# How to become an agent?



## Aqua Buddha (Apr 2, 2011)

How does one go about becoming an agent for fantasy authors?  Is a certain educational background required?  Must a person start out in another position first?  Is any sort of licensing mandatory?

Also, are agents usually limited to a specific genre?


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Apr 2, 2011)

No education required. No other positions required first. No licensing for the job, not federally or in any state!

Welcome to the only profession in the USA dispensing both legal advice and financial management with no oversight, no licensing, and zero educational requirements.  

Basically, anyone who wants to can set him or herself up as an agent by saying "I am an agent", generally but not always accompanied by setting up a website and getting the word out to writers via the web, Twitter, and the various in print agent listings (those range from free to list in to a moderate fee).

The best part is, once you set yourself up as an agent, you will be seen about equally with almost all of the other agents out there doing the job. You won't get the same specialty treatment as those agents actually known by face/name by editors in their genres, but almost no agents or agencies have that cachet anyway. So submissions you forward will get plunked into the same staggeringly large pile as the ms. sent by the thousands of other agents also sending their clients' work.

Sound grim? It is, a little. The good news is, if a writer has a friend (or even spouse with a maiden name) who decides "I am an agent" one day to help the writer out, those works won't be any worse off than a work going through any other agent most new writers can acquire, anyway. (Most new writers cannot acquire a high end agent, one whose name can actually do them some good in terms of getting the book read faster.) If the 'agent' reads a book or two on contract and copyright law, then s/he knows as much about contracts as a largish percentage of the agent crowd does, too.  =/  (Again, NOT talking about the experienced, names-known agents who know their stuff, here.)

The bad news is, with no training, no formal or informal education in the field, and no special contacts, most folks who launch an agenting business are offering writers literally nothing that the writer didn't already have. I'd rather have no agent than have one of these people. They net you nothing, and cost you 15%.


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## Ophiucha (Apr 2, 2011)

Which is why any writer with some sense does some research into their agent of choice and finds one with some book sales and a legal or literary background before sending their manuscript to them blindly. If you want anyone to respect you as an agent, I'd suggest taking English and Law courses at your university and familiarizing yourself with the industry. Learn as much as you can, see if you can help a few friends get their works in magazines or anthology, and work your way up. Many people tend towards larger agencies, as well, with a few agents in the employ, since they tend towards filtering out underqualified applicants. It isn't a perfect industry, but it is still a necessary one for any writer looking to get a good start.


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## Ravana (Apr 2, 2011)

Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> You won't get the same specialty treatment as those agents actually known by face/name by editors in their genres, but almost no agents or agencies have that cachet anyway.



Yeah… only the successful ones. 



> Welcome to the only profession in the USA dispensing both legal advice and financial management with no oversight, no licensing, and zero educational requirements.



Heh. Well, it probably isn't the _only_ one–unless you mean agents in general, not just literary ones. Though I'm sure there are "consultants" of whom that's true as well. They do have to be a little careful when it comes to giving legal advice, depending on the jurisdiction; on the other hand, the odds of a client actually suing for legal malpractice are infinitesimal.

An agent is a salesperson, like any other: ultimately, success depends on the energy they put into their work and their ability to schmooze. If you don't think you could sell cars, vacuum cleaners, or Amway products, you wouldn't make a good agent, either. The ones who are making real careers of it _will_ have developed contacts at one or more publishing houses–likely through real-world, face-to-face meetings, say over drinks at writing conventions (schmoozing)–which are eventually reinforced as the agent sends them progressively more of the kind of manuscripts they actually _want_ to read (even if they reject them… long as they're "close"). The best agents will have learned the tastes of multiple publishers and will be able to target a manuscript where it's most likely, in their experience, to be accepted, complete with a cover letter telling the submissions editor _why_ they ought to give it a serious read. 

And the worst will take your manuscript, repackage it in a fresh manila envelope, send it unread to whichever publisher is next in alphabetical order, and write the postage off their taxes.

On the flip side…:



> Most new writers cannot acquire a high end agent, one whose name can actually do them some good in terms of getting the book read faster.



Bingo. If the agent doesn't know you, you'll need to make it through _their_ slush pile. (Solution? Go to writing conventions–and schmooze with the agents.  )

I would guess–though I can't speak from experience here–that you will find a reasonable split among (successful) agents, between "specialists," who handle only a few related types of manuscript (probably more than just a single genre), and those who handle a broader range… though I would also guess that you'll find very few individual agents who will handle _any_ genre whatsoever. Maybe agenting companies would, but I can't imagine an individual handling everything from mystery fiction to geopolitical history to marine biology to how-to-improve-your-golf-swing. And if you find someone who does, it's a safe bet they'll be among the ones you don't want to work with–because they'll be the ones who don't bother reading the manuscripts they receive. Hell, even _I_ have genres I'd be unwilling to read through.… 

There's one other indispensable "key" to success as an agent–a reasonably obvious one, though I'll mention it for sake of completeness: you need to have authors sending you their work. Yes, you can just hang out your e-shingle and wait for thirty-thrice-rejected tripe to flow in; if you're serious about doing the job, though, you'll actively solicit authors every bit as much as you will publishers, at least until you manage to get your first few into print.

In fact: for anyone who's serious about dealing with (i.e. reading) self-published e-books, I'm sure there's an opportunity there in wading through them, locating the few as-yet-unrecognized gems, and approaching the authors with offers to agent their stuff to publishing houses. I'd guess it'll break roughly even between those who are so overconfident about their work that they think they'll never need an agent (or even print publication… or who believe self-published e-books will be able to compete viably with publishing house e-offerings), and those who'll be amazed and flattered you think highly enough about something they considered marginal that you'd be willing to put yourself to the trouble. If the latter also happen to retain the rights to distribute their work in any other format (not all "self"-publishing licenses allow this!), then you're good to go. 

And if you don't do your homework, and approach an author who already is in print publication, you'll look like an idiot… and your target will tell all their author (and agent, and publisher) friends about you–as they do now, whenever they come across a new disreputable agent or publisher. Believe it or not, these people _do_ communicate with one another, now more than ever thanks to the internet. (I hope everyone saw that lovely "meltdown" thread; if you didn't pay careful enough attention, go back and try to figure out how many of the posters–the earlier ones, before the pile-on hit full swing–were part of the industry.)

I'm also sure I'm not the first person to have thought of this, so if you do want to do this, you'd best hurry–before _that_ market gets flooded.


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## Kevin O. McLaughlin (Apr 3, 2011)

Actually, there's building evidence that a number of good agents (and some publishing houses) are indeed "scoping out" the indie published ebook stocks, looking for good books to snag. Anecdotally (I haven't actually gathered hard numbers on this) it seems to me like more self-published books (or more often, the writers of those books, for their next works) have been picked up by publishers in the last six months than had been in around the last ten years. There's always been a trickle of these, but the trickle seems to have become a steady flow, increasing enough that I think it's moving toward being a trend. We'll see.

It makes sense, from the publishers' perspectives. There are literally thousands of indie published books out there selling well - like, "on track to sell at least a few thousand copies this year" sort of well. A book selling that well is a golden opportunity, because it's already proven: there's an audience, a group of people reading the author. It's almost a no-brainer purchase for the publisher.

The main snag is really working out a deal that benefits the author enough to make them want to sell the rights. If a book is on track to sell enough copies to interest a publisher, then that 70% author royalty is large enough that a publisher could have a hard time offering enough of an advance to interest the writer.

One thing to keep in mind: publishers want both formats now. It's almost impossible to sell only print rights to a publisher. If you're one of the top couple of writers in the world, sure, you might be able to manage it. But even "normal" bestselling authors cannot sell just print rights to publishers. Writers: that makes keeping BOTH sets of rights under your control key, if you self publish. Self publishing really means "I am taking the files and uploading them to Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, and either Createspace or Lightning Source myself". If someone else is uploading those files for you, then a) they are getting the money first, taking a big chunk of it, then giving the rest to you and b) there might be considerations on those rights which could interfere with you being able to sell rights to a corporate publisher, later. Keeping options open is a good thing.


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## Ravana (Apr 3, 2011)

Kevin O. McLaughlin said:


> Actually, there's building evidence that a number of good agents (and some publishing houses) are indeed "scoping out" the indie published ebook stocks, looking for good books to snag.



And to recapture control of the market. (Naah, they'd never think like that; guess I'm just being cynical again.…  )



> One thing to keep in mind: publishers want both formats now. It's almost impossible to sell only print rights to a publisher. If you're one of the top couple of writers in the world, sure, you might be able to manage it. But even "normal" bestselling authors cannot sell just print rights to publishers. Writers: that makes keeping BOTH sets of rights under your control key, if you self publish.



Right… which also means that if you _don't_ have control of your e-publishing rights, it will be far more difficult to get picked up. As with anything else, read that contract carefully, and know what you're agreeing to.


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