A recent blog post by a well known NY agent has created some heated discussion on the writers’ loops that I belong to. Without pointing fingers or naming names, I’ll summarize that the basic point of his post was that authors can’t rely on agents to read their contracts or guide their careers for them. Authors have to do it themselves. It seems like this is just the latest in a stream of recent post by agents that have a lot of indie authors scratching their heads and asking, “Wait a minute…if I have to read the contracts and negotiate on my own, and I’m not submitting work to traditional publishers… what do I need you for, again?” A good question.
Personally, I do have an agent. And I love my agent and honestly would not feel comfortable publishing – either traditionally or self-publishing – right now without one. Clearly there are bad agents out there, just like there are bad editors or bad authors, but there are also good ones who are worth their weight in gold. Why do I have an agent? Bottom line – because she makes me more money than I could make on my own.
1. She sells my ancillary rights. There is a lot of money to be made in ancillary rights. While I’m not opposed to going all indie with foreign works, I just don’t have time to get translations of my work made for every country. And, in some cases, the cost to benefit ratio is such that I’d rather go with a foreign publisher who pays a decent advance than shell out the money up front myself and gamble on the idea that my books might work for that foreign market. On my own, I would be clueless as to where to start subbing my work for foreign publications. Ditto audio. My agent has done an amazing job of fighting for great terms for me with audio deals. And, between her and my manager, we also have a TV deal in the works (can’t say much more about it than that yet). So, without her, I’d be losing a lot in ancillary sales.
2. She knows contracts. She looks over mine, she negotiates for me and ALWAYS gets a better deal than the one first offered, whether this has been in traditional publishing venues or indie ones. I know that publishers (traditional, foreign, audio) are more willing to negotiate with an agent – who has the perception of knowing her stuff – rather than an “insignificant little author” on her own. :) Having said that, I do read over every contract myself, go over every clause, and usually come back with some points I want changed even after my agent negotiates for me. But my agent is always happy to re-negotiate (or at least try to) for those clauses that give me pause. She has certain things she knows about contracts and is specifically looking for when she reads a contract, and I have the things I’m looking for as I read the contracts. So between us I feel like the contracts I’ve signed lately have a far less screwed-over-by-publishers feel to them. In fact, I actually feel pretty good about some of them.
3. She’s a career consultant. She has a big-picture approach to my career and knows that when my books are doing well – even my indie books – she’s going to do well, too. (I can tell you that she’s made more this year off of my ancillary sale for indie books than she has off my traditionally published books.) She has insight into what’s happening with the traditional publishers that I don’t, so we can make really good informed decision together about what the best route for me right now is, and what might be the best route in the future. She knows which publishers are supporting indie-crossover authors, which ones are open to print-only deals, and what my alternatives to going indie with any given book are. At the moment indie publishing is the most beneficial to my career, but I certainly want to be the first to know if that shifts or if tides in traditional publishing start changing. And I feel like my agent has her ear to the ground on my behalf.
I totally understand what a scary time it is for agents. Their roles are changing as author needs change, and it’s not always clear cut what those new roles are. I think a lot of the head-scratching blog posts we see from agents right now are coming from a fear of losing their place in the publishing world. But if they can change with it – like my agent has – I think they can still be very relevant and very needed. And still make a tidy profit as well.
~Gemma Halliday
BOND GIRLS – first book in a brand new series!
coming to Nook June 25th
releasing everywhere else July 25th
Gemma, you are so right “Their roles are changing as author needs change, and it’s not always clear cut what those new roles are. I think a lot of the head-scratching blog posts we see from agents right now are coming from a fear of losing their place in the publishing world.” As authors we have to do what is best for our careers, and sometimes that means getting an agent, and sometimes it means going it alone:) Great post!
I do want an agent for the younger children’s books I am writing. Mainly for the business side of writing, as I know I am not that good at communication and negotiating. My YA fantasies are only short stories so don’t need one for those, and I have a contract with an epublisher for my romance series coming up. The thing is that I know the publisher personally and she is a nice and honest person and I trust her to do right by me. If there came an instance that I felt I wanted more knowledge and help with something, I would prob contact our Society of Authors who deal with contracts and help for authors.
excellent points gemma, glad you wrote this, thank you
Thanks, Gemma! Great, informative post. It’s good to know that no author has to be all one way or all the other and that some authors and agents can make it work with a win-win relationship!
Gemma a good post – but this doesn’t work for everyone. I spent months reading up agents, checking out what genre’s they preferred – spent hours and hours writing, rewriting my query letter and at the end of this exercise – I received 120 rejections out of about 160 queries sent. A lot of agents weren’t bothered to reply. Other than two, the rejection letters stated the same thing. “We receive thousands of queries a day……..”
After a while, I was so disheartened and began to think my writing sucks – but hold on, no-one has even read my book or requested a partial. It was then in March when I went onto Amazon and chose the KDP programme. The first two free days, I did no promotion at all and had 500 downloads. The second two free days, a month later with some promotion, I had 10,500 + free downloads. After this promotion I am steadily selling 3 – 5 books a day. I have garnered 4 and 5 stars reviews. Okay my sales aren’t that great but at least I know some readers are enjoying my writing. Maybe with indies now, the agents aren’t receiving thousands queries a day. Yes, I would love an agent. But I don’t live in America or Europe where the agent will phone and discuss revisions etc. as it’ll be too costly to them. And yes, my only option was to self-publish.
Oh, I agree that there is no one-size-fits-all in publishing – now more than ever! But I will bet you that if your sales continue to do so well, you will have agents contacting you. And then you’ll be the one rejecting them.
It’s a very interesting thing when the tides turn that way. For YEARS I struggled to get an editor or agent’s attention. I’ll admit, I was starry eyed and put them on pedestals as the gods of publishing. I was shameless and probably downright annoying in my attempts to catch someone’s eye. But at some point I started doing well enough with readers, and the industry started changing enough, that the tides turned, and I now have editors and agents wanting to work with me. It’s a little surreal, actually. Cool, but surreal.
But it sounds to me like you’re doing the exact right thing for your particular career right now.
Great post, Gemma!!!
I liked what you said here:
“While I’m not opposed to going all indie with foreign works, I just don’t have time to get translations of my work made for every country. And, in some cases, the cost to benefit ratio is such that I’d rather go with a foreign publisher who pays a decent advance than shell out the money up front myself and gamble on the idea that my books might work for that foreign market. On my own, I would be clueless as to where to start subbing my work for foreign publications.”
It’s totally about what we’re each comfortable with, have time for and what works with our career goals and plans.
There’s simply no right or wrong. All that matters is that each of us feel like we’re getting exactly what we need for our career goals.
And wow, yes indeed, the “agent” role(s) is adapting into an entirely different arena than they’re used to working in and for.
I should add here too that I was agented for 3 years, but have made more A-mazing deals for myself in the last 18 months than my agent ever did…including foreign and audio rights, and I’m working on both TV and movie deals too.
That said, I do have the knowledge and time to make those deals so that’s why this approach is working for me.
If I didn’t have those two things, I might consider working with an agent again.
This is the question that to me each of us has to ask ourselves…the exact question you used, Gemma, for your terrific post today:
“What do I need you for, again?”
Thanks for this blog post Gemma. I know for my work, it may be best for me if I have an agent that can shop my middle grade novels to traditional publisher. I also plan to self-publish. After attending a conference and asking around, there are agents out there who are willing to work with self-publishers, so it’s definitely not an all or nothing world. Thanks for writing this post!
Ooh, love the look of Bond Girls! I can’t wait. And that’s terrific that your agent is able to do those things for you and supports your Indie career!
Thanks for the great post Gemma. I’ve recently signed with an epublisher for my first book, but am also seriously considering indie publishing for the future. It’s an exciting time to be a writer, and the rules around publishing are quickly changing. As we all continue to explore our options and gain confidence in our abilities (as with anything, comes with time and experience), perhaps more agents like yours will open themselves up to helping crossover authors. I would think this would be infinitely preferable, and more profitable, than sticking their heads in the sand wailing “the world is NOT round”.
So true, Debbie A great time to be a writer with so many options that just didn’t exist a few years ago. And everyday it seems to change! Everyone that doesn’t change with it is going to be left behind. Trying to keep up is exhausting sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!
Good post, Gemma. It sounds like you have a wonderful agent that is working hard for you and making you money. Someday I might have to ask you for her name.
Love the Bond Girls cover, BTW!
I don’t mind saying that my agent is Holly Root at Waxman Literary. Now, if I had bad things to say, I wouldn’t be naming names.
But she’s been nothing but awesome.
Great post, Gemma. I am so happy to have an agent I can trust with my work and career. I have two traditional contracts with Penguin, but I’ve also self-published a book on Amazon. When you say “indie” do you mean a self-published work? It never occurred to me to see if my agent could sell foreign rights for it.
Yes, I use self-publishing and indie interchangeable. Mostly because I’m lazy and “indie” is faster to type.
I think a lot of the lines between “indie” and traditional publishing will be blurring more and more as authors either go both routes, or agents can sell more ancillary rights. For example, a good friend of mine who has previously been all indie got a contract for audio rights for an upcoming book with an audio publisher. Which meant he suddenly had a deadline from a publisher for the first time in his life, even though he’s still technically indie pubbing that work in other venues. So, I think we’ll be seeing more and more crossing lines as publishers take notice more and more of these self-published works.
Excellent, well, balanced post. I think it’s important to be aware that some of the biggest names in indie publishing–like Konrath and Locke–DO have agents.
But those two agents who said authors are stupid if they trust their agents’ expertise on contracts were not only snarky, condescending twerps, they were also obviously very bad agents. Can you imagine a lawyer or doctor or plumber saying people would be stupid to trust them to do their jobs?
We have to do more work vetting agents than we used to. These days many agents are trained by working as unpaid interns for several years. If they can stick it out, they usually get promoted to agent. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re great at what they do. It means they’re rich enough to work without a paycheck for a couple of years.
Doing thorough research and asking clients about their experience is essential.
There are good and bad agents just the way there are good and bad publishers and good and bad writers. And one who’s great for one writer might be terrible for another.
But thanks for reminding us there there ARE good agents out there, Gemma!
How about a link to that blog post that inspired this one?
I would love to, but the agent has since deleted his post from his blog. But if you just google agents and indie publishing, I’m sure you can find several agents expressing their opinions on the matter.