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      Category : Agents

      • April 18, 2014

        If you could sit and have a beer with a literary agent…

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        I’m taking the month of April and letting people send in ANY question they have about writing and publishing. If you could sit down for an hour over a beer with a literary agent, and ask him anything you wanted, what would you want to know? Here are questions I’ve been sent recently…

        If I am offered a contract, should I then get an agent?

        That depends on the situation. Although I’m a longtime literary agent, I’m not an agent-evangelist, insisting everyone needs an agent. So think about the big picture here — your agent didn’t discuss the idea with you, or help you sharpen your proposal, or introduce you to editors, or send it out to publishers, or offer career advice. Once you’re offered a contract, the agent is going to step into it and earn a commission. So here’s my thinking… IF the agent can bring value, in terms of doing a great negotiation, and improving the contract & terms, and getting involved in the marketing, and stepping in to help with dramatic and foreign rights, and offering advice for your future, then it might be worthwhile to have an agent step in. But if all he’s going to do is say “yes” to the offer, it may not be worth paying him 15%. Consider talking with a good contract evaluation service, which might only charge a couple hundred dollars. (Or you might talk with an attorney, but be careful — they tend to charge by the six-minute increment and want to keep the clock running, so it can be expensive. Maybe consider this option if you’ve got something complex, such as a series offer or a movie deal.) But don’t sign with someone just so you can have the honor of saying, “I have an agent!”

        If my novel is women’s fiction, is it best to target a female agent?

        It’s best to target an agent who

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      • April 16, 2014

        If I could sit down with a literary agent and ask ANYTHING…

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        This month I’m trying to get to all the questions people say they’d like to ask an agent, if they could just sit down with him or her for a few minutes and talk privately. Here are questions that people have asked recently…

        Are the low costs of e-books costing authors money?

        Sure. I mean, if a retailer sells a book for $20, the royalty is higher than if he sells it for $10. The average e-book is way down — many below $5, and often you’ll see specials where the books are 99 cents. That doesn’t leave much for an author. The argument is made that people want a deal, and the low prices build readership by finding readers who will spend a dollar or two without even thinking about it. And I think that’s true, to a point… but at some point, we have educated readers that they only need to spend a buck or two on a book, and that means the only people really making money are the bestselling authors.

        I’m thinking of setting up my own publishing company. Do I need to trademark or copyright the company? Is there a contract template for doing that?

        If you’re just doing it to keep the words “Amazon Publishing” off your title page, then create a business name, do a search to make sure the name & domain are available and not a copyright infringement, and start a bank account in the name of the company. In some states you’ll have to register the company name, so check your local laws, or talk with an attorney if you have greater legal questions. (For the record, I’m not an attorney, nor am I giving you legal advice.) You can find people willing to sell you all sorts of business-planning materials, but most authors who start their own companies simply start them online with a domain name and a bank

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      • April 14, 2014

        A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN AGENT

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        By Sandra Bishop
        Agent and Vice-President of MacGregor Literary

        Just what DOES an agent do all day?

        It’s no great mystery that good agents work hard. But what we do EXACTLY is obviously not well known. I’m sure most people, if asked, would think we sit around coming up with ways to reject manuscripts, and counting our money.

        At the moment I AM in money counting mode because I’m busy hunting down every last allowable deduction on the money I owe the IRS on the commissions I earned, though most times the work I do doesn’t even seem directly related to making money.

        As far as rejecting manuscripts, most of my time is spent serving my authors, staying in touch with editors to keep proposals and projects moving forward, and keeping my work associates happy (i.e. “Yes, Chip, I will blog next week.”)

        So, let me lift the veil a bit and show you what it is we do that no one sees. This is somewhat of a reconstruction, based on my notes and email records, of one of my work days last week:

        • Left voice message with an editor to discuss timeline for author from whom they want two books; the first one in less than nine months if possible

        • Wrote author to let her know we still haven’t connected, but that I’m trying.

        • Called and talked with Chip about an offer, double checking that the deal points were solid and fair and in line with a deal he received recently from same publisher.

        • Updated my internal document to reflect status of new offers, completed contracts, and deals in negotiation

        • Called author to let him know an editor declined fiction ideas we’d discussed at a recent conference. Asked her to take another look at synopsis and let me know if he wanted to retool it, or move on to another idea.

        • Left message

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      • April 11, 2014

        Sitting down with a literary agent over a cappuccino…

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        So I happen to be sitting at Cafe Greco in North Beach (the Italian section of downtown San Francisco), and thought this was the perfect place to suggest authors sit down to have a cappuccino and talk. This month we’re just inviting authors to send the question they’ve always wanted to ask a literary agent, if only they could be face to face. I’ve been sent a bunch of questions, and I’m trying to get to each of them…

        I know many agents are looking for an author to have a big “platform.” What does a big platform look like to you?

        A platform is a number. You speak? How many people do you speak to over the course of a year? You write a column? What’s your readership? You’re on radio? What’s your listenership? You blog? How many hits do you get? You do a column? How many people read your work? You belong to organizations? How many people are you connected to? All of those are numbers — just add up the numbers, and you’ll know how big your platform is. The bigger the number, the happier a publisher is going to be. More important is how many people you actually have some sort of relationship with — that is, how many of those folks do you speak to or consider an acquaintance? Can you suggest what percentage might actually purchase a book? A small publisher may be happy with a platform of ten to twenty thousand. A medium sized published may be looking for a platform that is at least forty to sixty thousand. A large publisher may not be all that interested if your platform is less than 100,000 — possibly not interested if your platform is less than 250,000, depending on the project.

        Is it pointless to seek publication before launching a blog? I have substantial Facebook and growing Twitter followings, but haven’t launched my

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      • March 24, 2014

        NOTES FROM UNDER A DESK

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        By guest writer HOLLY LORINCZ

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        Holly Lorincz is the newest agent at MacGregor Literary; she was mentored by president Chip MacGregor for a year before her promotion, while also maintaining an editing and publishing consultation business, Lorincz Literary Services (http://literaryconsulting.com).

        NOTES FROM UNDER A DESK

        I admit it. I’m under my desk. Hiding.

        No, there is not a knife-heavy serial killer lurking behind my door.
        No, my boss is not on the rampage (today).
        No, my mom is not at the door with a list of potential husbands.

         

        I’m hiding because Chuck at Writer’s Digest did me a solid and featured my New Literary Agent Bio on his blog — a blog that has been reposted by seemingly hundreds of other bloggers. Of course, as a new agent, I need the exposure, and I’m relieved people in the industry know I’m alive. I’m not being flippant when I say I’m hugely grateful for the support and excited to continue building my client list.

         

        So why hide? Because. I. Have. 497. Queries. In. My. Inbox.

        I’ve created a response system . . . but it’s become more like bloody triage at the scene of a train wreck. I know, I shouldn’t complain. And I am happy to wade my way through the proposals, as long as I’m given the time to do it. Unfortunately, now I’m starting to get the second wave of letters from the first responders. Statements ranging from “I wrote to you five weeks ago and have yet to hear back” to “If you’re not interested, it’s still polite to write back” to “I sent you my query because Writer’s Digest said you were accepting queries; do you ignore everyone?” to “Hey, maybe you should give a crap about someone else other than yourself.”

        I have to be careful because my first reaction to the squirrely ones is to immediately hit send on

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      • February 22, 2014

        Author Earnings, Amazon, and the Future of Ebooks

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        There has been a ton of discussion over a report on author earnings  by ebook authors (which you can find here: http://authorearnings.com/the-report/), the response to it (http://tinyurl.com/pcebsd5), and the responses to the responses (two of the best are http://tinyurl.com/kbjts5s and http://tinyurl.com/omkjz6v ). If you follow this discussions in our industry, you already know what’s going on: successful self-published author of Wool, Hugh Howey, did a bunch of research and came to the conclusion that self-published authors are selling more books and making more money than those publishing with traditional publishers. It was quickly pointed out that there were some problems with Howey’s work — he sells his books on Amazon, did all his research on Amazon, and (surprise!) came to the conclusion that Amazon is a great place to do your ebooks. Nevertheless, there were really some interesting things that showed up in his research:

        —Indie-published ebooks have generally higher ratings on Amazon than Legacy-published ebooks.

        —Indie-published ebooks generally cost less than Legacy-published ebooks, possibly leading consumers to the sense of getting better value from indies.

        —Indie-published ebooks may be outselling Legacy-published ebooks (this is more inferred than proven).

        —Indie-published ebooks constitute a larger percentage of books sales than we’ve been led to believe in the past (Howey estimates it’s more than 50% of all book sales, though his methodology lacks stringent validity testing).

        —Indie-published authors of ebooks are earning more per book than Legacy-published ebook authors. (Though his argument that Indie-published authors are making more overall is based on very shaky evidence.)

        It’s all fascinating stuff, and I believe his conclusion that publishing’s brightest days are ahead is spot-on. As an agent, I’ve never felt I was one of the people who needed to protect the status quo — the fact is, I believe in authors self-publishing.. Unfortunately, the debate that arose after Howey released his findings was considerably less than insightful. It’s become a fairly

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      • February 18, 2014

        How can an author create a career?

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        If you are unaware, there is a ton of discussion going on right now over a report on author earnings done by a self-published author, what he discovered when he did some research, and how authors, agents, and publishers have responded to his findings. I’m in the midst of studying the whole schlamozzle before I respond, but all the discussion basically comes down to this question: How can an author have a career in today’s publishing climate? 

        I have a background in organizational development — that is, the study of how an organization grows and changes over time. My graduate training was in organizational theory, and during my PhD studies at the University of Oregon, I had a Graduate Teaching Fellowship to work at the Career Planning office, helping create tools to assist those graduating, particularly those getting graduate degrees in the arts. During my studies at the U of O (Go Ducks!), the focus eventually was on helping people  in the arts map out a career plan, and that experience allowed me the opportunity to apply the principles of organizational theory to the real-world setting of  trying to make a living via one’s art.  In my job as a literary agent, I’ve found that experience has proven helpful when talking to writers about their careers. You see, my contention is that some people pay lip service to “helping with career planning,” but many don’t really have a method for doing that. (Actually, from the look of it, some don’t even know what it means. I think “having a career plan” to some authors is equivalent to “having a book contract.”) So here are a few things I like to consider when talking with a writer…

        First, I want to get to know the author. Who is he (or she)? What’s the platform she brings to the process? Does she speak? If so, where? How often? To whom? To how

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      • February 12, 2014

        Self Publishing as Amway

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        BY CHIP MACGREGOR

        I’m one of those agents who believes in the future of publishing. I respect the past, but I understand that the old way of doing things won’t work today — everything has changed, we’re in a state of revolution, and people who want to make a living in this business will have to adapt or die. I know that’s true of agents, who must change the way they’re doing things if they expect to make a living in 2014. I think that’s true of publishers, who are big and successful for a reason, and who will continue to try to change their models to remain in business and make money. And I believe it’s also true of authors, who simply have to accept the world has changed and look to the future with a new plan.

        The old plan for most authors was clear: write a great book, find an agent, and let him help you land a deal with a publisher. Most authors relied on an advance to make a living, and the full-timers tended to live from one advance check to the next. Royalties were great, when they showed up once or twice per year, but could barely be counted on. The power was in the hands of publishers, and there were a number of middlemen (distributors, retailers, agents) intruding on much of a relationship that SEEMED like it should have been simply “author-to-reader.” In that old system, the roles were clear: the authors wrote books, the agents negotiated books, the publishers produced books, the marketers promoted books, the distributors provided books, and the retailers sold books. Sometimes it didn’t seem fair — as though the authors who were churning out the art didn’t have much control, and were at the mercy of a sometimes fickle or arbitrary system.

        Then things changed. Amazon came along and, in essence, removed many of the middlemen. An author

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      • February 7, 2014

        Here’s the Deal

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        2013sandra-150x150 by Sandra Bishop

        AGENT and VICE-PRESIDENT at MACGREGOR LITERARY

        Glad to be back. I’m excited to start the year with a monthly blog series, HERE’S THE DEAL.

        I often find the story behind the deal – the journey to publication – as exciting as making the deal itself. Given that, on the first Friday of each month, I’ll be offering glimpses into the backstory of how a particular book came to be published. And not from hearsay, but directly from the perspective of the acquiring editor.

        Of course it is a big day when an author hears those long-awaited words from their agent “we have a deal!” But as anyone who works in traditional publishing knows, getting to that point is rarely quick and never, never easy. And it’s not just the author and agent who labor to sell a book, but also the acquiring editor who works diligently to champion and support a project all the way through, from initial discovery all the way through acquisition, editing, marketing, release, and beyond.

        To kick things off, I interviewed Marc Resnick, Senior Editor at St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of Macmillan. In addition to having an office in the Flatiron – one of the coolest buildings in New York City – Marc is a pretty cool guy himself, and we’ve kept in touch since first meeting at a conference a few years ago.

        Though he and I have yet to do a deal together, we share an affinity for military topics. So, when we spoke for this interview I wasn’t surprised he chose to tell me the story behind the acquisition and success of the 2011 title SEAL TEAM SIX by Howard E. Wasdin and Stephen Templin.

        The Team Behind SEAL TEAM SIX

        Marc told me that when he received the proposal, originally titled Confessions of a Navy Seal Sniper, he read it immediately. A big part of his motivation

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      • January 24, 2014

        Acquisition Editors

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        BY CHIP MACGREGOR

        Someone recently wrote in with this question: “When someone is hired and allowed to acquire, are they trained or do they just ‘go and do’? Is this something they do individually or as part of a team (observer, etc.)?”

        An acquisitions editor has usually spent time with the company and has a feel for what he or she should be acquiring. And yes, personal tastes will shape the books they bring in. Therefore, a publishing house gets reshaped by the editors who work there. Few editors (just a handful of senior editors) have the authority to simply go acquire.

        The system looks like this:
        Step one is that the editor must like the presented idea. He or she works with the agent and author to sharpen the proposal and make it as strong as possilble.

        Step two is the idea is taken to the editorial board or team. In this meeting the merits of the book are discussed, several people read it, the team evaluates it, petty politics come into play, etc. They may ask for further changes, they may reject it, or they may decide to continue the discussion. If the team likes it, the project then moves on to the next step.

        Step three is yet another committee, known as the publishing board (or publishing committee). This is the decision-making body at most every publishing house. It includes the top sales people to talk about market response, a representative from marketing to suggest ways the company could help get the word out, somebody from finance to count the beans, the publisher of the line to give strategic direction, some senior management types, maybe a sub-rights person, and various others. The editor presents the proposal.

        The participants read it, discuss it, explore sales and marketing potential, check their horoscopes, and do everything else possible in order to try and figure out if they should do the

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