I’ve read a lot of blogs this past week written by agents about writers, so I thought I’d write a blog from an author’s point of view about agents. I’ve been in this business twenty years, which is a while. I’ve experienced a spectrum of agents, editors, publishers, genres, etc. etc.
First, I received only a couple of responses when I ran an informal survey about author training. Not a single editor or agent made a comment. I constantly see agents and editors on Twitter posting observations and comments. Many also have blogs that attract a lot of traffic and comments. I always find it fascinating at conferences how agents are surrounded by attendees as if they hold the ‘word’. I’m currently on my 4th agent. I ‘let go of’ my first three.
Were they bad agents? No. All 3 are still in business. So why did I move on? A combination of factors. The first one was on me: I never had a strategic plan as a writer. So when I went to my agent and asked for career advice they couldn’t help me that much because I didn’t tell them what my specific goals and plans were. An agent can’t tell you what you should do. They can advise you how to achieve your goals and how to make the best possible—and feasible—plan. This is one of the reasons I’m teaching my Warrior Writer program. Actually, Force One of my nine Special ‘Forces’ in Warrior Writer is WHAT: setting goals.
Some interesting factors on the Myers-Briggs, which lists 16 character types. First, INFJ is labeled author. The exact opposite, ESTP, is promoter. Big problem for many authors. Second, ESFJ, is seller (read agent). The exact opposite, INTP, is an architect. I would think you need an architect type personality to ‘design’ something large, like a career. So while an agent could be a great seller, they might not be the greatest designer of careers. I think it requires a synergy among all parties to do this. Another thing I teach in Warrior Writer is to do an author ‘dissection’: find an author whose career path you wish to emulate, then study what they did. Many successful authors did exactly this.
Another factor was emotional. All agents said essentially the same things to me. The issue was my reaction. I would get off the phone or finish reading an email or leave a meeting and most of the time I wanted to throw myself off a bridge. I just felt so negative. It was a result of our interaction. Not their fault or my fault, it was just the way it was. A relationship with an agent is an emotional one. I was waiting outside the Flatiron Building in NYC for my agent a couple of years ago. We were supposed to go in and discuss my writing books based on the TV show The Unit. The ‘deal’ had been verbally discussed and we were there to lock it down. My agent got out of the cab and told me the deal had died on the cab ride over as Fox wasn’t releasing the character rights, etc. etc.—who the hell knows? But I didn’t feel like stepping out into 5th Avenue traffic when she told me this. I can’t explain why, but it’s the dynamics of the relationship.
Which brings me to this: because this is the entertainment business, the fate of your manuscript begins to be determined by the reaction of your agent to it. Most writers just want an agent—any agent. But a bad agent is worse than no agent. Not ‘bad’ in terms of them as agents (although they do exist) but bad in terms of an agent that believes “well, maybe I can sell this” versus an agent who believes “I love this manuscript and want to sell the heck out of it”.
Enthusiasm counts. If that agent can’t communicate that enthusiasm to the editor, the editor can’t do it in-house and so on.
Bottom line: pay attention to your feelings as much as your thoughts when dealing with people in this business. It is indeed, the entertainment (emotion) business (logic).
