agent - and the very last thing any author wants to do is alienate agents. If they remember the title of the author or the book, that can haunt the writer if they approach the agent directly after ditching the agent agent - we all make mistakes and act in ignorance, but agents can afford to be picky about who they represent and who is going to want to recommend someone who doesn't do basic research into the appropriate steps to take?

Remember, budding authors, agents represent authors. By virtue of that fact, they need to hear from you, get to know you, and communicate with you and you alone. Querying is a step that authors need to take for themselves, and authors are already being represented - by their books.

Querying can be time consuming and tedious, but it isn't hard. It's made much easier by agents, because they post visibly on their websites how to approach them and clear instructions on what to include with a query. Paying someone else to do that for you isn't just expensive, it's alienating. 

If you want to write, go to the language pool

In Stephen King's book Lisey's Story the main character's husband is a deceased famous writer, and in his books, lectures and every day conversation he mentions the language pool, 'where we all go to drink and cast our nets'. It's not immediately clear what this means, but as the book progresses it makes sense and King is nice enough to include a statement at the end that explains the phrase. In short, the language pool is the collected words and phrases we isolate from stories, articles, song lyrics, poetry and so on, to utilise at a later date.

I have mentioned before the importance of reading for anyone who wants to write - either for leisure or professionally - and the idea of the language pool takes that one step further. Not encouraging plagiarism, what it does encourage is taking inspiration from wherever we find it and not being afraid to use it if it will enhance our own work - and, of course, if you do use something verbatim then a full citation will keep you out of trouble and help others find the original work, which benefits the original author and their potential new fan(s).

The language pool is, to me, for each time you read a book and find a dazzling phrase that just makes you wish you could write like that. While we may have been taught to always be entirely creative and never borrow from someone else, the language pool reminds us that it is perfectly okay to do this, for nothing is 100% unique. What is unique is the stories and ideas, and these must remain so, but the language is no more unique than a song's notes - the order, construction and overall creativity behind each can be entirely your own, but just as an A chord in one song is the same as an A chord in another song, words are also shared in any piece of literature you come across. And by putting favourite words and phrases in the pool, when you cast your net you will remove something that was inspired by someone else but will become entirely your own, either through context, placement or by making a new phrase from new words. Imagine buying a set of Lego and adding to it some Lego bricks from a friend's collection; each time you put your hand in you will take out new pieces, some are yours, some are theirs, but you will not remove the deluxe bungalow they worked hard to create the day before, just as by putting the 12 musical notes in a hat and taking a lucky dip will not yield your favourite song.

Be creative, but take inspriation also. Devour literature and store new words and resonating phrases in your personal pool.

Whether you want to write or not, we all have a language pool - just don't be afraid to visit it.

So You Want to be a Writer?

A lot of people want to be writers - or at least, they think they do. Like all the creative arts, it has a certain appeal to many people for various reasons. But just like becoming a famous musician does not happen overnight and requires years of gruelling schedules and poor income, writers are not guaranteed success. As a continuation of last month's post by Lauren, this will be looking at the ups and downs of writing and the various ways in which you can write for a living.

Typically when someone says they want to be a writer the first interpretation of that from others is a novelist, and that is often followed with warnings along the lines of '98% of manuscripts get rejected' and 'most writers never make much money'. Both points are true enough, but being a writer doesn't start and end with novels.

When you enter the foray of writing you need to decide what you want to do. Do you have lofty ambitions of being the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, or do you just want to be able to earn an income by putting words to paper? The latter is a shorter, easier process. You can start writing in your spare time, selling short stories to magazines or writing freelance articles for newspapers, or approaching companies to be a copywriter for their adverts, brochures or websites. If you already have a job, you can use your knowledge and experience from that to write on that particular topic - you may find that pretty soon you're in demand to write for a collection of people or companies on your chosen topic.

If you want to be a novelist, the process is longer and much more difficult. Not only does it take time to write a full book, but you need to then sell it to a publisher. While it is true that 98% of manuscript submissions are rejected, you shouldn't get too upset over that; rather, make yours stand out. Most of the submitted manuscripts are very rough and require a great deal of work before they are ready to be sold to the market. So, take some initiative and hire an editor; they will sort out the content and format it ready for submission. Do your research on what publisher or agent to approach - there's no faster way to get rejected than to send a submission to a publisher that doesn't deal with your type of book. For instance, there's no use in sending a fiction book to a non-fiction publisher.

Whichever route you decide to take, make full use of the power of the Internet. As Seth Godin recently said, don't wait to win the lottery, build an army of readers who are willing to buy your output when you release it. Build a website, write a blog that you regularly update to generate traffic so people become aware of you. Register on Facebook and Twitter to reach a wider audience and utilise the option of downloads so people can get your writing straight away. You can even give it away and ask for donations, or sell it. If you give it away and make no money at all, you're still building that army, and that will be great leverage when approaching publishers: they will see there is already a growing market for your personal writing.

Writing can be a wonderfully rewarding vocation and there are numerous ways you can earn a living from doing it. So don't be intimidated by the prospects; instead, brainstorm some ideas of what area you want to venture into and then make an immediate start. There's no time like the present, as they say, and you may well be surprised by how quickly things take off.