Interesting thread.

This is where you may be better off with an editing agent who can help you to improve your work, than the sort who can do a shit-hot deal, but only with a completely oven-ready book.

Emma, is there any way of telling which agents are the 'editing agents' and which just want the 'cooked' version? I noticed in WAAYB that some agents say they will suggest revisions - are those the ones to target?
Susiex


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Not that I'm suggesting sending any agent anything other than the 'cooked' version, in terms of thorough editing. But true editor-agents will see those things that I can't, hopefully.

I don't know about 'will suggest revisions' - that may mean before they take you on, in which case you'll have the not-always-easy decision about whether to do the revisions with them committing to you. (If the revisions make sense, and/or rejections have all said similar things, you may be happy to, of course.)

I'm not sure there is a way, until you get to meet them for the Big Conversation when they're teetering on the edge of taking you on, by which time it takes quite a lot of guts to say, 'Sorry, you're not the agent for me,' (except, of course, when you've got several interested.) Then I think you'll know if the way they talk about it - and the way they respond to what you say - is something that will bear fruit for you.

One way of telling might be to look at their background - did they come from an editing role at a publisher, and if so, was it more than a junior year or two, and perhaps handling authors you've heard of? Or were they doing marketing or publicity or rights there, or, increasingly, have they always been an agent? There are some agents who know they're deal makers, and they're perhaps the ones who talk about getting a readers' report, or have some other way of getting the editorial input before they try to sell it. There are others who aren't, and don't really know how to get a book oven-ready if it's a really tasty proposition but not quite there. I was interested that my US editor was sighing over this latter type last night: it must be frustrating as an editor if you keep being sent books that are really interesting, but will need much more open-ended work - and so are still too uncertain a prospect - for you to buy them then and there, but you know the agent doesn't know how to do that work.

Emma

Thanks, Emma: great advice as usual. Looking at the agent's background seems an excellent way of telling. It's funny, though - it's so easy at this stage (having not begun submitting) to ponder all these questions, whereas when I'm in the process I know I shall be just SO grateful if anyone shows any interest at all!
Susiex

Am reading Londonstani at the moment - c'mon tell me what that effect is...someone...anyone?
HB x

Didn't the publisher offer some huge advance (£300,000 or similar?) and then only about 15,000 copies sold?
Susiex

Yes, it was something like £380,000 (realise I quoted it wrong on another thread) and they sold something like 6,000 in hardback, had to change strategy totally for the paperback (from beautiful literary to young urban male), and it still didn't work. The thing is, that would be a fabulous sale for a literary debut if they'd paid a literary debut price - say £10,000 for it... Something similar happened to The Thirteenth Tale here, though it was a smash hit in the States. One issue with that one, according to my agent, is that sometimes the publisher relies too much on the hype-value of the huge advance, and doesn't exploit all the other possibilities. And for once, it was actually true that the cover didn't help...

Full story here:

http://www.thebookseller.com/in-depth/feature/56616-lbf-assessing-the-risks.html

Emma

Not wanting to hijack thread, but just to say Thank You to Emma for your advice re. clearing copyright - to my amazement the C.S. Lewis estate say they'll only charge me around £50 plus VAT for using two quotes (200+ words in all). I'd imagined hundreds! Sometimes, small sums of money are good news!
Susiex

Oh Lord - I can't believe they paid so much for Londonstani.
As I said, I'm reading it now and the blurb very much sets it up as an urban tale of violence whereas the characters are actually school boys.
The poor author must be mortified to be in the midst of all this. As Emma said he'd have been better advised to take a smaller advance. Then again, I don't know if I'd have turned my nose up at nearly 40 big ones.
HB x

You're welcome, SusieAngela. As you say, just occasionally it's neither as difficult nor as expensive as you think.

Helen, yes, you do feel so much for the author. It's all very well to know that money like can change your life, but still... Not least because selling your next is going to be soooo hard. And I think it's particularly hard when the reviews become all about 'was it worth the money,' rather than 'is this a good debut novel'... It's the big risk of promoting a book on the basis of its huge advance, and it's naughty of the reviewers, to my mind - what the advance was is really not the point - but you can see the temptation.

Emma

I once heard the author of Londonstani do a reading at LBF before the book was published. I was struck by what he himself recognised as a disconnect between what he wanted to achieve with the book - give a message to the young Asian youth he often met and worked with - and the publishers' own objectives. The author (sorry I can't recall his name) shared a stage with Helen Dunmore and Monica Ali and acquitted himself remarkably well (for a debut) and came across much better than Monica Ali who effectively killed any respect I had for her with her rather haughty and diffident approach to questions. Unless this Londonstani guy was pretending, even at that stage he seemed completely unphased about getting sales. He wanted to spread a message and he came across very much as the journalist (I think he's still on the FT) who had a message to tell. Interestingly, his book was picked up because an excerpt was published in a political magazine. S

Shika, that's really interesting, and fits with what I remember - the publisher pitched it as uber-literary (Goldsboro books even did a terribly grand special edition in a slip case and everything) with a very beautiful cover, but I think a lot of people found the voice it was written in just completely impenetrable. It must have been frustrating for him in a different way, to feel they were aiming it all wrong. And the market he wanted to aim it at isn't the kind that publishers are always terribly good at finding, specially when the hb marketing all went in a different direction.

Publishers do just go mad, sometimes. Dorling Kindersley were going from strength to strength when they all but bankrupted themselves by going mad printing millions - I really do mean millions - of Star Wars tie ins. They were bought (I think from the liquidator or receiver) by Penguin, but it's never been the same since (though you can blame the internet for that too - a real problem for highly illustrated non-fiction). And then there's The Friday Project...

Emma

I haven't read this thread entirely, but I have an agent and my book is published by a small publisher.

I had three agents altogether - the first was a big fish and somewhat disastrous, the second (who offered representation, but who I ultimately turned down in favour of the one I'm with) was in a large and very well-respected agency and the third is the lovely agent I have now.

My novel went to twelve major publishers. Of these, two 'very nearly' took it, but it was turned down when it got as far as the sales and marketing team, who decided it was too difficult to market. Another four all said they'd like to see my next.

Sometimes, it's hard to see why a book doesn't sell. Mine is now released by Snowbooks and is in two of the larger chain-store promotions (Borders and WHSmith), which is key, though I don't know how many copies have sold yet.

My agent wasn't overwhelmed by the size of my advance, but as Colin said, he can see the bigger picture and is perfectly happy and seems to have all manner of odd plans for my next book.

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I'm not sure about the 8k average advance, though - I can think of at least four people I know (as in, know personally, not know of) whose debuts have fetched 4 times that.

Saph, that story's a book in itself.
Was agent no.1 trying to sell Mothernight or something else? Why was it disasterous? Is it easy to get out of a contract?
Was your current agent suprised when he found it difficult to place? ( I must say having read it, I am )
Am being terribly nosy but it all seems wonderfully dramatic - in an after the fact way.
HB x

I'm not sure about the 8k average advance, though - I can think of at least four people I know (as in, know personally, not know of) whose debuts have fetched 4 times that.

Of course, and I do too. But that's the figure that's quoted to me by everyone I've asked. And you have to remember that the headline figure of the advance may be for more than one book, in which case all the sums are different. And did it or didn't it include US or other rights? What if, like mine, you can't even gross those up roughly, because it was a two-book here, and a one-book there, as so on...

The trade's view seems to be that very broadly, there are two kinds of advance: under £10,000 and over £100,000 (source, The Bookseller, but I'm not really here, Thursday is PhD day, so I'll check it later).

Emma

Wow. In the YA world, I think I'll be doing backflips if I get a £2k advance. That's kind of what I'm hoping for, so any more would knock me sideways.

Colin

(think I'll try writing one of them adult blockbuster books next... must be a "How To..." book out there on it )