A More Perfect Union:

Rights and Responsibilities in the Author-Agent Relationship

By Jim Hornfischer

[Originally published in The Writer, October 1997]

       “There ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it, and I ain’t agoing to no more.”

        —from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Volumes have been written on the discipline and craft of getting published, the frequent first step of which is pursuing a literary agent. But as anyone knows who appreciates the maxim “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it,” less has been said about what you should expect after an agent has expressed interest in taking on your work. If like Huck you thought it was more than enough trouble just finishing your manuscript, think again. The solitary business of writing, like the single life, acquires harrowing new dimensions when the longed-for Significant Other finally appears.

This comes home to me every time a writer grows guarded and suspicious at the very moment he (at last!) has reason for optimism. I will call to say how much I like the book, that I think I can get in published, and that I would like to represent the writer. And sometimes I will be met with a raft of new questions: Just who is your agency again? What have you sold lately?—the very questions a writer might have investigated before the query was ever made. The hesitation is understandable. Any number of horror stories—some of them even true-are circulating about the misdoings of agents and publishers. The idea of joining forces with a voice out of the fiber-optic ether can be intimidating—especially to those who don’t have a clear understanding of what the merger entails. This article briefly lays out what to expect once an agent expresses interest in representing you, and your first hurdle is thereby cleared on the track to publication.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to expect genuine enthusiasm for your book. I often describe publishing as a circular chain of enthusiasms. A writer gets jazzed about writing a particular book and puts together a good proposal (nonfiction) or writes, revises, and revises some more a complete first-draft manuscript (fiction). He contacts an agent, who gets excited about the book’s potential and sends it to an editor, whose day is made by the outstanding submission and acquires the book for his firm, whose sales reps go crazy over the project and sell it aggressively into the stores, whose clerks fall in love with it and recommend it to customers, who buy the book and rave about it to their friends, whose purchases show up in publishers’ computers and catalyze future book contracts for the author. For a book to succeed—to sell well enough to earn out its advance and then some, to bring in additional rights income, and to stay in print for many years—each of these exchanges must take place without a hitch. Failure at any juncture-between you and the agent, between agent and editor, between editor and sales force, between sales force and book store—can torpedo a book before it ever leaves harbor. What this means to you is this: If you are yourself justifyably and genuinely excited about your own book, it’s likely to be contagious. If you have approached reputable agents who work on commission, not fees, you can assume that any enthusiasm they express arises from confidence that they can place the book with a major house, earn a square commission, and start a relationship with the best kind of writer around—a saleable one. Your horse sense will tell you whether the enthusiasm is genuine. It’s the key to everything.

You have the right to fully understand the contents of your agreement with the agency. The urge some writers feel to sign any darn thing an agent puts in front of them, so lucky they feel to have representation, is understandable. It should be resisted nonetheless. When the agent comes calling, take a deep breath and put your feet up. Realize that anyone who is offered a contract—say, you—holds some power. Use it. Ask for any changes to the agreement that you feel are necessary. Clarify any points that need clarifying. Show it to your lawyer. The worst contract is one that’s not understood. Be sure your contract specifies exactly what it governs—when you start out, one-book agreements prevent you from being bound long-term to an agent you don’t work well with or who isn’t working hard for you. After the relationship is seasoned through several publications, longer-term agreements are more common. The contract should specify how you may terminate it. Ours states, basically, that the writer can terminate with written notice if we are unsuccessful in placing his project within six months of our initial submission to publishers. As anxious as you may be for a way in, keep an eye open for your way out.

You have the right to know where your work is sent. If the agent has properly expressed his enthusiasm for your work, he may already have mentioned to you some publishers he considers likely customers for it. (On the other hand, if you’re behaving noncommittally and other agents are in the picture, he might not relish doling out free know-how early in your discussions.) By the time the project is ready for market, you should have a conversation about how he plans to handle your book. Make sure you see a copy of his pitch letter and the list of houses and individual editors who will receive the work. This serves more than idle curiosity: If down the road you need to change agents—not all agents are successful every time out and many writers choose to move on to another agent for a fresh start—you’ll need to know who has considered your work and when. And it will be ethically incumbent upon you to tell your new agent that your work has been to market already.

You have the right to know all the terms of a publisher’s offer, whether unacceptable or not. I don’t know of many good agents who intentionally keep their clients in the dark about the status of their submissions. This is especially true when money is on the table. The agent’s reason for being, after all, is to drum up and handle offers of publication. His first order of business, then, is to call you anytime a publisher whips out the check book. You might want to include a reference to this obligation in the author-agency agreement. If your work hasn’t shaken the publishing world, your agent may not be eager to call you with the bad news of multiple and sundry rejection. He may simply be waiting for some positive news to break before giving you an update. But if you must have a status report, no matter how grim, ask for an update. You’re surely entitled to one.

You have the right to be kept up to speed on what publishers are saying about your work. Some writers I know create magnificent murals out of the rejections letters they receive. Others just file them with a mute sigh of satisfaction that a No is just another step along the road to a Yes. No matter how you respond to rejection, you have the right to get from your agent copies of the letters, if for no other reason than to document that the agent has tried to do something for you. You may find these letters useful. Editors are often more forthcoming in their rejections to agents—they want the agent to know they take their agented submissions seriously. From these letters, which are sometimes candid, sometimes your basic "not for us" boilerplate, you can glean insight into the market. Or at least some distracted, overworked New Yorkers’ perceptions of the market. You have the right to continued counsel from your agent after the deal is signed. Even some of the best agents in this business have a tendency to cut and run when the deal is signed, leaving to underlings the day-to-day business that arises on the slow boat to publication. This business might include reviewing your draft manuscript prior to the publisher seeing it (some agents insist on this as a precautionary measure), offering advice about jacket art, marketing budgets, tour schedules, and dealing with your publicist. Agents at larger firms often delegate this kind of interaction, and if you’re comfortable with that, fine. Just be sure you understand how the agency works before you come on board. At other agencies, usually the smaller to mid-sized ones, the principal will be your point person from contract to bound book. I consider this an advantage of working with a smaller agency. However, if it’s of greater value to you to work with the agency which represents, say, John Irving, no matter who they let you talk to on a daily basis, you may be willing to accept different treatment.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

Rights come with duties. Since working with an agent is a partnership of sorts, if not on paper then surely in practice, the agent needs your assistance as surely as you need his. Here’s a brief rundown of what agent expect from client.

Be absolutely cheerful about making changes to your work that the agent feels will help it sell. A good agent won’t ask you to turn your staid literary masterpiece into a tawdry bordello-opera. Nonetheless, since he will be well acquainted with how editors approach new projects, you should listen to his considered suggestions and put them into practice as effectively as possible. Recognize, however, that at submission stage your only goal is to place the work with a publisher. What you submit for actual publication months later can often reasonably differ from what you submitted for acquisition without anybody noticing.

Stand prepared to do whatever is necessary—and possible—to promote your book. Publishers today are delegating to authors the task of selling their books to ever more preposterous degrees. It is no longer enough merely to write. One must also promote, sometimes to the point that a publisher’s sales force seems more like an order-taking operation. This means preparing yourself to give compelling radio or TV interviews, or do readings at bookstores and other venues. A controversy has arisen in these pages regarding the extent to which an author should be expected to buy books himself. While a commitment to purchase several thousand copies may make a publisher smile more broadly upon a project by lowering unit costs and covering some overhead, few authors in my experience can do this. Clients of mine who have the capacity and inclination to self-promote more commonly buy a few hundred books and keep them in the trunk of their car for whistle-stop tours of their area codes. An institutional client I have is able to place orders in five-figure quantities, and at a large discount that gives the publisher very little gross margin. But by and large, authors are expected to help out in promotion only to the extent they’re able. It is the quality and commerciality of the book itself that drives publishers to acquire them, not the author’s personal financial position, no matter how nice an icing the latter makes on the cake.

Avoid Becoming a Client from Hell. In Jeff Herman’s Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers & Literary Agents, agents profiled in the appendix sound off about what qualifies a writer for the above moniker. Variously their reasons include: frequent phone calls with no compelling useful purpose, perpetual dissatisfaction with the world at large and with the publishing world in particular, ingratitude for the work of others, delusions of grandeur and editorial and commercial infallibility, and ear drums that become suddenly brittle whenever good advice is offered. This we all learned in kindergarten: treat others as you would be treated yourself. In eleven years in this business I’ve seen more than one talented author with a big contract and a bright future become so insufferable to deal with every day that editors and agents simply refused to work with him, no matter how good his books. I call it the Life’s Too Short Principle. Few good agents will work for long with someone who doesn’t in some way make it fun to be in business together.