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jemck at 10:10am on 24/09/2007
jemck at 10:10am on 24/09/2007An interesting article in The Guardian by Martin Wagner.
Yes, these are pretty much the same as stories I have heard from assorted folk over the years. But I am really not convinced by Martin Wagner's conclusions at the end of the piece
Bear in mind that I did my first two book deals without an agent. Then the complexity of dealing with rights and foreign publishers and the associated accounting and contract issues convinced me I needed to contract out this work to people who had the time and crucially the expertise to handle such things. Not least because of the awful stories I heard of writers who shot themselves so comprehensively in the feet trying to handle such things. As for the money, having worked with and without representation, I've always looked very carefully to see if my agent(s)have earned their cut. They have, and indeed, I've earned more, even after that deduction, than I would have done without them.
All my experience since has convinced me that those very high-powered writers who were so generous with their advice in my aspiring-author days were absolutely correct when they told me that while a bad agent is worse than no agent at all, a good agent is worth their weight in gold. The trick is finding a good agent who has room on their list for you. Not easy. And distinguishing between the professionals and the bottom-feeding ambulance-chasers of whom there are all too many.
All of which takes research and alertness and that's all part of the writer's responsibility for their own career. I do agree with Martin Wagner that there's no future in sitting back and waiting for other people to do everything while you wait to be discovered.
Chances are that if you are a writer a little further down the food chain, but lucky enough to have an agent, they won't be doing much for you. Restless writers, like I used to be, may change agencies frequently, only to find out that after a brief honeymoon all is back to normal - for most writers changing agencies is like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic as they watch the promises of their career go down the drain.
As far as agents were concerned, I was unashamedly promiscuous as a young writer. Like most budding writers I had been hoping for instant success, spurred on by endless headlines of first books getting improbably huge advances, but, for me at least, reality was invariably very different: there was the agent who reluctantly agreed to send out three chapters of my first novel to two publishers to prove to me that it was no good (one got on the phone straight away, wanting to read more); there was the agent who kept forgetting the title of my screenplay (The Writer, is that so hard to remember?); and there was the agent who has yet to find time to read an 80-page novella I sent them some years ago. So when yet another ineffectual agent suggested that I write about what I know, I decided that the thing I know most about is ineffectual agents.
Yes, these are pretty much the same as stories I have heard from assorted folk over the years. But I am really not convinced by Martin Wagner's conclusions at the end of the piece
But for most writers even having an agent who does nothing for you is better than not having one. Apart from the kudos, having an agent is also a safety-blanket that absolves writers from the responsibility of taking care of their own careers. I've been most successful since I stopped waiting for others - agents, producers - to do things for me. But this gradual realisation has been a painful process. I wanted to be "discovered", but was lucky enough to realise just in time that this was not going to happen. I decided that I wasn't going to take no for an answer, and the audience reaction to The Agent proved that my writing could be enjoyed once it bypassed the hurdles imposed by the system.
Bear in mind that I did my first two book deals without an agent. Then the complexity of dealing with rights and foreign publishers and the associated accounting and contract issues convinced me I needed to contract out this work to people who had the time and crucially the expertise to handle such things. Not least because of the awful stories I heard of writers who shot themselves so comprehensively in the feet trying to handle such things. As for the money, having worked with and without representation, I've always looked very carefully to see if my agent(s)have earned their cut. They have, and indeed, I've earned more, even after that deduction, than I would have done without them.
All my experience since has convinced me that those very high-powered writers who were so generous with their advice in my aspiring-author days were absolutely correct when they told me that while a bad agent is worse than no agent at all, a good agent is worth their weight in gold. The trick is finding a good agent who has room on their list for you. Not easy. And distinguishing between the professionals and the bottom-feeding ambulance-chasers of whom there are all too many.
All of which takes research and alertness and that's all part of the writer's responsibility for their own career. I do agree with Martin Wagner that there's no future in sitting back and waiting for other people to do everything while you wait to be discovered.
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