Misconception #2
Since I started this misconception thing with the previous post, might as well add another: publishing agents are waiting in their office amid a pile of rejects (the slush pile is now electronic and the agent probably works from home, but hang with me, I’m trying to paint a mental picture here) and they read your book and suddenly find their faith in humanity restored. Okay, maybe that’s not your conception of an agent, although your scenario probably does involve the agent finding your manuscript a diamond in a pile of crap. Let me dispel this conception with one simple truth: agents suck. The whole publishing system sucks. Don’t take it personally if you’re an agent. The industry and the way agents have been set up as the gatekeepers doesn’t position them for success, especially with the decades-long consolidation of the major publishing houses. A few bestselling authors keep those houses alive and allow agents and publishers to put others in their catalog, knowing they’ll get marginally advertised and most likely won’t make it anywhere near a bestseller list.
Why then do I say agents aren’t set up to succeed? Let’s start with volume. If you’ve queried agents, you know that 40-50% of them never respond to your query, which is a simple letter and often a synopsis - in other words, nowhere near the length of a manuscript. Responding, even with a negative, takes time from reading the books they do solicit. These factors aren’t their fault, for the most part. There are only so many books they can read, which crowd out the queries and responding to them. If you think I’m parroting statistics from the Interwebs, go back on this blog about four years and read where I wasted a precious summer querying about four dozen agents after researching several hundred. Am I a victim of sour grapes? Actually, as I’ve said before, I’m very happy as an independent publisher and glad it worked out this way.
What else? They suck because even though they don’t work for the publishers, they’re at the whims of those publishers. If the publisher decides to focus one of their imprints on Armenian vampire detective romances, that’s what the agents start looking for. Is that the agent’s fault? Of course not. At that point, though, the agent might feel more like an employee than an independent worker.
The problem with this model is that finally (at least for today), some agents do suck. They have a political or personal agenda that causes them to focus only on books and authors that meet their area of focus and they are most definitely NOT waiting for your book to appear in their slush pile if you don’t match their beliefs. If you think I’m exaggerating, go check out the bios on #mswl. The shift in the industry over the past few decades toward BIPOC and LGBTQ authors and topics has been well-documented elsewhere. Does the industry trend influence the agents or the other way around? A mix of both, I think, since this publishing model attracts true believers and creates a loop. The agents have targeted conformity with their beliefs over quality and true diversity. Leveling the field to include others is admirable but tilting it the opposite way doesn’t create diversity. In fact, it carries on the lack of diversity, just pointing it in a different direction. As a notable blogger I follow likes to repeat, “The only true diversity is diversity of thought.” Something to think about.
In the meantime, it’s best to realize agents aren’t waiting for your book and if you do happen to find one who wants to represent you and advance your career, take advantage of it and make sure that agent is a good fit with you as an author, your book’s genre, and most importantly, you as a person.