This is about a year old, but in looking up information about a Renee Zuckerbrot yesterday I found this very interesting article - a round table with Lazar, Kleinman, Barer, and Zuckerbrot.
Worth the read.
http://www.pw.org/content/agents_and_editors_qampa_four_young_literary_agents?article_page=2
My favorite bit of the conversation:
Worth the read.
http://www.pw.org/content/agents_and_editors_qampa_four_young_literary_agents?article_page=2
My favorite bit of the conversation:
LAZAR: Then you know what? You would not have been the right agent. For example, when I read The Art of Racing in the Rain, I admired it very much but I thought it needed a little more x, y, z, let's say. I remember writing a very nice note to Garth and saying, "This is very impressive, but blah blah blah." Well, the next thing you know, some other motherf***er sells it for $1.25 million the way it was. [Laughter.]
KLEINMAN: Call me a mofo.
LAZAR: Okay, a mofo. If I had taken that book on the way it was, I either would have put him through editorial hell or I would have sent it out the way it was and maybe—not intentionally—underpitched it and if someone tried to preempt it for, you know, a hundred thousand dollars, I would have been grateful.
KLEINMAN: You want to know how I handled that, just because I think it's kind of interesting? I read the first fifty pages and knew exactly what was wrong with the book. I called him and said, "Here's what you need to do to fix it." He said, "Do you want to see the rest?" I was like, "No. There's no point. I know you have to fix this first." He was like, "Yeah, you're right. I see exactly what you mean." All I can say is, I don't feel like I'm competing against other agents.
BARER: You never feel like you're competing against them?
KLEINMAN: I don't want to think about it like that. I feel like I've got to have a relationship with the author, and it's me and the author.
BARER: Do you ever lose things?
KLEINMAN: Constantly.
KLEINMAN: So much of it's about responsiveness. My favorite story is about this book I got from a doctor in San Francisco. He'd written this novel. He sent it to me on a Wednesday, and I was doing the whole "I'm going to be an important literary person" thing and I thought, "I'll read it on my at-home reading day on Friday." So I took it home on Friday and read the book and totally loved it. I called the author and said, "I would love to represent you." He said, "Well, Elaine Koster just offered representation, and I'm going to go with her."
LAZAR: Oh, man.
BARER: Not even a conversation.
KLEINMAN: The book was called The Kite Runner. [Extended whooping and laughter.] And I think he did absolutely the right thing. She was totally on the ball.
LAZAR: You lost The Kite Runner? I lost The Art of Racing in the Rain, but you lost The Kite Runner? That trumps everything.
Last edited: