On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 03:15:42PM -0400, J Wolf wrote:

> I have a question, actually....it may have been discussed before, so forgive
> me if it has, but how does one go about getting an agent for their work? Or
> is it reccomended? Shal gave me a bunch of info that was incredibly helpful,
> but I wanted to see what the general opinion on agents was. Are they even a
> good idea?

It depends on what you write and what you're good at and how
much you're willing to do on your own and how good you are at
that.

I have had an agent since 1983.

The most valuable thing she has done for me is not to sell manuscripts
to publishers, but to negotiate contracts.  What publishers will give
you is their boilerplate contract.  This contains clauses that they
will never enforce even if you sign it as is, because the clauses
do not apply to the kind of writing you do.  My novel contracts
contain all sorts of clauses about how the writer must be able to
produce a new edition in a certain timeframe, and how the publisher
is allowed to hire somebody else to do this if the writer won't or
can't or is late.  This is a textbook clause.  Nobody would enforce
it on a novelist.  But it gets crossed out anyway, just to be on
the safe side.

Contracts fresh from the lawyers at the contracts department also
contain clauses no more reasonable that the publisher certainly
will enforce if allowed to do so.

My novel contracts, for example, before the agent gets to them, contain a
lot of obligations of the author, with deadlines, and a few obligations
of the publisher, usually without deadlines.  That is, the author has
to deliver the manuscript on a particular date, but the publisher is
not then, by the boilerplate, obliged to do anything in particular
with it by any particular date.  My contracts get revised to put in 
deadlines for the publisher too, so that if they have made no move 
to publish the book it can revert to me and I can sell it elsewhere.  
They get revised so that, not only do I have to deal with the copyedited 
manuscript by a certain date, but the publisher has to get it to me 
in a reasonable amount of time in the first place.  They get revised 
so that if the book goes out of print, I can institute the reversion 
process in six months rather than seven years.

Publishers also routinely reserve to themselves all the rights they
can think of -- electronic, foreign, book club, whatever.  The standard
actual agreement generally keeps some or all of these for the author,
but you need to negotiate that or have an agent do it.

An experienced agent knows what boilerplate a publisher cares about,
what boilerplate a publisher will not budge on, and what boilerplate
a publisher can be argued with about if one is willing to give a little.
My agent has in place with the major genre publishers she deals with
a standard set of alterations that do not have to be renegotiated
for each individual book or each individual author.  They are automatic
for her authors.

Agents may also check your royalty statements for mistakes in arithmetic
and other weird or outright crazy results; will bug the publisher if
royalties are not forthcoming; will make your excuses to the publisher
if the book is going to be late; will be tough and stern and even rude
to the publisher, allowing you to maintain a sweet civilized distant
demeanor while frothing at the mouth and being unrelenting in private.

My agent has also dealt with fan-fiction writers who plagiarized great
swathes of my work, talked to people who wanted to produce plays based
on my books, and made a serious study of the current state of copyright
law before going through a long list of quotations to determine
which constituted fair use and which needed to be granted permission
from the copyright holder to be used.  I will add that although I
was not earning any money from my writing at this time, she did not
charge me for any of these services.

She also keeps copies of all my manuscripts, sold or not, in case
I lose them.  I've availed myself of this habit at least twice, and
in one case I sold the story involved only because I could get a copy
of it from her.

I could list more, but I think I'll stop for the time being.

My genre is fantasy and science fiction, and I write mostly
novels.  (Very few agents will represent short stories; the payback
is not sufficient for the work involved.)  Other kinds of fiction and
literature and non-fiction will have different requirements.

-- 

Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet           (pddb{at}demesne.com)
"I will open my heart to a blank page
   and interview the witnesses."  John M. Ford, "Shared World"

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha