Finding a Literary Agent Australian-Style

What’s a literary agent do? Well, hopefully bring your work to the attention of publishers, negotiate contracts for you, negotiate the sale of rights and reprints, etc. They need to have (among other things) a superior knowledge of copyright issues, rights issues and have excellent contacts in the writing and publishing industry. They generally take 10-15% of your earnings – they do not take money up front! They get paid when you get paid. Any agent who asks for a ‘reading fee’ or any kind of fee before doing work should be avoided like the plague.

How do you find one? Something that may take the breath away from writers in the US is the fact that there are only about twenty working literary agents in Australia. Oh, there are others but they aren’t necessarily very good or very desirable. So, twenty agents for the writers of the wide, brown land. Those are not good odds. So do you need an agent?

You don’t need an agent to be published, but it helps. Some of the big publishers won’t look at a manuscript unless it’s been referred by an agent – budget cuts may mean that a publisher no longer has an army of in-house slush-readers. So, for some publishers, the agent acts as a sort of gatekeeper. There are alternatives: look out for manuscript development programs such as those like the Hachette-QWC program or the Varuna-HarperCollins program, which can get your work straight to the attention of a publisher. Winning (or indeed just entering) competitions can be another path: Kirsten Reed (The Ice Age) entered her book for the Text YA Prize; it didn’t win, but it did get noticed and she got a publishing contract. There are also the various Premiers’ Literary Awards, which generally net you a cash prize, some mentoring, maybe an agent and a publishing deal. If you are very lucky in these situations, an agent may even approach you (but don’t hold your breath).

But there is also the option of simply approaching an agent by the traditional means. Following some of these steps may help:

Things to do:

1. Your best approach is likely to be via email or an old-fashioned letter delivered via carrier pigeon. Check the agent’s website – make sure the agent is accepting submissions and represents your genre (the Australian Literary Agents Association lists this info for its members http://austlitagentsassoc.com.au/).
2. Send a succinct cover letter along the following lines:
   1. First paragraph: who you are as a writer. Two to three sentences – include any writing qualifications you may have and any relevant previous publications (if you’ve a long list of publications, then put the two/three best ones in your letter and attach a list of publications on a separate page).
   2. Second paragraph: a blurb about the book. That’s your story in twenty-five words or less.
   3. Third paragraph: how long is the novel; what is its genre; who else is writing in this area (this tells an agent who your target market is); and why you wrote the book.
   4. Fourth paragraph: advise that you’ve enclosed a synopsis and the first three chapters (or first fifty pages, depending on what the agent’s website says they want to see), and a stamped self-addressed envelope (SSAE) if you want the manuscript returned. If you don’t want it returned then advise that it’s a disposable manuscript.
   5. Send a synopsis – this is your story in one or two pages. Make your first paragraph a general intro, then split your story in parts – beginning, middle and end. Make sure you include how the book culminates – an agent or publisher wants to know that you know how the story ends. Your last paragraph should give (just like your cover letter) the book’s length, genre, and a phrase along the lines of “This book will be enjoyed by readers of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender” (or whoever is an appropriate comparison). Use short sentences, simple language and this is the one place you can use some clichés – they can be a kind of shorthand to get your message across quickly and in summarised form.
   6. Make sure you also enclose your first three chapters or fifty pages. Have them proofread by someone you know can spell and who will notice any grammatical wobbly bits. Format it correctly – industry standard is double-spaced, twelve point font such as Times New Roman or Courier, printed on only one side of the page, and unbound (i.e. not stapled – just use big bulldog clips or a rubber band).

Your submission is your best foot forward – just as you don’t (I hope) go to an interview wearing thongs and grubby jeans, don’t put in a submission that is less than it should be.

Things not to do:

1. Don’t call an agent and demand that they take you on.
2. Don’t tell an agent they’d be lucky to have you and they should really get onboard now!
3. Don’t carry around your manuscript to thrust under an agent’s nose at a cocktail party or other function – it may seem like an opportunity, but it’s not.
4. Don’t send a long, long letter or email – be succinct. Busy people aren’t going to read your five page letter. Get to the point quickly.
5. If you phone the office, then do not be rude to whoever answers the phone (this is actually useful info for the rest of life). You don’t know if the agent is picking up the phone or the assistant or the secretary – be polite to everyone![i]
6. Don’t argue with an agent who says ‘no’. Just go back to the beginning of the process and start again.
7. Don’t ring after two weeks demanding to know why the agent hasn’t contacted you. You may have to wait for months – deal with it.

When my brain next opens for business, it will be about how a publisher doesn’t necessarily equal an editor. 

Useful sites:

Agent Sydney blogs on this quite regularly and I’d suggest a good look at her site, Call My Agent! http://callmyagent.blogspot.com/

Have a look at the Resources page over at the Queensland Writers Centre http://www.qwc.asn.au/Resources/FrequentlyAskedQuestions.aspx – in particular the one called Literary Agents http://www.qwc.asn.au/Portals/0/QWC%20Files/Resource%20Sheets/QWC%20Literary%20Agents%20Resource%20Sheet%206.pdf [ii]

 

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[i] My personal list of people to be extra polite to includes: people who answer the phone, cleaners, security people, and the tea ladies – especially the tea ladies.

[ii] If they seem similar in tone to the above advice, well, it’s because I wrote them.