To Agent or not to Agent?

Once you've written a book and you want to get someone to read it (besides your kid sister) and possibly give you money for your hard work and tears. So what now?

There are plenty of proponents for e-books, self publishing, and doing everything yourself. Should I try to get published with a big publisher? Should I get an agent? Should I submit directly to the publishers? Should I sell my book online and forget about both agents and publishers? Should I publish myself and spend my time selling the book on street corners? Should I start up my own publishing company?

These are some common questions. Though the last two may be less common. Today I'm going to share my views on the agent question. Should you get an agent?

For starters we should figure out what an agent is. The very idea of an agent means someone who does your work for your. A literary agent is someone who will do just that, in theory. Currently a literary agent will go out and represent your book to big publishers. A literary is not giving you a product, they are providing you with a service. In the current market you shouldn't be paying your agent up front. Instead you pay your agent a percentage of the money they get for you (Usually anywhere from 10-15%). In this sense an agent is good because they'll be trying to get more money for your book.

A publisher, on the other hand, is not an agent. A publisher is also a connector, but they aren't just representing you. A publisher is providing a product, the hard bound or electronic version of the book. They are licensing (or purchasing) the right to use your words. With a publisher it's also a joint venture. They want the book to succeed as well. The difference is that the publisher usually pays the writer, you, a portion of what they make off of using your words on their paper. And just like you don't want to give all of your money to the Agent, the publisher doesn't want to give all of their hard earned money to you. Usually the publisher has the upper hand here, so an agent also represents you in bargaining with the publisher.

In both cases, the agent and publisher, one of the things you are paying for is connections. Theoretically you could do all of this yourself, but the publishers and agents are levying their specialization to take the workload, and some of the money, off your plate.

Let's look at it this way. For my chosen genre, sci-fi/fatasy, it is highly recommended to get an agent. Many of the bigger publishers won't accept submissions without agents, and even when the do it goes to a slush pile. If you want to see a movie and you've got 5 to choose from but you've never heard of any of them the choice becomes much easier if you have a friend recommend one of them. If you've taken that friend's recommendations a number of times and been pleased every time then even more so. Now take that list out to 1000 choices and you see what a publisher has to face. As a writer you're like the movie company trying to get the publisher to check out your stuff. A good agent is like the friend that makes the good recommendations. I still send to some publishers, but mostly I'm looking for an agent.**

Why?

For one thing I don't have the same connections. For another I don't have the capitol to print 1,000,000 copies of my book. With the advent of the internet e-book and e-readers I may not need either. That's still up for debate with some heavy hitters on both sides. So the question still stands.

Why an agent?

Well, here's the one thing that I can't get. An opinion. I mean I've got plenty of opinions. But professional validation of my work means a lot to me. An agent who reads and represents books to publishers for a living knows something about what makes a book successful. A publisher who buys and sells books in a desperate gamble to make some money also needs to know something about quality, or else they are soon an ex-publisher.

I can e-publish my book and get validation from the readers (which is the end result I want anyway), but I have to convince a thousand people to read my book and respond. If I can get the half dozen people from agent to publisher to read my book and respond positively then I have professional validation. To me that means the same thing, but I didn't have to wait for 1000 people to find and read my book. Publishers and Agents may make mistakes, but if I have their validation then I can have some idea that I'm on the right track. (Again, this might be undermined by the e-book phenomenon, but I still hold publishers and agents in esteem for now.)

I have currently chosen to pursue publication with a traditional publisher, and I am seeking the representation of an agent. I don't want to send out my work unless it is good. I don't want the whole world to read my book if it doesn't meet a basic level of quality. Don't get me wrong. There are crappy books published both traditionally and as e-books. Proponents of e-books use this to downplay the importance of traditional publishers as gatekeepers. I'm not talking about other books. I want my book to be the best it can be. Could I e-pub? Possibly. That's a question for another post.

**I should of course make the qualification that Agents can also be that bad friend that Publishers duck behind the copier to avoid. Good agents have a good network and publishers that trust their recommendation (and so they will only recommend you if they think your work is worth publishing). Good publishers will only publish something they think will sell. You can be your own agent if you want to go to the conferences, keep up on publishers weekly, make your own connections. It's a personal choice, but I've made mine.

Ignorance is Bliss, but Knowledge is Not Sorrow

In my last post I spoke, perhaps a bit too harshly, against the artistic elitist. The main point is that there are many traits that make good art: Skill, style, social perception, contemporary work, personal opinion, etc. The trouble comes when someone puts personal opinion (a subjective valuation) above the other objective valuations.

One of my readers wisely observed that one aspect of good writing is knowing your audience. That is absolutely true. Writing to please your professor doesn't make your work good. On the other hand, writing something that is popular (which your professor wouldn't like) doesn't make your work bad. Writing something that is good makes it good, and there are subjective and objective traits that go into that.

When I first started studying I had a hard time with this. I think it's a pretty common journey. I was a young theatre student in undergrad and I am easily impressed by big words and "smart" people. Those two traits together worked against me to some degree.

I started to learn about writing. I breathed it all in like I had been holding my breath for years. I had just changed my major from a pre-med biology degree and I was astounded to learn that people actually wrote and created art (particularly theatre) for a living. I had been mostly indiscriminate in my consumption of art...well I say that, but it's not exactly true. I had been exposed to a wide range. I liked a wide variety of popular art, but I wasn't a big fan of art for the sake of art. I never liked obtuse art. (To be honest, I still don't have a refined artistic palate.)

But as I learned about what makes a play "good" I picked up a bit of my own elitism. I narrowed my view of good to exclude many of my previous favorites. Suddenly I was too smart to enjoy popular movies, musicals, etc. I echoed the sentiment of one of my professors that, "Les Miserables was the worst thing to happen to the theatre". Though I didn't know why. I started to seek out more and more obtuse material to challenge my concept of good.

Now, broadening my horizon was not bad, but I became a terror. Because I had a bit of knowledge and I thought I knew everything. I began to judge what I saw or read much too harshly. I forgot how to enjoy something and I focused on tearing everything down. My wife hated discussing (or even watching) movies with me because I continually berated everything we saw.

I think it's common among students to apply their knowledge. What else can you do? But I started to think that criticism was the only worthwhile endeavor, and I only listened seriously to other people who could tell me how bad something was. We enjoyed only the obtuse and exclusionary.

Then something happened. I took a class and I began to tear apart Shakespeare. Shakespeare!

I was unabashed in my criticism, but I was wrong. (To be fair, Shakespeare wasn't perfect and there are some viable reasons to dislike his work.) I realized that I wasn't enjoying anything. I had learned so many ways for something to be bad that I forgot that anything could really be good.

Fortunately I had my eyes opened. I started to look at popular art for fun again. I found that sometimes unabashed emotional fare is nice. Sometimes an easily understood message hits just as deep.

I had left behind some of my ignorance when I saw how the magicians did their tricks. I found out that sometimes God works through normal means. I learned that my parents were Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Leprechauns. My immediate reaction was repulsion. But when I managed to step back I realized that just because I know how magic is made, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the show.

I began to love theatre again, but now with a deeper knowledge. I still have my own opinion, and sometimes I'm still a pain to watch certain movies with. But I've begun to mellow. Learning about an art form does take some of the magic away, but it opens you up to a whole new kind of magic. Knowledge is freedom, and it kind of misses the point to use that knowledge to oppress others by telling them their opinions are worthless.

I love the Fantastiks, but I can still love Les Miserables (which I do, by the way).

Aspirations to Art

My sister-in-law once asked me about literary writing. She had read something a friend had written and just wasn't impressed. The story seemed depressing and somewhat pointless. There were interesting ideas, but none of them were really explored. And in the end my sister-in-law felt unsatisfied. She wasn't alone. It was a pretty common response I think.

I read the work, and I came away with a similar feeling. The story was depressing and somewhat pointless. But for me there was deeper matter that I could get at. Some obtuse entertainment that was lost on most readers. Some part of me enjoyed the word smithing, the chiaroscuro of words.

So what was there in this story that chimed for me and not for others? Well, there's a bit of that high minded literary writing.

I'm not necessarily smarter than my brother's wife. In fact, there are many ways you could argue the opposite. But I've been trained to enjoy certain things from writing. I've been exposed to the study of the art, and as in most cases, I can see things that people who haven't studied writing just can't. It's similar to any field of study. **

There is an idea in writers, writing professors, poets, literature students, and all sorts of "intellectuals" that they are in some way better than other people. It's a common theme among any artistic mediums. Pretensions and elitism. The basic claim that, "I've studied and so my opinion matters more. If you can't understand my art, then you are a lesser being."

In film you have the Oscars and above that there are art house films. In visual medium such as sculpture, painting, mosaic, etc. you've got modernism, post-modernism, and many other -isms. The same goes for theatre. Music has it, dance has it, fashion has it, video games, and if we find a new medium that will have it too.

Now here's the big question.  Is the writing in the Literary Genre better than the writing in novels or stories that are more accessible?

Here's the big answer. Sometimes.

Most literary writing is a practice in pretentiousness. Writers who are writing to show off their supposed skill to other writers, or to impress their professors (who would likely never be impressed anyway because they are jaded by their own jilted works). Writers throw in shocking content to show that they can 'handle' heavier material. They explore the depths of depression and claim that they have some greater understanding of the world. But more often than not it is simply obtuse and they claim that anyone who cannot understand is simply unintelligent. After all, if anyone could understand it then it would be....gasp....popular.

And herein lies one of the conundrums of art. Art is an attempt to communicate, and often times a true artist can communicate feelings or ideas beyond what the uneducated in that art form can grasp. But when a piece of art becomes so obtuse as to exclude a wider audience then in some ways it fails at communicating.

Now look at the other side. Is all literary writing bad? Absolutely not. Is all popular art good? Absolutely not. As a culture moves forward with a medium they will begin to accept some traditions and reject others. Entire societies change and grow with their art. Nearly every work will include one audience and exclude others.

In some cases the literary works will be good. In other cases it will simply be pretentious. In some cases popular art will have some actual merit. In other cases is will simply be pandering.

I'll probably come back to this eventually. I think that next time I'll talk about my critical journey through theatre. I lost a lot of enjoyment in art.

Until then. Keep writing, reading, or whatever it is you do, and be great at it.

**
As an example take this fine Chemistry joke: If you're not part of the solution, your part of the precipitate.