WRITERS expend so much time, energy, and sanity trying to land an agent that they often forget to consider what happens if they succeed. Sure, the basics of the business arrangement—the percentages, the exclusivity, and so on—are right there in the contract. But other conundrums inevitably arise. Are you bugging your agent if you ask for an update on submissions? Should they be doing more to transform a recalcitrant publicist into an eager advocate? Will they fire you if you e-mail a follow-up about the revision you sent in two months ago?
The answers, a cohort of generous and savvy literary agents told me over Zoom calls and through e-mails, depend on the specific agent, and writers are forever trying to discern what they should and should not expect. “Publishing has been, for a long time, shrouded in mystery,” says Joanna MacKenzie of the Nelson Literary Agency. “I think people are becoming a bit more open about how agenting works.”
The most arduous part of collaborating with your agent is often the process of readying your proposal or manuscript for submission. Your agent won’t take you on if they aren’t confident the work has a shot in the marketplace; still, all the agents I spoke with expect to be involved editorially before they send it out.
“An author has one chance to have their work cut through and rise to the surface from the sea of submissions an editor gets each week,” says Heather Jackson of the Heather Jackson Literary Agency.
