Stephanie Cabot’s Passive-Aggressiveness
I was offered representation by Stephanie Cabot of the Gernert Company on January 22, 2016. I ended my relationship with her this past March 4. The six weeks I worked with her were illuminating, and I think deserve to be shared with other writers—both published and newbie—who are considering working with her.
My firm advice is, avoid Stephanie Cabot. She is an extremely bright, extremely personable individual. In all of my dealings with her, I found her charming. However, she is passive-aggressive to the extreme, and highly changeable in her judgments and her decisions.
This is why I came to this opinion:
My relationship with Stephanie Cabot started in mid-December, when I sent her a query letter for my just-completed manuscript, with a paragraph-long pitch and a pretty strong log line. Off this pitch and log line, I got half-a-dozen requests for the full MS.
Her assistant/junior agent, Ellen Goodson, seemed more interested in where else I was submitting my MS, and not what kind of writing I was pursuing. (Thrillers, btw.)
I had to prod Stephanie several times, before she finally read my MS. When she did—after I emailed her that I had other representation offers on the table, which I did at the time—she offered me representation. I said I’d think about it.
The other two offers were from younger, very eager literary agents but who didn’t have track records. But Stephanie Cabot is a Name.
Foolishly, I picked her.
We had an hour-long conversation about editorial changes prior to me signing with her. They were all smart, reasonable suggestions—suggestions I would have made. This conversation was a big reason for me choosing her: She seemed like a Big Name whose judgment synched with mine.
So I took the plunge. I called the other two agents who’d offered to represent me, and politely declined, telling them I was going with Stephanie.
After I signed with her, I said I’d carry out the edits she’d suggested. They were all minor, stuff I polished off in a week.
Then . . . then it started: A passive-aggressive drawing out of the editorial process, which only served to postpone submission to editors, and also try my patience.
I’m a published author. I’ve earned a living as a writer since 1996. So I know the difference between minor polishes and major rewrites; small adjustments and big changes. The editorial changes she initially wanted were all minor, I’m talking tertiary character changes. One of the characters she kept obsessing over added to a mere 9 pages out of a 270 page manuscript—less than 3%.
Not enough to affect the overall quality of the MS.
Yet this was one of the characters she kept harping on.
After I integrated her notes, she passed the rewritten MS to Ellen Goodson. Ellen had issues with another character, issues she found “problematic”. The character was a caricature of a hard-core campus Feminist—Ellen wanted me to make her more sympathetic.
Again, a tertiary character.
I made the adjustments.
Then I got yet <i>another</i> set of notes (third round)—this time written by a guy called Jack, who was the receptionist of the agency. (Not kidding.) Jack didn’t like the politics of the book. (Not kidding.) He also didn’t like that there was some slight foreshadowing of a plot twist—and that was it. Other than that, he thought the novel “[is] action-packed and page-turning—I always wanted to know what happened next.”
I figured, “Okay, this is it: Just do a few changes, and be done with it.” I got Jack’s notes on Feb. 11, turned them around in a day, then sent them a rewrite dated Feb. 15.
No joy—Stephanie and her team “brainstormed” my MS to come up with better ideas to fix the book.
This is wrong on so many level. First off, the author should be in on any agency brainstorming conversation to "fix" a book—assuming it needs fixing. Secondly, a novel this far along is waiting for an editor's changes—an agent shouldn't be stepping into the granular detail that is properly the editor's purview.
I got another set of notes from this brainstorming session. (We’re up to Round Four, folks.) I got to work and turned these notes around, sending her a draft dated Feb. 23. Again, tweaking minor, trivial crap.
By the way, by this time, Stephanie had already threatened to rescind her representation of my book, if I didn’t do the changes she wanted. They were all <i>minor</i>—I’m talking, walk-on characters. But she was willing to drop me as a client, telling me I could go with one of the other agents who’d offered to represent me.
But that was a no-go—and she and I both knew it: In publishing, if you turn down an agent, you can’t go back later to them. Nobody wants to feel like a second choice.
So Stephanie knew the game she was playing with me, when she so politely offered to "step aside" as she put it: What she was really saying in her passive-aggressive way was, Do these changes, or else I’ll drop you.
In case you’re wondering: Everyone who read my MS at its various stages—even Ellen and Jack—agreed that my novel was fast-paced, “un-put-downable”, exciting, surprising, “twisty”, etc.—which is what you want in a thriller. I mean, we’re writing commercially viable fiction, here. It has to be fun, or else it’s no good.
Everyone agreed that it was a thrilling thriller. But Stephanie Cabot and her people were screwing around with the hems of the dress—endlessly.
Then on March 2, I got an email from Ellen Goodson, saying how she’d given the latest draft to a beta reader, someone named “Sarah” (Ding!-Ding!-Ding! Round Five, folks!). Sarah again said it was fast and dynamic—but she thought I should refocus the novel and have a Hero, because “the story requires a clearer protagonist”, in the words of Sarah.
The structure of the novel—from the very beginning—was such that there was no hero’s journey. There was just a story going on, with several main characters, and a dozen secondary and tertiary characters.
But Sarah seemed unhappy with the fact that there was no central “Hero”—even though that was baked into the book and couldn't be changed unless I went ahead and wrote a completely different novel.
The cherry on the sundae, however, was that Sarah didn’t like one of the acknowledged best scenes of the book—a sex scene that everyone who read the book thought was a high-point of the MS: Dramatic, surprising, memorable. It was also crucial for the development of two of the major characters.
Sarah wanted this scene—one of the best scenes, and certainly the most memorable—excised in toto from the MS. Neither Stephanie nor Ellen nor Jack had said anything about the scene before—but now, all of a sudden, this major scene had to go.
That’s when I realized Stephanie Cabot was basically playing Lucy to my Charlie Brown: Every time I thought I would get to kick the football, she’d yank it away with another reader’s comments, and another round of revisions that were all <i>minor</i>—or else were now actively working to hurt the strengths of the book.
I cannot emphasize this enough. All the editorial suggestions were minor—but they were all excuses Stephanie used to not submit the book to publishers.
Then I read the account here, of another former client of hers, Quilotoa, who said Stephanie submitted in dribs and drabs, and was unresponsive in a passive-aggressive sort of way.
Then it clicked.
I had realized when she threatened to withdraw her representation back in mid-February over my questioning how effective it was to tinker with tertiary characters that this relationship was doomed. But—foolishly on my part—I still clung to hope that it would work out.
But with Round Five of her "suggestions" I realized that it was time for me to put on the Big Boy pants. So on Friday, I told her over the phone that I was terminating our relationship.
I have an idea as to why Stephanie Cabot played this passive-aggressive stuff on me: She had a change of heart. When I mentioned in mid-January that I had had offers of representation elsewhere, Stephanie wanted to get on the bandwagon—so she read the book quickly, and made her offer. But then when she considered the work a little more carefully, she decided (for whatever reason) that she didn’t like it. (I actually suspect she didn’t like the implied politics of the book; something that's very subtle and well-hidden, but implicit in the book. But I digress.) So she made me jump through hoops passive-aggressively, until I finally came to my senses and dropped her.
If she had dropped me, it would have looked awfully bad—especially because I kept changing the MS as she requested I do.
So she made me lose all this time, and made me go through all these draft, and made me burn two other offers of representation—knowing full well what she was doing. Because someone like her, who has been in the biz for so many years, knows what she'd doing with endless revision notes, and threats to drop a just-signed client.
She knew full well she had no intention of ever submitting my novel to anyone. But she didn't want to look bad—so she played her passive-aggressive game, until I finally gave up on her.
This was my experience with Stephanie Cabot. Which is why I recommend you not sign with her under any circumstances. You can say that I’m upset with her—which I am, no question—and that this account is jaundiced. Sure, you can say that—but I have all the emails to back up my account, and all the drafts (if anyone would like to see) to show how I carried out all her editorial "suggestions".
Any way you look at these emails and the drafts I submitted, you’ll come to the same conclusion: You’ll never know what Stephanie Cabot’s intentions are, you’ll always be made to jump through hoops. She might love you—then again, she might change her mind.
So why go looking for drama like this? Avoid her, and find someone more honest and direct—which is what I am doing right now.
