Recently, I was chatting with a highly praised writer of fiction who mentioned to me that he never made a single literary move without his “commando unit.” The squad in question consisted of just two people: his editor and his agent. “It’s us against the world,” he sighed. And he did so with an expression so daubed in vexation that it got me thinking about corollaries in academic publishing.
Most professors who publish books do collaborate with editors (though our relations with them are usually not as intense as those maintained by novelists). But most professors who publish books don’t have agents. Ought agents become part of our commando units?
It is for those scholars who are contemplating this very dilemma that I submit the following answers to questions that my colleagues sometimes ask. (Full disclosure: I have been taken on by the inimitable William Lippincott of the New York agency Lippincott Massie McQuilkin. To my way of thinking he is the quintessential literary agent.)
What can an agent do for me? Remember that acquisitions editor at the academic press who had you sign a contract only to promptly inform you that the contract wasn’t necessarily binding on him? Your agent would never, ever let it come to that. Your agent, as my writer friend above seemed to insinuate, has your back.
Do you mean to say university presses don’t have my best interests at heart? I mean to say that in today’s depressed scholarly marketplace, you’re not exactly holding the power cards, (Professor) Skippy. Deluged with solicitations from desperate scholars, academic editors now have unprecedented power to advance or derail entire careers. Most editors are conscientious, responsible, lovers of ideas and texts. But the game is so absurdly tilted in their favor that abuses are inevitable. Junior and adjunct faculty are especially vulnerable to all manner of skullduggery.
I am in discussion with a few acquisitions editors at prestigious academic houses about my manuscript. Will they resent the fact that I have introduced an agent into the mix? Probably. But they are already resentful. Could you imagine what it’s like sitting in drafty exhibit halls dealing with sad saps like us for 50 days a year?
Perhaps I should preface my question by noting that I have already published four monograph-length studies interrogating the subject of “liminalities” in 19th century Belarus. Might I add that my most recent offering was awarded the Phyllis and Boris Gelfand Award for Distinction in the Study of Belarusian Liminalities (actually, I was the co-winner). Moreover, in the past five years, I have published no less than eight articles on this topic in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Do I need an agent? No, You need a psychiatrist. At the very least, a life coach. Do not look for an agent if you are writing books solely for tenure and promotion. Do not look for an agent if you have a tattoo on your haunch that reads “Behold The Microspecialist!” Do not look for an agent if you believe writing for a trade audience amounts to selling out or dumbing down. It is neither; in my experience it is far more intellectually demanding than writing for my fellow specialists.
What about trade houses–isn’t that really where agents do their thing? Exactly. My sense is a scholar should get an agent mainly if she wants to step up to trade publishing. The financial incentives for all parties concerned are far greater with trade houses (with academic presses the incentives are usually nugatory).
How do the trade houses feel about academics that come with representation? Most wouldn’t have it any other way. A well-respected editor at a leading publisher once told me he liked (good) agents because they simplified the process, moved things along professionally, and kept the high-strung, high-maintenance professors out of his hair.
A few years back I wrote an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education and an agent contacted me and showered me with praise. We spoke once or twice and then he totally blew me off. Something like that happened to me, come to think of it. Agents do that all the time. Get used to it and get over yourself. They are simply trying to find a marketable readership for your ideas. For better or for worse, they want to make a profit. If you can help them do that they will shower you with even more praise.
What percentage does an agent usually take? Is it worth it? The standard is 15 percent on everything you earn and, yes, in my experience, it is definitely worth it.
Why is it worth it? Because a good agent will identify the right trade houses for submission, acutely aware of where the most visionary editors are stashed away. Your agent will do all of the negotiating on your behalf and may be able to present you with a half dozen or so competing bids to consider at the moment of sale. After the contract is signed the industrious agent is poking around, monitoring industry gossip. If some of the junior-level publicity people have transformed their cubicle into a meth lab, your agent will find out about that. First, she’ll inquire as to how that will affect your book’s rollout. Then she might contact law-enforcement officials. But most importantly, a good agent becomes an integral part of the work itself. The best ones are astonishingly well read. Their job is to help scholars shape their ideas in a way that entices a general public.
I’m convinced. How do I get an agent? Don’t get ahead of yourself. The first step is psychological—are you ready to write for broader audiences cognizant that most of your colleagues will see this as a betrayal? Do you really think there is value in communicating beyond the campus gate? Are you ready to get in trouble and alienate your former ideological fellow travelers? If so, enlist an agent and prepare for battle.
8 Responses to Do You Need an Agent? FAQ’s
literarytype - November 29, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Smack your reader in the face, why don’t you, at the end of the post? A little too pleased with yourself and a little too smug? If your colleagues regard your actions as a betrayal it might be because you position yourself as superior, as you do here, rather than because you are a success.
finnbarr - November 30, 2010 at 7:08 am
This is truly smarmy. Notice how many times he employs “the good agent.” That’s because you are more likely to meet “the bad agent,” the one who is interested only in how much moolah your work will earn for him, or has no connections with editors and publishers other than with postage stamps. How about a piece in the Chronicle about writers’ experiences with “the bad agent”?
deanette - November 30, 2010 at 7:52 am
Smary is the right word! The whole purpose of the post is to ask “Are you ready to be as amazing as I am?” and for the reader to forced to mumble “No!” There’s no other information whatsoever.
tappat - November 30, 2010 at 8:34 am
The comments responding to this article made the article less than entirely irritating. While not exactly priceless, the responses are valued — and no premium had to be paid to a middle-man or middle-woman!
academicentrepreneur - November 30, 2010 at 9:45 am
As someone who has worked with literary agents on six trade books (although never on any of my academic publications), I think that the author’s comments are spot on–except, of course, for the meth lab.
My quibble is that the author underestimates the odds of the next step in the process. Few trade books these days are “put up for auction”–allow the agent to play multiple publishers’ competing bids off each other, as he describes. Many book proposals, including those presented to publishers by agents, go nowhere.
Too many academics don’t grasp that trade publishing is first and foremost a business. Despite its veneer of sophistication and cordiality, these days it has much in common with riverboat gambling.
Aspiring authors of all stripes who don’t understand how the system works are likely to be preyed upon by the “bad agents” mentioned above who extract “reading fees” and other up-front charges while making feckless promises. Those who appreciate the nature of trade publishing, who know how to write an effective query letter to an agent and a powerful book proposal to a publisher, are much more likely to be successful.
Congratulations to the author on getting an agent. But the real goal is to get a profitable contract.
dank48 - November 30, 2010 at 9:59 am
It’s a cliche, but it’s true: The agent earns the fifteen percent, and the remaining eighty-five percent of something invariably exceeds one hundred percent of nothing.
Most of the comments above should be colored green. Would you rather get advice about getting an agent from someone who hasn’t got an agent? It’s strong medicine, and it doesn’t taste good, but it’s the right stuff. Grow up.
abelragen - November 30, 2010 at 12:21 pm
I think the final question is a good one and that without an answer to it the whole article is a waste of time.
goxewu - December 1, 2010 at 7:47 am
Professor Berlinerbau, academicentrepreneur and dank48 have it right. The other commenters–who haven’t even gotten through to the semifinals for the Phyllis and Boris Gelfand Award, I’ll wager–seem to have their feelings peculiarly hurt. Don’t believe in agents? Then write a comment that makes a real argument about how they don’t earn their keep.* Don’t merely, and enviously, call the professor who has an agent “smarmy,” “too pleased with yourself,” and “smug,” or preposterously claim that “There’s no other [than being humiliated] information whatsoever.”**
* Even the “bad agent” who’s only interested in “moolah” has to perform to get it, because the only money he or she is going to get is going to be in the fifteen percent of whatever the author makes. The “good agent” who does have real contacts can be found by a) consulting publications such as the “Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents,” and–here’s a real radical idea!–getting on e-mail or the phone and asking around. (You do have friends–or at least friends of friends–who’ve published with big-time academic presses or trade houses, don’t you?)
** Information in Professor Berlinerbau’s post: What an agent does, how much an agent charges, the business nature of academic presses, complications (or not) from having an agent in negotiations, what kind of writing one should be doing in order to need an agent.
Again: Don’t believe in agents? Then don’t get one. Write that arcane book in academic argot, solely for promotion or tenure, have it published by some semi-vanity press specializing in arcane books-for-tenure, submit it for the Phyllis and Boris Gelfand Award (and put that on your c.v. under “Honors and Awards, Considered for:”), buy ten copies for yourself (one of the chairman, one for the dean, one for mother, one for your undergraduate BFF, etc.), and if you don’t break even figure that the job security and salary bump are worth it.