Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 29th Edition: Who They Are, What They Want, How to Win Them Over

Praise for Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents

"Nothing beats Jeff Herman’s Guide."

— Jack Canfield, coauthor, Chicken Soup for the Soul series

Jeff Herman has done a service to every writer who wants to make a living in this business. Every author should have a copy on their shelf.

— Chip MacGregor, literary agent

Everything you need to get started.

— Cheryl Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of Stand Up for Your Life

"Jeff Herman’s Guide remains the Rosetta Stone of writerly success."

— James Broderick, PhD, Bookpleasures.com

I got my agent by using this guide!

— Meg Cabot, New York Times bestselling author of The Princess Diaries

"When you get to the ‘finding the agent’ stage, check out Jeff Herman’s Guide. I found it very useful because it gives more background on agents. Keep in mind that publishing is very personality driven."

— Emily Giffin, New York Times bestselling author of First Comes Love

"I sent my proposal and sample pages to ten agents selected from Jeff Herman’s Guide and was shocked to receive interest from three of them. I celebrated when I signed with an agent and again when my first book was sold."

— Jacqueline Winspear, New York Times bestselling author of Maisie Dobbs

"Here’s my two cents: I used Jeff Herman’s Guide. It includes a huge list of agents, interviews about what they are looking for, and useful info on big and small presses."

— Kristy Woodson Harvey, author of Lies and Other Acts of Love

"If you are only going to get one book on this subject, Jeff Herman’s Guide is the one I recommend. When I was looking for an agent, this was the book that showed me how. The only thing is, you have to do what it says."

— Marie Bostwick, author of Between Heaven and Texas

Also by Jeff Herman

Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why

(with Deborah Levine Herman)

Copyright © 2023 by Jeff Herman

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, or other — without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Page 334, An Editor of One’s Own: Original article copyright © 2007; 2014 revision copyright © by Marlene Adelstein, Linda Carbone, Ruth Greenstein, Alice Peck, Alice Rosengard, Katharine Turok, and Michael Wilde

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Index by Carol Roberts

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

First printing, January 2023

ISBN 978-1-60868-788-6

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-789-3

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10987654321

I dedicate this edition to everyone

who thinks about writing a lot of the time.

CONTENTS

Introduction | Jeff Herman

Part 1. Advice for Writers

Introduction: Perfectly Imperfect Advice and Random Thoughts | Jeff Herman

Why Do You Want to Write? | Jeff Herman

Literary Agents? | Jeff Herman

Editors? | Jeff Herman

Publishers? | Jeff Herman

Write the Perfect Query Letter | Jeff Herman and Deborah Herman

Pitching to Agents and Editors (aka Trolls) | Jeff Herman

You (Might) Belong in the Slush Pile (or Elsewhere) | Jeff Herman

The Knockout Nonfiction Book Proposal | Jeff Herman

Platforms: No Writer Left Behind | Jeff Herman and Deborah Herman

When Nothing Happens to Good (or Bad) Writers: aka Ignored Writer Syndrome (IWS) | Jeff Herman

Secrets of Ghostwriting Success | Toni Robino

The Sleep Wars | Jeff Herman

The Writer vs. Power | Jeff Herman

The Writer’s Journey: The Path of the Spiritual Messenger | Deborah Herman

Tribulations of the Unknown Writer (and Possible Remedies) | Jeff Herman

Post-publication Depression Syndrome (PPDS) | Jeff Herman

The Business of Writing | Jeff Herman

Traditional Publishing and Self-Publishing Five Years from Now | Jeff Herman

Creativity Exercises for Writers | Jeff Herman

Part 2. Literary Agents

Introduction: Planet Literary Agent | Jeff Herman

The Listings

Part 3. Publishing Conglomerates

Introduction: Publishing Conglomerates (aka the Big 5) | Jeff Herman

The Listings

Hachette Book Group

HarperCollins Publishers

Macmillan Publishers

Penguin Random House

Simon & Schuster

Part 4. Independent Presses

Introduction: Planet Independent | Jeff Herman

The Listings

Part 5. Freelance Editors

Introduction: Editors vs. Scammers | Jeff Herman

An Editor of One’s Own | Members of Words into Print

When to Call the (Book) Doctor | Sandi Gelles-Cole

Trust and Perfect Fit | Michael Wilde

The Listings

Acknowledgments

Glossary

Index

Advice for Writers

Publishers and Imprints

Agents and Agencies

Independent Editors

Publishers, Imprints, and Agents by Subject

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

Welcome back, or welcome for the first time. This is the 29th edition of a book I’ve been producing since 1990.

Much has changed, and much has remained the same, since my journey in publishing began in the early 1980s. Dozens of long-lived independent publishers have either disappeared or been absorbed into a numerically tiny oligarchy of multinational, trillion-dollar multimedia conglomerates, while few start-ups have emerged to take their place. Digital publishing and online shopping have disrupted physical retailing. The ever-evolving nature of social media is opening exciting new doors for self-publishers to the extent that traditional publishers are finally paying attention. The impact of the seemingly permanent Covid-19 pandemic has still not been fully measured. Last but not least, fewer published writers are able to quit their day jobs while a tiny fraction of a fraction are receiving high six- to seven-figure advances.

There’s also an abundance of encouraging trends. Millions of Americans from all backgrounds and conditions are writing with as much passion and determination as ever. As mentioned above, self-publishing has earned a seat at the table, and countless writers who have been unceremoniously locked out by the traditional model now have comparable options. While the literary agency community has confronted its fair share of challenges and cullings, hundreds of dedicated independent agents are still tenaciously helping dreams come true. Perhaps most important, many more people are buying and reading books. The trend is especially strong in the middle reader and young adult segments. Catch them when they’re young.

In the beginning, more than three decades ago, my primary motivation for doing this book was to give writers indispensable information that was otherwise cloaked from them per archaic customs. It seemed that the screening process was unduly influenced by factors entirely separate from merit. Those who were fortunate enough to be from certain communities, to have attended certain schools, or to have the right connections, were more likely to get published on the basis of access, not talent. If access to the process wasn’t fairly distributed, it followed that the opportunities were effectively rigged and that countless excellent works weren’t seeing the light of day. Self-sustaining inbred hierarchies spawn cultural polarization. My vision was, and still is, to give writers the largely sequestered information about how the industry works, the names and contact details for more than a thousand decision-makers, and maps for bypassing predictable obstructions.

Finally, I view myself as both a teacher and a student. Nothing anyone says will be correct every time, nor can anyone predict every result before it happens. Strive to be summoned and inspired by what you don’t know and to be curious about anything that feels too obscure or difficult. Your thoughts might seed remarkable solutions and opportunities. Please use whatever you learn here as a place to begin and explore, not ground upon which to settle.

Jeff Herman

Part 1

ADVICE FOR WRITERS

What You (Might) Need to Know about Publishing, Even If It (Not You) Is Boring and Stupid

INTRODUCTION

PERFECTLY IMPERFECT ADVICE AND RANDOM THOUGHTS

Jeff Herman

Except for a few hiatuses, I have been in the book-publishing business since the early 1980s, when I was in my early twenties. I entered the business without any forethought. I wasn’t an avid book lover or English major. My primary mission was to be respectfully employed in a Manhattan skyscraper where people wore jackets and ties and performed seemingly important tasks. That was my projection for postcollege success, and I imagined it as glamorous and exotic. Reality was a hard, slow grind compared to the glorious images painted by youthful endorphins and innocence. Getting what we wish for tends to be easier than wearing those shoes once we arrive.

August 1981. I saw an ad in the subway showing a happy white man in a suit holding up a copy of the New York Times. Out of his wide-open mouth streamed the words: "I got my job through the New York Times!" So I bought the Times every day and answered countless blind ads for entry-level office jobs in various fields. One day, someone with a harried high-pitched voice called to schedule an interview. I showered and showed up on time in a decent suit. I had an okay haircut. I said little and tried to smile and nod on cue. The college placement office trained us to emphasize how motivated we were to be loyal, reliable, low-maintenance team members. But I always felt like an idiot when reciting the script, and I hoped it might be enough to shut up and avoid looking insane. The only question I recall was if I could start the following Monday (it was a Friday) for $200 a week (it was 1981) as a publicity assistant. It was a very short interview.

I said yes and showed up on Monday feeling like I had landed on another planet. I soon learned that my recent predecessors had been short-lived disasters. I hoped to be at least that good. The office was an open area jammed with desks without borders and endless cubicles of various sizes jammed against walls, some with windows. Nobody looked especially happy or sad, just poker-faced, busy with phones, papers, and typewriters. They do this all day? was my first thought. I soon learned that yes, this happened all day, five days a week, and that it would happen to me, too. On the other hand, I’d had a taste of hard labor between college classes and over the summers, and I didn’t miss it. My ancient beat-up desk faced a customer-service person just a few feet away. There was a single telephone anchored equidistant between us, and accessing that phone became my first lesson in office competition. We never articulated our mutual frustration, at least not to each other, but our mounting physical aggression for phone domination caused papers to fly in multiple directions. Finally, my boss successfully requisitioned a dedicated phone for me, and the CFO made it clear that I better appreciate the special accommodation.

It was a small independent book-publishing company with a compelling catalog and history. I was second-in-command of the firm’s two-person publicity department, which entitled me to do the filing, phone answering, and typing — none of which I knew how to do before doing it. I knew nothing about publishing or what the job entailed. My most important attributes may have been a calm persona and an apparent willingness to follow orders. My complaints, which were legion, were confined to my headspace, and I kept showing up on time. I soon learned what a big deal that was, and that almost everyone is replaceable.

The above vignette sums up how publishing and I hired each other. I tell it because people often ask how I got into the business. But there’s a larger reason. I didn’t have a plan or fixed direction, yet I arrived somewhere and made decisions every day that followed, as we all do. Looking back, I think it’s okay to not know what we want or where we are going in order to achieve our purposes. When I was young, a wise man told me that man plans, God laughs, and I have subsequently heard that phrase many times. Frankly, I had to grow into understanding what that meant, and I frequently question it all over again. Perhaps writers shouldn’t overplan what they write or will write. For sure, they can’t fully control what happens to their work after they write it, short of destroying it.

One final comment: I became an agent before knowing what an agent was and before I was qualified to be one. Importantly, I didn’t know I was unqualified nor did I ever exaggerate my background. Nevertheless, good authors retained my services. Such things probably happen more than we know, and it is a universal lesson. My primary motivation was to prove to certain people that I didn’t need to listen to them in order to succeed. I’ve since learned how common that is.

Because it can be useful to consider what others know about your chosen endeavors, I have generated this section of the book. Read what you will with absolute discernment. Not all of it is for you, and all of it is imperfect — same as you and me. My only promise is that something in this body of work will be almost perfect when it finds you.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO WRITE?

Jeff Herman

Iused to be surprised by the volume of poorly conceived projects that routinely crossed my desk. I no longer am. This partly explains why the vast majority of submissions are rejected with little consideration. I used to also be surprised by the number of poorly written books that succeed. I no longer am. This means you don’t need to overly worry about your editorial skills if you are writing something a lot of people want to read.

Amorphous concepts and unfocused expression negate editorial talent. Good writing won’t hurt, but neither will it help as much as you probably think. Agents and editors won’t hold good writing against you, but they only acquire books they think will sell. Excellent writers comprise a large percentage of unpublished writers, and for reasons only they are accountable for. Good storytelling doesn’t require good writing; functionally illiterate writers can write beautiful stories. Similarly, the conveyance of useful information combined with a high marketing IQ and good timing doesn’t necessitate good writing.

Passion is a writer’s most powerful ally, but it entails unique challenges. It must be sustainable and carefully managed, or burnout and mental depletion will be its frequent sibling. Raw passion often disables the brain, and the results range from muddled to incoherent. Don’t get me started about unreadable manuscripts purporting to be channeled (isn’t everything channeled one way or another?). Why couldn’t they channel a dead freelance editor? I could have referred some. A mind without a brain is like an unfenced racehorse. When a mind falls in love with its brain (a mysterious mass of tissue, blood, and chemicals), dangerous things can happen (good things hopefully).

Wanting to write and knowing what to write need to be in harmony, eventually. In the meantime, writing can shapeshift without permission or warning and sever the writer from best-laid plans. Vaguely familiar shadows take command. Has the writer been hijacked or set free? Freud postulated there’s no freedom in the absence of self-knowledge. Are we owned by formless masters who cloak our souls and steal our days? Perhaps the call to write is a way out and a way in, depending on where you are. Pyramids are built upon subterranean tunnels and foundations. Start below and work your way up.

Any process that deepens sensitivity and provokes thought will expand your tool kit. But be careful not to mistake the process for the product. Fear is the universal link to quiet desperation, but it can be where deliverance begins. Narcissists can enthrall millions of fans and attract millions of dollars, but their broken egos will never feel sated, safe, or connected to anything that’s real. They are destined to fade without ever knowing why they were here.

Creation and its rewards are in the air we breathe, and stories that stick are about people we know. Plots will turn to dust if not anchored to relatable passions, personalities, and struggles. Perfect stories may enthrall the writer’s mind but cannot come alive unless the film is processed. Characters need souls even if destined to be lost. Furious writing can feel like a rocket to Alpha Centauri, but lucidity prefers solid ground. Writing doesn’t have to feel good to be good. It’s not a vacation but an immersion. If painful writing doesn’t kill you, it will heal you.

Hollywood often shows creative people at work while manic, drunk, or stoned. I think such images are bullshit. You might feel good and productive while your mind is dancing with the Man in the Moon, but I suspect those who boast about their debauched working styles are just trying to look cool, and they are actually stone sober when writing what counts. Judge for yourself. Finally, if you take prescribed medicines for your mental health, you shouldn’t go off your meds when writing. Feeling more creative doesn’t mean you will be more creative.

Granted, writing can be a slow form of torture. Why do so many of us choose to do it? Maybe for the same reasons parents change dirty diapers, or why people own cats, whose litter boxes stink up their tiny Brooklyn apartments. We mortals often elect to do yucky things, even die, in order to pursue higher purposes. Or maybe we are mindless conformists who follow each other into the abyss. Either way, if you see yourself as a writer, just do it.

Herman Melville was a critical and commercial failure while he lived. His works were published by the best journals and publishers of his day; getting published wasn’t his problem. Yet he lived and died broke, frustrated, and obscure. Not until several decades following his demise was he transformed into one of the most important novelists in history. Why? Plausible explanations exist, but anything can make sense in retrospect. What none of the so-called Melville scholars dare say is We don’t know. Why did Melville sacrifice huge pieces of his life and livelihood writing massive manuscripts without knowing the outcomes? You may know the answer based upon your own experience.

Not all compulsions are vices, and some are a means of survival of another kind. To be who you are might defy what others perceive as reasonable. But you don’t have to answer to those to whom you owe nothing. Writing on spec doesn’t even qualify as a calculated risk. The time it consumes can be unbearable. It’s a leap that doesn’t necessarily attach to faith. What the heart desires isn’t sensible, but following it is.

It’s good to study successful writers’ skills and styles, but what’s even better is to learn their struggles. Proven techniques can help push a manuscript to contract. But learning how to cope with what doesn’t happen is how you will survive and rise. Wise mentors know that you can’t chase a dream without the ability to run through mud and fall on your face. They did it more than a little and saw that it was okay.

Writing only to write and writing to publish need not be a house divided against itself. On the contrary, each aspiration can nourish the other.

LITERARY AGENTS?

Jeff Herman

In fairness to those who don’t know what literary agents do, I’ll provide a thumbnail sketch. Most traditional publishers have zero protocol for dealing with unagented/unsolicited submissions (Uns). Their policies can be summed up as a refusal to acknowledge that the submissions exist.

The above situation is the primary reason why agents exist. Agents are the de facto screeners for publishers. Agents accept and consider unsolicited submissions for representation (the submissions are presumably unagented, but not always). Agents cull thousands of raw submissions to discover the few that, in their subjective judgment, might be eligible for prime-time publishing. When it happens, they will sign the writer as a client and pitch the work to prospective editors. In turn, editors willingly give quality consideration to agented submissions for the simple reason that they have been prescreened. The potential results justify the time.

This suggests that the road to publication routes through agency representation. Though there are many ways to access publishers without representation, it’s far better to be represented. The primary reasons are enumerated below.

•Agents have access to decision-makers (editors). Few Un writers can achieve equal access.

•Agents know which editors at which publishing programs are appropriate for the work in question.

•Agents can provide crucial advice on how to optimize the work’s commercial prospects.

•Agents understand publisher contracts better than most lawyers and can effectively negotiate key language items. More importantly, they know what contract language can be revised, and what parts rarely matter and aren’t worth disputing.

•Agents are familiar with current best practices regarding advances, royalties, and subsidiary rights.

•The agent can be the author’s dedicated advocate regarding any issues with the publisher throughout the life of the publishing contract. And they can preempt or diffuse conflicts.

•The agent can help the writer with book marketing strategies.

•Most agents work entirely on a commission basis (usually 15 percent) and don’t charge fees. An agent’s financial success is dependent upon their client’s success.

•The agent can help authors decide what to write in the future.

•The agent can help facilitate translation, film, merchandise, and several other ancillary rights deals.

•The agent can educate the client about publishing’s insider customs and culture, and how to deal with editors and other key people for the best results.

•Agents, unlike editors, are usually self-employed or partnered with a small number of fellow agents. Agencies that employ several agents still tend to be small businesses with no function besides agenting. In most cases, the agency and the agent are one and the same. Agencies are not part of massive multinational publicly traded corporations.

What Agents Can’t Or Won’t Do

What follows is generally known by insiders. Once you become part of the community, you’re likely to learn at least some of these things through direct experience, or by listening to war stories from those who’ve been to the rodeo. Until then, what’s said here might help you avoid common mistakes, misconceptions, and disappointments.

Agents are not lawyers and won’t represent your interests in the same ways. When you retain a lawyer, it may be assumed they have no undisclosed agendas or conflicting interests that might interfere with their commitment to you. If you assume this standard applies to agents, you would be mistaken.

The agent’s first obligation to their clients is to pitch their work to publishers. If an offer is received and accepted by the author, the agent is expected to negotiate the best possible terms and contract. If after signing the contract, the publisher is in breach, the agent will most likely push the publisher to cure the breach. So far so good. But noncontractual issues and disputes might not receive the agent’s full support. Keep reading.

Let’s say the author doesn’t feel enough is being done to market their book and is insisting the publisher pay for a multicity media tour. Well, unless the publisher is obligated to do so per contract, they are free to say no without legal consequences. In practice, if the publisher feels the investment will more than pay for itself by selling more books, they can be persuaded to say yes. But in the absence of such confidence, it’s unlikely the publisher will do more than offer the author a few dozen free books for pitching media on their own behalf.

Let’s say the above lack of support makes the author mad, and they demand that their agent do something about it. The agent’s leverage will be no greater than their ability to convince the publisher that the investment will prove to be in their own best interests. Otherwise, the publisher will most likely say no. Now what? Maybe the writer will tell their agent to not accept no as an answer and to not abdicate until the publisher relents. Then what happens? Unless the author is crucial to the agent’s bottom line, the agent will carefully assess best-case/worst-case scenarios for themselves first, and the author second or not at all. There are relatively few publishers to do business with, and it generally makes zero sense for an agent to burn bridges with any of them, which includes the editors they work with at each house. What if the agent has other clients published there? What if they want to continue doing business there? What if they want to avoid a gossip-fueled reputation as difficult to work with? Frankly, editors are also the agent’s clients, just in a different way. And what editors say about a particular agent can be more important than what writers say. Chances are, losing the client will make more sense for an agent than losing the relationship with the publisher, especially if the publisher’s resistance is reasonable. If the client jumps over their agent’s head and unilaterally lobbies the publisher to reverse a decision, the agent might need to cut the client loose to protect their larger interests. There’s nothing deceitful or unethical about such scenarios. Authors shouldn’t expect their agents to self-immolate themselves, especially for lost causes.

First and foremost, agents represent themselves and will avoid being held in contempt by publishers. If a meaningful contract point is at stake, the agent should make a stand and the publisher should respect them for it. Sometimes, a publisher might advise the agent to stand down even if the client is in the right, and that brings the gray zone we all sometimes find ourselves in. Some agents will choose to absorb the implied threat and not abandon the client. Others will make other choices. An experienced author will usually know how far their leverage extends with both their agent and their publisher. An author’s best strategy is to expand their leverage by expanding their value in the eyes of their stakeholders.

How to Get an Agent

Getting an agent is complicated and simple at the same time. As a category, writers are a commodity that agents cannot exist without. However, the commodity is overly abundant and of uneven quality. While most agents welcome unsolicited submissions (unsolicited means no one invited you to show up), they typically reject 98.5 percent of what they receive; it’s not unusual for a single agent to receive 10,000 submissions a year. The math creates a huge imbalance in power that greatly favors the agency community, but the math progressively shifts in stages. For instance, some agents are much more open to new clients than others, and a large percentage of the referenced 98.5 percent of rejections are absolute nonstarters even if screened by Scooby-Doo. Disclosure: He has interned for me and never rejected anything.

Legitimate agents only want to represent work they feel they can sell to publishers, which puts the absurd odds of getting an agent in more perspective. The massive rejection ratio also reflects an even more intimidating gauntlet: publishers’ rejection ratios. Agents don’t like getting rejected by publishers any less than writers do. Commissions are not based on how many clients an agent has, but on the basis of how many works they sell to publishers and the terms thereof. Further up the food chain is the huge pressure editors contend with. Their careers will deflate faster than a punctured blimp if they routinely nominate works that fail to float.

All communities that comprise the publishing matrix ultimately occupy a unified ship appointed to struggle with unknown variables and outcomes for every decision made or not made. Each turn of the wheel, deliberate or not, unavoidably puts egos, careers, and financial survival at risk. Don’t resent or envy agents and editors for the power they seemingly have over you and your aspirations. In reality, their apparent power is a mountain of burdens they never cease climbing and descending for as long as they choose to remain in publishing. Have empathy for the fierce battles they wage on behalf of your dreams. They cannot live their dreams unless you live yours. Like any human family, we are bound together with ribbons of love, hate, fear, and joy. Our shared triumphs are energized by our divisions. As long as we all continue to do what we do, the story will keep being written by what we do. Our orbits are destined to clash, but that’s how new constellations are made.

Agents aren’t in lockstep. There are several hundred of us, each with a distinct editorial focus and human face (be nice). Agent Jane Doe might reject the greatest romance novel ever written for the simple reason she never represents that category. John Doe might reject the same masterpiece even though he represents romance, only because he failed to see its magnificence. This tells us at least two things.

1.Do your homework and only target agents with a demonstrated interest in what you write.

2.Don’t give up because one or more agents reject your work. All editorial decisions are made by inherently flawed biological entities, not AI, and agents have very disparate tastes and sensibilities even within the same editorial categories. That explains the popularity of oral histories about how many agents and editors (the numbers tend to expand with each telling) rejected certain überauthors and books along the way to their manifest destiny. In 1990, the proposal for the book in your hands was rejected at least two dozen times. I only needed one publisher to see what I saw, and the same goes for you.

This book has a dedicated section where 108 agents discuss in first-person detail what they are looking for and reveal actionable inferences about themselves. Your next task is to make a list of all prospective agents who editorially align with your work. We’ll refer to this as your pitch list. What you do with this data might determine your future as a professional writer.

You’re a confirmed writer by virtue of the fact that you’re still reading this chapter. Your goal is to become published. But even if you’re published (congratulations), you’ll still benefit from what’s to follow. Writers, especially fiction and children’s writers, tend to see themselves as artists. That’s fine, but it’s not enough. Publishing is a for-profit business that won’t deliberately sacrifice its own needs on behalf of what some might deem to be art. Your work might be an astounding thing of beauty, but unless it appears to be profit-eligible no one will publish it. Conversely, your work might not have anything to contribute to the cultural advancement of society, but if it oozes cha-ching, it’s relatively likely to be published. A glance at publishers’ catalogs shows that most books trend toward the middle of the above extremes.

It’s incumbent upon the writer to respect that publication isn’t an entitlement, but something to be earned. Some earn it fast, others more slowly, but one way or another, it’s earned, not granted. You might not have a head for business, but you can acquire a business mind. We generally assume our mind is encased in our brain, but it has never been established where it resides. That is why everything is more than it seems, and why some see more than their peers do. Ironically, publishers are notoriously below average in terms of business. But if they were smarter about the rules of money, they wouldn’t be in publishing in the first place. That said, it’s universally understood that more money must come in than goes out, or else we are all out. If a writer fails to grasp this fundamental principle, they are flirting with a volitional form of serfdom. Should you be a sellout? If it means writing editorial products people will pay for, please be a sellout. But that crown of thorns shouldn’t be an issue. If your work is outside the pale of what anybody wants, you’re writing for an audience of one and shouldn’t expect to be financed by the sweat and toil of others.

Every move you make when selling your work must be done in a commercial context, beginning with the pitch letter. The legions of writers striving to be published create the literary equivalent of a relentless food riot. In predigital days it meant that agents’ offices were stuffed from floor to ceiling with unopened letters and stacks of packaged manuscripts. I recall my postal worker saying he wouldn’t miss me if I moved; I didn’t take it personally. Now we enjoy the good fortune of infinite clouds where everything is stored and cataloged for our convenience. Thousands of years from now, future societies or visitors from outer space will parse our digital Milky Way and wonder about our obsessions with food, diets, relationships, and talking to dead dogs and cats. In the shorter term, spunky adversarial nations might irretrievably crash everything we’ve stored, though little will be missed if all personal debts are also purged.

The way you craft your pitch letter will either land you in a saturated realm of serially rejected writers or bind you to a rocket ship named Yes. The boundary between these realms is porous, and there’s continuous migration in both directions. The chapter Pitching to Agents and Editors (aka ‘Trolls’) gives solid advice about how to craft your pitch. Here I focus on the process of pitching.

Each agent is a distinct universe with their own peculiarities. In other words, we’re real people, not soulless institutions. We all parse the same industry data and cultural trends, but we interpret it in accordance with who we are, and we see the future in similarly diverse ways. That said, we pretty much follow the same industry protocols. I’d say rules, but I don’t consider protocols to be at that level of gravity. Rules are generally defined by law, ethics, and common sense; anything else is a habit that can be amended or broken. The gist of this is: Even if some agents vomit over your work, it doesn’t mean all of them will be disgusted. It astounds me that people spend small fortunes for mammalian testicles with a special sauce, but who am I to judge? One person’s turd can be another’s fertilizer. Every once in a while, only a few of us so-called experts will see the encrypted brilliance within an otherwise misunderstood work, and so will a portion of the public. Rejection is a weightless decision without the power to make binding assignments. Resilience, tenacity, and faith are wings loaned to writers by angels so they may fly when the earth beneath their feet won’t sustain their weight.

Some agents will respond to your pitch with unexpected speed, while others follow clocks with dying batteries. Some never reply. It would be unwise to stagger your pitches one agent at a time. Pitching ten agents at a time is a sensible pace, and perhaps several more every two weeks until someone bites your hook and requests to see flesh. When that happens, the game shifts but doesn’t stop. Having a work requested doesn’t necessarily promise when, or if, it will be read. There’s a special category for withering hearts waiting in vain for their beloved works to enter the promised land. Don’t be beguiled by small kisses. Keep on pitching your work until someone offers true love in the form of a contract for representation. If a troll requests an exclusive review, by all means, grant it with a mutually agreed-upon deadline. One more caveat: Stagger your submissions. Each cluster of rejections is an opportunity to learn and revise your approach. Survivors know how to learn and evolve.

When the day arrives that your special troll (agent) offers you a place in the sun (representation), be grateful but not overly compliant. Initially, you were the beggar. But now the agent sees your value, and the seeds for a more equitable dynamic have been planted. If other agents who requested your work have not yet responded, let them know you have been offered representation and must make a decision in a few days’ time. If more than one agent wants you, you should interview them all. You’ll want to know their experience representing categories like your own; their estimated time frame for results; client communication preferences; and other things I’m not thinking of at the moment. You’ll also want to see their contract.

Agent personalities range from seemingly dormant to let’s be BFFs. What do you want, and what do you need? Does the agent need to resemble the kind of people you hang with or married? Without forethought, it’s easy to flow in that direction, so please invite your adultish brain to the process. This is business, and you need someone who will get the job done and be honest and forthcoming. Make that your baseline. Other components are mere vices. Sentimentality and profits rarely orbit the same sun.

Who Becomes an Agent?

Anyone who wants to be a literary agent can be. There’s no licensing, experience, or degrees required. The only prevailing regulations are the laws that apply to all businesses in a given jurisdiction.

In 1986, at the age of twenty-seven, I said I was a literary agent. Fourteen years earlier I said I was an adult in front of a large room of serious witnesses and was given a signed certificate confirming the same. In truth, I’m still learning how to be an adult. No one heard me say I am an agent, nor were there any documents to that effect. Instead, I formed a corporation, ordered stationery, and mass-mailed a press release via the US Postal Service. I applied my public relations experience to market myself wherever writers were clustered. I spent time in the library researching a huge reference book that listed hundreds of organizations dedicated to the craft and business of writing. Many of them had newsletters and scheduled meetings/conferences. I spent at least $1,000 mailing alluring information about myself and my willingness to hear from writers. Free advertising flowered like rabbits at springtime, and the queries overwhelmed my conventional mail slot. Eventually, big gray canvas bags were delivered daily by people who hadn’t signed up to strain their backs ascending three stories to my small sublet office. One day I agented my first book deal, but I had been an agency since the day I said I was.

Researching publishers was easy because in those days bookstores were everywhere in New York; all I had to do was shelf-shop to see who published what. I shelled out for a large expensive reference book named Literary Marketplace, which still beats today’s SEO for studying the business. My biggest frustration was the lack of a comprehensive source for the names and specialties of the acquisition editors at each house. The only available research method was to cold-call switchboards and negotiate with cranky operators to get routed to the correct editorial departments. Then I’d deal with whoever answered the phone and get the names and phone numbers of editors who might match my projects. It was time-consuming and humbling, but fruitful, and it showed me what unagented writers were dealing with. Once the editors understood I was a new agent, not a lost writer, they were usually willing to talk and answer questions. To my surprise, they would frequently invite me to lunch at company expense. And not just to corner diners (my usual domain), but fancy-ass restaurants where men wore ties and jackets and everyone was better mannered than most people I knew.

One day I had the idea to publish what I learned in a big book for unagented writers. Agents were usually happy to be in my book, but I can’t say the same for most editors. They didn’t want the general public knowing anything about them, especially how to find them. Being young and relatively unjaded, I published their names anyway and fielded some consequences as a result. I self-identified as an outsider and empathized with the hundreds of thousands of writers who were blocked from receiving reasonable access to the decision-makers and were clueless about literary agents. The few who went to the right colleges or had friends in high places could ride magic carpets directly to the right people. Everyone else was expected to take a hike. My purpose was to shine some light into hidden crevices and decode what felt like a secret society. Admittedly, attaching my name to the project was the cornerstone of my self-marketing strategy. That’s my story in a nutshell about becoming an agent.

Most agents start as in-house editors, which is ideal training. Their many tasks include interacting with agents, who in turn frequently offer them jobs. Oftentimes, veteran editors will hit a career wall, be laid off, or just need a change of pace, and agenting can be a comfortable way to land on their feet. They may join a multiagent firm or hang their own shingle. A common entry point for recent college grads is to start at the bottom rung of an agency, which entails handling the administrative tasks for the established agent(s). The common denominator that attracts people to agenting as a career is a passion for books and reading. At first blush, the job might seem more like a subsidized hobby than serious labor. But that’s a delusion harbored by the uninitiated. An agent’s daily tasks can be relatively tedious, monotonous, lonely, undercompensated, underappreciated, and boring. It’s up to the agent to push back against these maladies in order to maintain their creativity, flair, and passion for the job. I’ve observed that many agents sustain themselves until retirement, which suggests they’ve figured out how to successfully manage their jobs.

Predictably, most agents are based in the New York area, though many have migrated to New York from elsewhere. The digital age combined with the Covid pandemic has made it possible to be located anywhere, and many excellent agents have based themselves far from New York without losing a beat. Agents need more than adequate business, marketing, and negotiating skills in addition to a high editorial aptitude. An agent’s short-term goal is to make big deals, but only a fraction of deals usually qualify as big. The long-term goal is to consistently sign new clients and keep making deals regardless of the advances, and hope that many of them eventually become backlist cash cows. An agent’s commission stands as long as a book remains in print, which can be for decades. Same as established publishers, veteran agents probably derive most of their annual revenues from backlist commissions, even if the client is dead.

Fake Agents

Unagented/unsolicited writers are hungry and may not know how the business is supposed to work, which can make them easy prey for fraud. Fake agents generally reveal themselves in three ways.

1.They ask for money, maybe a lot of it, just to read your work. Then they request money to edit your work. Finally, they request money to represent your work. However, it’s doubtful that any of these fee-based services are being performed at a professional level, if at all. If a so-called agent asks for money, please go away fast. Real agents work for commissions (exceptions are described below). You should report unfortunate experiences to watchdog organizations such as the BBB, Writer Beware (run by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, www.sfwa.org), and the Authors Guild.

2.Fake agents run paid ads offering agenting services, which usually include absurd claims and impossible promises. The purpose is to lure you into paying for the alleged services, but what they’re really doing is turning unsuspecting writers’ dreams into nightmares, and charging them a lot along the way. The last thing a genuine agent needs to do is run box ads for submissions.

3.Fake agents might almost immediately tell you about an incredible publishing offer they procured for you before even signing you. You simply need to write a five-figure check to cover incidental expenses for production, editing, marketing, and advertising. Fake agents will come to you as the answer to your prayers. Real agents tend to operate at lower volumes and will hedge their promises.

Unfortunately, intelligent people fall for these scams much more often than you might think. I’m no longer surprised when I run into smooth scammers at very respectable writers’ conferences. Sometimes all of their expenses are covered, plus an honorarium, for them to lure victims. How? Because they deceived the well-meaning volunteers who programmed their local writers’ conference. I recall being at a conference where one of the main headliners was purged at the last minute after the organizers realized how many members the individual had already scammed for considerable sums.

Do these people get caught? Sooner or later the dam breaks and they are publicly exposed. However, more often than not, they quickly return under the guise of a new firm; I’ve even heard of people changing their identities. I guess prosecutions and civil suits are difficult, since the parties can just get up and go like an old-fashioned carnival.

Agent Swapping

Yes, agent swapping is a thing. However, from my perspective, it’s more often a problem for the client than the agent. If an agent can’t sell your work, does that mean they are the wrong agent? Not necessarily. For instance, if the agent pitched a dozen or more publishers and editors who are suitable for your work, your nonsuccess likely has more to do with your work than your agent.

Of course, there are good reasons to dump your agent, and most of them can be referred to as common sense: They have stopped responding to emails and phone calls. They ignore your requests