What is literary agent training like?

Here's a link that may interest you. It's more about what a typical day is like for an agent, rather than what type of training they have, though.


http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2015/02/13/a-day-in-the-life-of-literary-agent-suzie-townsend/

If you want to know what literary agents do day to day the most comprehensive answer you're going to find is the late and extremely great Carole Blake's book, From Pitch to Publication.

An agent's training involves working in publishing for several years, working at an agency for several years, learning all about the business, learning to read a lot in a short space of time, learning about the law in publishing, learning how publishing works... it's involved and difficult and you do all this for very little spare time and very little money.

But still: it's a wonderful job, and those who do it well transform people's lives.

A major part of being an effective agent is having the knowledge of what editors like and what kind of books they're looking for, which mean cultivating relationships with them over time. It's part of why agents who don't come up through the ranks as a junior agent with an experienced agent to help them make those connections often don't do very well. Knowing that agent A doesn't like stories with kids in them but is a sucker for dog stories, while agent B really likes stories with children (just as an example) makes you much better at effectively targeting your submissions. That's not necessarily something you can take "lessons" in.

Old Hack said:

If you want to know what literary agents do day to day the most comprehensive answer you're going to find is the late and extremely great Carole Blake's book, From Pitch to Publication.

An agent's training involves working in publishing for several years, working at an agency for several years, learning all about the business, learning to read a lot in a short space of time, learning about the law in publishing, learning how publishing works... it's involved and difficult and you do all this for very little spare time and very little money.

But still: it's a wonderful job, and those who do it well transform people's lives.

Click to expand...

Often times no money at all-- vast majority of internships in the industry are non-paid these days. I actually did manage to land one, though. Granted, I'm out of college now and had to do the internship remotely via emails, so I didn't get much of any experience working right in the office, but it was my second internship in the industry, and one that actually paid a stipend at the end. I'm very grateful I was able to get the opportunity.

So far I've worked for a publishing house and agency. Lots of editing and filling out reports and such so far for me. Did some interesting research for a nonfiction book as well.

I really like the work, so I'm looking to see if I can get an assistant position somewhere.

Though, the most important thing, I'd say, is developing reading speed :v

Writes-With-Wolves said:

Often times no money at all-- vast majority of internships in the industry are non-paid these days.

Click to expand...

There's a growing movement towards paying interns, at least in the UK. And while applications for the first round has just closed, it's worth looking up the Carole Blake Open Doors scheme, which aims to provide a stepping-stone into publishing for those who can't afford to take an unpaid intern position.