Dear All,

Yes, I’ve been updating this blog not-at-all, so this post is like closing the gate after the horse has gone off, yes, but still: I now post regularly, along with my fellow Upstart Crow Literary agents, on our company blog. If you are at all interested in hearing what I’ve got to say, that is the place to go.

Thanks for reading As the World Stearns, and I’ll see you in my new home!

M.

Over at Stupid Blog Name, Michael Grant does his cranky-pants best to persuade us that agents are unnecessary; that most of them would be considered legendarily stupid if people created legends about the stupidity of boring folk who sit on their asses all day long typing on a computer and yapping on the phone.

He proposes that publishers instead charge authors fifty bucks per submission for a guaranteed read. Would give would-be authors the certainty that their work is being evaluated. Would earn publishers some extra moolah on the side with which they can tile their halls with gold and vainglory. Would eliminate that pestilence upon the earth, that no-good-for-the-most-part beast, the literary agent.

A fun idea, but one that strikes me as deeply wrong-headed. And no, not just because I’m an agent (I’ve only been doing this for a few months, after all). But more because I used to be an editor, and as an editor, I loved agents.

Why did I love agents when I was an editor? Because they knew me, knew my tastes, knew what I was looking for month to month. They kept tabs on my needs and didn’t waste my time with submissions that I would never in a million years go for. They helped me do my job better.

The argument against agents usually seems rooted in some unarticulated notion that agents are parasites. They take fifteen percent of my sweet, blessed labors! This is, pretty obviously, an astonishingly narrow view of what an agent does. There may well be agents who merely take their cut and disappear, but those people are few. And get the kicks and acrimony they deserve from the editors who cross their paths.

But most agents (and agencies—a big chunk of that fifteen percent goes to support the agency) work hard for their cut and are an invaluable help to both writers and editors.

First off, the best ones actually do preliminary edits of their clients’ manuscripts. These edits can range from line edits of every page to letters that address more global issues; often times the agent brainstorms with the author to find solutions to problems in a book. And this is all before there is a house or a contract or any real promise of payment. It’s work on spec, a person lending their expertise to a writer the agent believes can make of a good manuscript a great book. It’s an invisible investment in a talent.

Then the agent lends her expertise about the market. This is the reason for all of those lunches, all of those dinners and drinks. Sounds vaguely glamorous, doesn’t it? But make no mistake: It’s work, and incredibly important work. Those meals and so-called social engagements are how the agent stays abreast of the market and keeps up with what each editor is looking for at that particular moment. Editors don’t just want the same book day in and day out; they want something different than what they’ve just worked on, and they want books that fill holes in their lists.

This market knowledge extends beyond just the editors—it also applies to individual houses. Different houses have different personalities (often split personalities a la Sybil, but that’s a whole ‘nother post, one involving puppets, hard liquor, and tears), and those publishing house personalities aren’t fixed, either. Most houses are retooling their publication lists season by season in response to what happened to the previous season’s lists. It’s a moving target, this industry.

So that up-to-date market knowledge is a big thing an agent brings to the table, a quality that few writers are going to be able to acquire unless they haunt writer’s conferences and take up stalking as a full-time hobby. (Alas, stalking, while fun and a great way to pass the time, is illegal. And creepy. And, you know, sucks up all your writing time.) An author can’t do all that. And shouldn’t be trying to do all that. She should instead be sitting at her keyboard and writing her books. That’s her job, after all.

And with the good agents (and here, yes, I am thinking of the exemplary team at Firebrand Literary, where I work), the job doesn’t end merely when they sell the book and collect that check. Some of the things the agent does are expected: negotiating the contract, selling subrights to foreign publishers and film producers, exploiting the rights as effectively as possible to get more cash for the author and more awareness of the book.

But there is still more. The agent acts as the author’s bodyguard. If the manuscript edit is late, the agent gently hounds the editor. If the cover is shaping up into something so heinous that kids would sooner tear out their eyes than pick it up, the agent does the delicate work of getting the editor and the publisher to change it. On publication, a good agent may have helped the author create web pages, Facebook and MySpace profiles, and possibly even created a marketing plan that complements the publisher’s efforts.

And meanwhile, the agent is helping the author steer the next stages of her career—figuring out which book to write next, strategizing how to make the most of the second book, and planning for the third. And the fourth. And the twelfth. And the twenty-second. Because a good agent isn’t signing up an author for a single book. No, he’s signing the author for many books, for a career, for a lifetime.

That’s what an agent does. And that’s why an agent is worth that fifteen percent.

[Just for the record: I cannot think more highly of Michael Grant—he's a writer whose talent is huge and broad and he seems able to do anything. I just disagree with him about this one wee little thing.]