THE CALL or, What to Ask a Literary Agent When Offered Representation

 

Given the nature of this blog and my general advocacy of doing research and making informed decisions about literary agents,  I've long wanted to do a post on  THE CALL, THE E-MAIL or, What to Ask a Literary Agent When Offered Representation.  I can't speak from experience yet, but I can give you the list of questions I've been creating for myself.  And we can discuss! 

A couple notes about the questions before I continue.  Depending on the agent, I might already know some of the answers and therefore wouldn't bother asking those questions.  I also expect a lot of these questions would run together and be cross-answered naturally, so while it seems like a lot of questions, I don't think I'd have to ask them all word for word.  At the bottom, I'm listing out the posts that helped me develop my list.

***

What do you think of my work?  What are the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript?  Do you think it will stand out in the marketplace?  How ready is it?

Are you an editorial agent?  If so, to what extent?  What are you thinking in terms of revision?  How collaborative are you?

Will I be working solely with you, or will there be times I'll work with an associate or assistant?  If so, please elaborate.

How many clients do you have?  Are you confident you have enough time and energy to add another client to your roster?  If it's not already full, how many clients do you wish to have on your list eventually?

Do you represent clients book by book or on a career basis?  Are you confident that we have a great chance of making a career-long match?

Will you work with me on career planning and marketing?  Do you work with a publicist?

How much of my genre do you handle?  What's your approximate success rate?

What happens if you can't sell this manuscript?  What if you don't like my future projects and ideas? 

Would you still support and represent me if at some point I wrote outside of my current genre?

Do you have a plan for submission in mind already?  Which houses/editors do think will be a good fit for this project?  How many editors do you plan to submit to initially, and how many do you plan to submit to overall if it does not sell as soon as hoped?

I know it varies, but what is the expected turn-around time for an editor during the submission process?  How long will you allow a project to languish before you'll nudge?

How open are you with information during the submission process?  Will you keep me updated as rejections and offers come in?  Will I know exactly who you're submitting to at all times?  Are you willing to share the rejections with me?

What is your preferred method of communication?  How often are you in contact with your clients?  How soon can I expect an answer to any given e-mail?  How about a revision or new project?

What are your business hours?  When do you prefer to be contacted?

Do you have a verbal or written contract?  What do the terms and agreements include?  What is the duration of the contract?  If it's written, would you be willing to go through it word-for-word with me if I felt that was necessary?

Are there any situations where you'd make decisions on my behalf? 

If for some reason we need to part ways, how will this be handled?  Are there any stipulations I should be aware of?  For what reasons would you terminate a client?

If a situation should arise where you are no longer able to represent my work, do you have a plan for me?  Or will I need to seek new representation on my own?  What if I'm in the middle of the submission process?  How would I proceed?

How are subsidiary rights handled within your agency?  Would you say your agency is strong in subright sales?  Do you see potential for my project in this regard?

What are your commission rates?  Are they the standard 15% domestic and 20% foreign/film?

What is your procedure for processing and disbursing client funds?  How soon will I receive my share when payments are received?  Do you keep different bank accounts for author funds and agency revenue?  Will I receive a 1099 at the end of each year?  Will I have full fiscal disclosure upon request? 

Will you be billing me for any submission costs (supplies, etc)?  If so, what should I expect?  How will those costs be charged to me?

How long have you been an agent?  What do you love about it?  Dislike about it?

Generally, what do you expect of your clients in a given year?  What do you feel makes for an ideal agent-author relationship?

What are a few of your recent sales? 

What if another client and I approached you with a similar idea?  How would you move forward in that situation?

Would you allow me to contact a couple of your clients?  Specifically, one you've sold at least one project for and one you you've yet to sell for?  What about publishers you've worked with?

Do you belong to any organizations?  The AAR?  Are you listed on Publisher's Marketplace?  If so, do you report the majority of your deals to them?

What questions do you have for me?

***

Here are the posts that helped me develop my list:

"Preparing for THE CALL" at Writers Musings.

"What Can I Expect of My Agent" at Editorial Ass.

"How to Interview a Literary Agent" at Writing for Children and Teens.

"Getting THE CALL" at Rants and Ramblings of a Literary Agent.

"Questions to Ask an Agent" at Rants and Ramblings of a Literary Agent.

"Before You Hire a Literary Agent" by Michael Hyatt.

"Questions to Ask a Potential Literary Agent" at Squidoo.

"Questions to Ask Literary Agents" at Quill Driver Books (reprinted from the AAR).

***

What do you think?  Do you want to discuss any of the questions?  Add your own?  Talk about your own experience with THE CALL?  Please do!  Also, if you're interested in writing a guest post about your experience interviewing one or more literary agents before hiring one, please e-mail me. 

Thoughts on 2009 & 2010

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking abut 2009 and 2010. What happened? What have I learned? What do I want out of this next year?

The answers have been somewhat surprising.

This time last year I was eight months pregnant and anxiously (miserably) awaiting the arrival of my second baby, Dresden, wondering how it was going to affect my life, my family, and my writing.

My goals for 2009 were centered on the desire to get something ready for submission, to overcome weaknesses, improve my blog, and generally just survive as a mother of two.

I feel like I failed in my writing goals, for the most part. I didn’t write anything I was comfortable querying, nothing I loved enough to polish, and rewrote the first half of one novel so many times it would make you puke.

But some wonderful things did occur this past year. I started Agent Spotlight and my blog sort of blew up. I joined SCBWI, Publisher’s Marketplace, spoke with agents who loved what I was doing, had people interview me (1, 2, 3), and became thoroughly ensconced in the writing and kidlit community. Not to mention had that baby (late!), got married, became a reader for a lit agent, and yes! survived as a mother of two, and managed all that I wanted to manage and more.

Despite not achieving my main writing goals for the year, there’s a lot to celebrate there, so I’m dubbing 2009 “The Year of the Blog.” Lit Rambles has been a vehicle for much love and success, and 2009 has been absolutely amazing if I stop and try to count all of its blessings.

And all of you are among those blessings! That’s a lot!

For this next year, one would probably expect me to keep on trucking towards the goals I didn’t achieve in 2009, and in some ways I will, but there is something that is going to set the pace of 2010, and there are some things I’ve realized that will really affect my goals.

Things, things, things.

This year I find myself anxiously awaiting something come January again. Not a baby, thank goodness, but school.

Yes. I’m going back to school, continuing my education. And I find myself pondering the same questions. How is school going to affect everything? Can I manage? What will suffer?

Family, House, Work, School, Interning, Writing, Blogging, Spotlights, Reading, Critiquing, Networking, Socializing, and so on and so forth, and all those other things that happen in a natural year.

That’s what I’m looking at having to manage in 2010.

I have a feeling something is going to fall to the wayside or have to go away completely, if not more than one thing, and it’s not going to be my family or house, of course! But what? I can’t imagine letting any of that go.

So I’m not going to just yet. I’m going to remain optimistic and see how I handle it all, but there are some things that do need to change slightly. Namely, my attitude, my main goals, and one of my blog features.

See, in all this thinking I’ve been doing, I realized something big. I went about my writing goals all wrong in 2009. I was focused on word counts and finishing and submitting and succeeding. It was all hurry, hurry, more, more, now, now and I lost sight of the goals that really matter to me.

I honestly don’t want to publish just to publish. If I’m going to do this, I want to publish novels that I love absolutely and can get behind 100%, novels that mean something to people, that matter. If I can’t do that, consider me out of the running. I don’t think I could handle the pressures of being a published author under any other circumstances. And as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think I can write those kinds of novels yet, YET, but I AM happy to know this about myself.

Which brings us back to goals.

I have to stop focusing on word counts and getting to the finish line and get back to focusing on craft and quality. I have to stop all this hurry, hurry, more, more, now, now and go back to being satisfied with the slow, steady climb to my cloud of dreams.

So, my friends, I won’t be focusing on word counts this year, I won’t be doing writing challenges, and I won’t be doing NaNoWriMo. Yes, that means I won’t be doing Wednesday’s Words either. It’s been an amazing tool this past year, and I appreciate every one of you that has participated and encouraged me, but I’ve decided it's not what I need anymore. However, if you'd like me to keep posting WW for you, I’d love to do that, and I’d love to keep encouraging everyone that has been a part of WW in the past. Just let me know in the comments. I might put it up occasionally, anyway, to keep you updated on my writing.  I just won't be keeping track like I was.

So… after all that, what are my goals for 2010?

1) Manage school with everything else.

2) Learn to prioritize better.

3) Focus on craft and quality.

4) Be a source of support and encouragement for all of you.

5) Allow this writing thing to take as long as it needs to.

Now, how about you? Have you given much thought to the past, present, and future? Have you considered that you might be focusing on the wrong things, and letting the rush, rush get to you? What did you learn in 2009? What are your plans for 2010?

Please answer one or all these questions or tell me something else entirely. After reading my (long) ramblings, I’d love to know what’s on your mind!

Finding My Niche

I've been thinking about my writing in terms of where it started, how far it has come, and where I want to go with it (working on that career plan of mine.) It occurred to me that I've tried my hand at adult fantasy, young adult fantasy, middle grade fantasy, historical romance, literary fiction, mainstream, and poetry. I've heard this is a great way to discover your writing voice and what you enjoy writing the most, but for me it's been more about finding where I belong.

Now, I'm fairly certain I'll always write fantasy, but I haven't discovered where my voice fits best within the genre. I think I enjoy writing MG more than anything but I prefer to read YA and/or adult fantasy novels. So I'm just not sure. I tend to think you should write what you like to read, at least, there are many benefits of doing so, so I'm hesitant to delve into this MG novel I'm trying to outline.

As I pondered this, I began to wonder if a lot of other writers try their hand at various genres, whether to find their voice and/or genre, or if they just immediately "know" where they belong based on what they read or what they first started writing.

And now I'm curious, why do you write what you do? Have you tried other genres? Are you certain you are writing where you "belong?" Please humor me and my constant posing of questions.

: p

NaNo: Day the Tenth

Not much going on today. I wrote nice and early and may write more later. I'm getting closer and closer to that halfway point (43%!), which is very exciting.

If you're looking for some writerly encouragement and advice on goals, make sure you stop by First Edition. Kelly Krystal is going to be hitting her 50k today! That's 50k in ten days people! Wowsa.

Also up for your consideration is an article called "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Authors." The article offers some great advice, some of which can be used towards NaNo (see habits one and two,) but it's really geared towards developing a successful writing career in general, and seeing how NaNo does end (tell me it really does) focusing on the larger picture is always better.

The fifth habit, "Have a Plan," was a particular eye-blinker for me, one of those oh yea! moments. While I don't have an agent, publisher, or personal publicist yet, ahem, I'm largely lacking in the career-plan department. So, how does one do this, this "plan" thing? What does it entail?

I. Have. No. Idea.

Though I think it boils down to having goals and sticking with them. I do have goals, er, a few.

So tell me, do you have a career plan for your writing career? What does that entail (if you don't mind sharing.) Maybe we should put our heads together and come up with some general ideas for a writer-specific career plan.