need quick advice on revision request

wrtaway · Oct 30, 2007

Hi,
I'm a frequent lurker here, but new to posting. I just had something sort of wonderful happen, and could use some quick advice. I just received an offer of representation from the first agent I contacted (a very reputable agent). The submission was on an exclusive basis, so I haven't had any feedback from any other agents.

While this is fantastic news, and I do feel confident that the agent is highly professional and would do a great job, she has asked for significant revisions before submitting the work to publishers.

Any thoughts from those of you with more experience on whether to sign on with this agent and complete the revisions, or try to shop it around a bit to see if someone else likes it as is? Have any of you regretted agreeing to revise?

Thx.

josephwise · Oct 30, 2007

Do the requested revisions make sense to you? In your opinion, do they improve the work? If so, they're worth making, whether you sign with this agent or not.

wrtaway · Oct 30, 2007

Joseph, that's actually a really tough question for me to answer. The suggested revisions are well thought out and make sense, but would ultimately create a very different book. I don't object on "creative grounds" to any of the suggestions, but I do wonder if we have a different vision of the book. Part of me thinks that I should defer to her judgment regarding what will appeal to publishers, but the other part of me wonders if this is just a matter of personal opinion.

johnnysannie · Oct 30, 2007

wrtaway said:
Joseph, that's actually a really tough question for me to answer. The suggested revisions are well thought out and make sense, but would ultimately create a very different book. I don't object on "creative grounds" to any of the suggestions, but I do wonder if we have a different vision of the book. Part of me thinks that I should defer to her judgment regarding what will appeal to publishers, but the other part of me wonders if this is just a matter of personal opinion.

I am all for revisions when they work for me and when they preserve the essence of what I have written. To me, a good editor simply distills and improves the flavor of what I have written without changing the recipe.

If it were me in your shoes, I would say "No, thanks" if I thought that the suggested revisions would make a very different book - unless I wanted the very different book.

NeuroFizz · Oct 30, 2007

Let's see. You have an offer from a reputable agent (a professional in the business who, I assume has a good sales record) who wants to help you make your manuscript more marketable (reputable agents won't spend the time unless they think the changes will make it more marketable). And you're asking if you should wait and see if there is an agent who will represent it as is?

Uh...if this agent ranks at or near the top of your list based on your submission research, it seems like kind of a no-brainer.

Unless you are one of the "they aren't going to mess up my brilliant writing with their bastardizing editing, by golly" types.

Jamesaritchie · Oct 30, 2007

Agent

If this really is a top, reputable agent, listen closely to what she says. Her job is to know what publishers want, what's wrong with your book, and why it will or won't sell as is.

Keep a copy of your novel as it is, but start a second file and start making the requested revisions. You might be surprised at how much better your novel reads when you're done.

Will Lavender · Oct 30, 2007

As others have said, I would listen to the agent.

Your "vision" of the book may not be a publishable vision.

KTC · Oct 30, 2007

Make the changes and see how you feel. The agent must know what they are talking about. It's definitely hard to hear that so many changes will need to happen before it's marketable...but coming from someone whose job it is to sell it...maybe they know of what they speak. Like a previous poster said, keep an original copy. But make the changes...you have an agent wanting to get you polished because they believe the book is marketable...you're halfway there. And welcome to posting at AW. Congrats on the agent too.

MidnightMuse · Oct 30, 2007

I'm with them - if this agent is as reputable as you believe, then by all means make the changes and see how they read. Keep a copy of the original, you'd never delete that, but try out the changes and take a step back, see what the novel looks like afterwards, and perhaps you'll find it's in a direction you didn't expect - but prefer.

No harm in trying. And congratulations on the landing of a quality agent

rugcat · Oct 30, 2007

I had a similar situation when I was agent shopping. My agent, however, didn't have specific suggestions -- she had problems with the plot and explained why she thought it didn't quite work, leaving it up to me to figure out how those problems might be addressed. Also, she had problems with the relationship between certain characters (but ultimately decided I was right in the first place.)

I did the revisions, because the things she focused on were things I actually had some doubts about myself. If I'd been sure I was right, it might have been a different story.

As suggested by others, I kept my original and created a new file for the significantly revised ms. When I finished I looked at the two and the question of representation was almost irrelevant. The revised version was obviously superior, and that's the one I would have shopped around if I hadn't ultimately signed with her.

One thing that convinced me to revise was the fact she'd spent ten years as an editor in my genre before switching to agenting -- I figured she probably knew what she was doing.

PeeDee · Oct 30, 2007

It's called killing your darlings for a reason.

It's also a good idea for a reason.

lkp · Oct 30, 2007

First of all, thats wonderful news. Congratulations!

I am going to diverge slightly from what seems to be the general consensus here and say that you really need to be excited about the book that will emerge from your revisions if you do them as the agent has outlined them. Not just comfortable --- excited. A single agent isn't an absolute barometer of marketability; a single agent can tell you what is marketable to the people who buy the things he/she sells. This was a situation I was concerned with for my book. Because of some plot elements I have, I thought a given agent could have said, "Beef up the romance and cut the rest and I'll sell it as a romance," or "Make the mystery the central core and cut the rest and I'll sell it as a mystery." I could see how it could have been marketable either way but I didn't want to make those changes. And in the end, wasn't asked to, luckily.

Nymtoc · Oct 30, 2007

If you haven't already done so, you might visit the "Ask the Agent" forum here at AW. Currently, Nathan Bransford, a highly respected agent, has a thread, and he usually responds to people's questions within two or three days. I believe he would have some experience in this sort of thing and could give you his informed opinion. So unless you have to reply to your agent instantly, you might want to see what Nathan has to say.

Oh, and congratulations!

wrtaway · Oct 30, 2007

Thanks, everyone, for the great feedback.

LKP - It sounds as if you were in the exact same situation as I am in now. The revisions that I'm considering will change the genre. That's actually okay with me, since I'm not particularly wedded to a particular category. As it stands right now, my book sits in between two categories. The agent is saying that it needs to be nudged into one or the other. Call my lazy, but I was really hoping that I could leave it sitting nicely in the middle!

But, as most of the posters have argued -- a good agent with a good sales record clearly knows more than I do about what's going to sell.

lkp · Oct 30, 2007

Yup, and I do think it makes sense to move a book clearly into a single genre.

rwam · Oct 30, 2007

On The Other Hand...

Did you say this was the first agent you contacted? If so, that's not just lucky...it's also sign that you have something very good. I know it's conventional wisdom to hop all over an agent who's interested in you, but if you've got confidence in your work, would it be so bad to ask if you can send her the revisions but not on an exclusive basis? Doesn't seem too unreasonable to want to continue to try to shop the book you first wrote.

Also, you may want to have a sit-down over the phone and talk about which revisions she considers "must haves" and which ones are "nice to haves". Could be there's only a few that are condition for the representation, so it can't hurt to explore further.

JMHO.

Namatu · Oct 30, 2007

Good advice here.

1) You have to want to make the revisions. If they make sense to you, if you can be enthusiastic about them, there's no reason not to do it (in a new file!). If you don't have the drive yourself, you're just going to drag your feet and feel like you're mutilating your baby, leaving you and your agent unhappy.

2) Do ask about the give-and-take: the "must haves" and where you might have more leeway. Look at those sections of your book and ask yourself if you can change them, cut them, whatever needs to be done with them.

3) Sketch out how you'd make these changes to see if they click with you - and your characters - creatively.

Congratulations!

Will Lavender · Oct 30, 2007

Namatu said:
1) You have to want to make the revisions.

I'm not sure you do.

I agree with lkp's point about being excited about the book when the changes are made, I think, but you're invariably going to get hit by an agent or an editor with suggestions that don't set well with you.

I don't think one should simply act as if the agent is some demigod who will make every single correct decision for the book, but it's also important not to romanticize one's own creation too much. You do that and you sort of block out any possibility that someone else might have a better idea than the ones you originally had. Dangerous thinking.

When you get into working with agents and editors, you're dealing with publishing. That's a whole different game than simply writing and polishing. There are more variables involved, many of them complex and outside of the areas of a writer's expertise.

I personally give my agent and editor the benefit of the doubt more times than not -- and it's worked pretty well so far.

LeeFlower · Oct 30, 2007

Nathan Bransford's blog had an interesting post today that might be of use to you-- not about revisions in specific, but about dealing with agent offers in general. Bransford is an agent with Curtis Brown who, aside from maintaining an awesome blog, also hangs out in the 'Ask an Agent' forum here. Agent Ginger Clark wrote the entry up as a guest-piece.

You can find it here.

Namatu · Oct 30, 2007

Will Lavender said:
I agree with lkp's point about being excited about the book when the changes are made, I think, but you're invariably going to get hit by an agent or an editor with suggestions that don't set well with you.

What I meant to get at more clearly was that if, as the writer, you don't want to make the changes, you could risk dragging your feet and pulling the words out of your pen like a tooth extraction without novacaine, which could result in something you don't want, don't like, and could resent.

Guess it depends on the publishing deal.

I do agree that agents and publishers in most cases have a better sense of market needs and how your book fits into the grand scheme. It's how they make their living, and if they're successful, they're good at it.

Ziljon · Oct 30, 2007

If your query and book were so powerful as to snag the very first agent you queried, sounds like you've got a hit on your hands. Whatever you decide, I hope you stay around here so we can all watch your rise to fame.

Chasing the Horizon · Oct 30, 2007

I'm going to have to disagree with what most everyone else has said. The novel I have queries and partials out on right now is a cross genre, and if one of my top-choice agents offered representation on the condition of major revision I would tell them 'no'. I intended the book to be cross genre, and it tells the story I want to tell. Unless you feel the revisions the agent wants will help tell the story you want to tell, don't make them. If the very first agent you queried is this excited about the potential of your work, then you shouldn't have any trouble finding an agent who will take it as-is.

Good luck with whatever you decide

lkp · Oct 30, 2007

Cross genre is (I think, given that I don't have direct knowledge of either of these two books) different from a book that straddles two genres.

It sounds like the OP's book isn't quite firmly in either genre. It makes sense to push it to one or the other so it can be a clear fit somewhere and I would follow an agents advice on that, as long as I was happy with the direction she was pushing it in. Eg., if I had written a romantic mystery and all my later books were going to be romances, I'd think twice about editing it for an agent who wanted to sell it as a mystery.

I think of true cross genre as a book that fits equally well in more than one genre, ie. it is readily identifiable by readers as belonging well in both genres.

Of course, the distinction may well be in the eye of the beholder.

Prawn · Oct 31, 2007

I'd sign with the agent. You are only signing for a year. Make the revisions. If the agent is a goat raper, you can look for another agent later. I'll bet they are not. Meanwhile, you will have the advice of someone on how to make your book better.

Would you rather have a book you feel is right, or a book your agent thinks will sell?

I want my books to sell, and if taking my agent's advice will get me there, great! That's what I am paying her for.

Jamesaritchie · Oct 31, 2007

Revision

I don't much care for the romanticized notion of writing many hold. Publishing isn't abut romance, it's about writing a book the reading public will actually shell out hard-earned money to read.

You don't have to be excited about changes, about revisions. You don't even have to agree with them. You do have to realize that sometimes your vision is dead wrong, and an agent's or editor's vision is dead right.

A novel is not a baby, you do not give birth to it. It's no more and no less than a story you're inventing. Publishing is all about making that story one that John Doe and Jane Smith will pay money to read.

You can still do it well, still do it proudly, still tell your story, even when an agent or editors asks for major revisions.

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