What Literary Agents Do
Literary agents fulfill a crucial function in the publishing process. Here are the ins-and-outs on what literary agents do.
The literary agent filter
Because editors are so busy, it’s rare for publishers to consider un-agented submissions and they instead rely on agents to filter through the tens of thousands of aspiring writers and present editors with only the very best projects.
This means that agents open the floodgates to submissions. Most agents receive between 5,000 and 20,000 or more submissions a year and choose only a few carefully selected projects to send to editors.
Agents may specialize in certain areas, or they may be generalists, but all must reject way more projects than they can take on.
Pre-submission editing
Because the marketplace is so difficult, many agents will work with clients or prospective clients on their manuscripts or proposals prior to submissions.
A project has to really be perfect in order to attract a publisher, and so it behooves agent and author to work together to get the project or proposal as perfect as possible ahead of time.
Submitting to editors
Submitting a project to editors is both art and science.
The science: a huge part of being an agent involves networking, knowing which editors like what type of books, networking, keeping imprints and mergers and layoffs and hires straight, networking, keeping up with industry news and gossip, networking, and networking.
The art: An agent will handpick the best editors to consider a particular project, but an agent never quite knows who is going to respond the strongest to a particular project.
Then agents will also pester the editors they submitted to at regular intervals until they get a response.
Also, it's worth mentioning that every responsibility I've listed until this point, the agents have done on spec - they have received no payment for any of this yet.
Since agents only receive income if they’re able to sell a project, they could very well spend tens or a hundred or more hours on a project, send it to editors, and come up empty.
Negotiating offers
Hooray! An offer comes in!
Now the agent will help the author decide what comes next. There are different offers with different territories and terms, and, of course, the dollar amount of the advance varies. The agent's role includes negotiating the terms of the offer to increase its value, potentially organizing an auction if multiple houses show interest, and ensuring that they take care of all the details before the author agrees.
Negotiating publishing contracts
Some agencies have in-house contracts specialists, some agencies have agents to negotiate their contracts directly. All will negotiate an agreement that is far, far better than what an un-agented author will achieve on their own.
Keeping track of the publication process
An agent will follow up on payments and badger publishers until said payments come in, keep track of key dates, discuss marketing plans with author and editor, serve as a mediator between author and publisher in case any disputes arise, and keep on top of everything to make sure everything is proceeding as it should.
Sub-rights
In the offer stage, the agent will also attempt to maintain certain rights, such as film, audio, and translation, that they can sell directly. These rights can be quite lucrative, and if they’re sold directly, the author doesn’t have to split the revenue with the publisher.
Some agencies work with subagents to place these rights. Some, like Curtis Brown, have in-house film and foreign rights departments.
Career shaping
Even apart from the nuts and bolts tasks that go into making a book happen, an agent can help an author plan their career trajectory, whether that involves helping the author choose projects to pursue, thinking of new ideas for breaking them out to larger audiences, serving as a sounding board, brainstorming, keeping the author apprised of changes in the industry, and being an experienced ear and brain, helping the author navigate the business.
The ultimate advocate
Ultimately, the agent is the author’s advocate. They help the author become more successful and work tirelessly to advance the author’s career.
This is just a basic list, and there’s often more to it than this. It’s quite a catchall job, one that requires a long apprenticeship, time in the business, a strong work ethic, a good eye, and a passion for books.
Again—For these tasks, the agent earns income solely through commission; The standard commission is 15% for domestic book deals and 20% for foreign (split between the agent and subagent).
Eric Myers
submissions@warpspeedediting.com
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