Ask the Agent: Andy Zack

Re: Ask the Agent

Well, on my website it says not to query us unless your book is done or proposal finished. The reason for this being exactly the situation you are describing. You have several agents' attention, but you may now lose it because you queried them prematurely.

As for the exclusivity, my suggestion is to forward your material and tell them they do NOT have it exclusively, because of the terrific response your query received and that several agents are looking at the material. Some may be turned off by that, so give it some thought.

You might also pick the agent you would most like to represent you and simply give that agent the exclusive, say until the end of the week. No news by then, send your material out to the others to read over the weekend.

These are just suggestions, of course.... There's really no "right" answer.

Re: Ask the Agent

How do you feel about the "first refusal rights" clause in some publishing contracts? Do you think it's fair, or not? How often, would you say, do those publishers who have these clauses in their contracts actually do reject an author's next work?

I ask, b/c the current publisher I am with has one in my contract, for the next two works of mine that are of the same genre. I personally don't mind, b/c I have a great relationship with the editor, and I think we work well together.

Just wondering what your opinion is?

Re: Ask the Agent

Thanks Andy.

I chose these agents because they actually requested the short query before anything else was sent. I also have a lot of published credits, including non-fiction books, and was also repped by Richard Curtis in the past. I have a feeling that helped me. I've sold on spec before.
However, your system seems a viable safeguard against
writers who want to sign but can't finish the script. All these agents said, "just send it when it's ready."

Thanks, again................Triceratops

Re: Ask the Agent

Andy, what I said was that you have random moments of acting like a jerk, which is not at all the same thing. But I'll give you this: you'll do it to anybody.

You're dead right about there being a shocking amount of misinformation floating around, likewise confusion and misunderstanding. For a long time now, I've thought that one of the things the situation needs is a real agent answering questions. You get pro authors participating in these discussions, and sometimes you'll see booksellers, trade editors, even people who work in production. They know what they know, but they don't know what agents know.

So, good on you. Glad you're here.

Re: Ask the Agent

Option clauses are, fundamentally, a business point. They are not legally enforceable—or so I've been told; I'm not a lawyer—but they do create a presumption that the relationship will be profitable and that both sides will want to continue it. I don't think that's a bad way to start off a relationship. That said, I'm not sure the existence of an option clause helps any if the author's books aren't selling!

However, having the option be on the next two books is highly unusual. It is usually on the next work only.

Re: Ask the Agent

Victoria said:

There's a category of slush known as "agented slush"--submissions from agents who aren't known to be questionable (in which case they go direct to the reject pile) but whose names are unfamiliar, who offer material that's inappropriate or substandard, or who submit in an unprofessional way (for instance, with a "Dear Editor" letter, or by bundling several queries in a single envelope). Agented slush may get more priority than regular slush, but not much more. Hence the very long response times.

Click to expand...

A quibble: Not all houses will automatically reject submissions from agents whom they know to be crooks. A good author might wind up in the hands of a very bad agent. Also, in my experience, the only difference in the treatment of slush and agented slush is that they get different form rejection letters. Who the manuscript is addressed to matters less than who your agent is. If it's Gem or Lee Shore, you're slush.

Don't take that as gospel, though. Practices vary from house to house.

(Now I'll shut up and go back to being in the audience.)

Re: Ask the Agent

I have to concur with HapiSofi. I also know of some well known legitimate publishing houses that will accept subs from any and all agents. I won't identify them because I know from speaking with their editors that they don't want to be targeted by some of those agents.

Re: Ask the Agent

Wow! An Agent!
I just wanted to say Thank You. It's a real spirit-lifting moment to see someone of your caliber paying forward for your business, and our craft. I am truly impressed.

Although my question will surely seem fundamental to most of the writers here, they are genuine, and your insight would be most useful to me.

I am not a new author. I am a new fiction writer, working on my first novel. There is a series of at least five planned in the Mystery/Adventure genre.

I am 90% complete with the first draft. So far, critiques have been extremely positive, for which I am humbled and very grateful. Good criticisms, suggestions, and input from some pretty (I found out later) heavy hitters in this field.

I am having intense personal relationship these days with a red pen. I feel very positive about the work.

At what point in this journey should I be actively seeking, and engaging an Agent? I feel as though I have a basic understanding of my requirements, and am interested in finding out theirs. When is "too early"?

No, I am not published in articles or Journals. It's one of those "straight-out-the-door" avenues for me. My current philosophy is a matrix that includes the expectation of 100 rejections per 1 acceptance, but that acceptance is going to be worth the 100 rejections. So, I'm not going to be concerned until the 101st rejection arrives.

Any comments or suggestions would be most appreciated.

And, again, thank you so very much for being here.

Bud Fields
[email protected]

Re: Ask the Agent

Hey, Bud!
When did you get here??

:lol
See ya round LBF.

Christine

Re: Ask the Agent

I'm a bit confused. If an agent is sending out the manuscript to well-known publishing houses, it sounds like he or she is doing his job. What about them makes them crooks? They they charged the client for the shipping? That they charged a reading fee up-front? I'm truly unclear on what the definition of a crook is supposed to be here.

When I was an agent, I got submissions from Lee Shore. I can't recall much else, but I don't remember thinking we wouldn't buy from the firm if the book was good. They just never were. And sending in bad books is the fastest way to get your submissions automatically moved to the bottom of the pile.

Re: Ask the Agent

It's never too early to do research, but you shouldn't send out queries until you have a manuscript you are ready to show. It's a long shot, but you might find an agent who responds to your query immediately with a request for the manuscript. If you then write back and say, Oops, I never expected you to respond so fast and I have three months of work still to do, it's not going to make a good impression.

Best,

Re: Ask the Agent

I hope that everyone reading these posts, including me, do their homework and submit their work to agents and publishers correctly: that is, good queries, correct ms formatting, spelling, etc.

I'm curious to know about the "bad" submissions you receive. Do you see any frequently-made errors in manuscript submissions? What mistakes do you most often see in query letters? How often (like a percentage) do you get submisssions you reject right off the bat due to formatting mistakes, bad grammar, or just overall bad writing?

In other words, what are the things we should definitely NOT do when submitting our work to agents and publishers? Things that you see on a daily/weekly basis? Things that just drive you crazy because the author should have known better?

Armed with this information, hopefully I won't make mistakes when submitting my work--mistakes I didn't know were mistakes, in spite of doing my homework.

Thanks!

underthecity

Re: Ask the Agent

1. I have heard that August is a major bad time to try and get an agent, as NYC ic cleared out for the summer and that's also when the publishing companies have their conventions. IS this true? Are there other BAD TIMES to try and get an agent or be published. Like, what about now? I just sent off a number of queries. Was I wrong with Christmas right around the corner?

2. Let's say you found a new writer that you just love and you want to represent him. When you go to give him the contract, he tells you that he had been previously represented by a semi-scammer agent 2 months before. (He did not know it at the time, but now knows his mistake.) Does that make you NOT want to sign him? Do you anyway? How does having had a bad/not too reputable agent hurt one's career?

Again and again...you are an awesome Christmas gift to us all!
THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Ask the Agent

Since finding an agent is never a quick process, I don't really think it's that calendar sensitive. Yes, August is when a lot of people go on vacation and several major publishers close for the week between Xmas and New Year's. So maybe wait until after Labor Day and until mid-January to avoid getting added to the catch-up pile.

Having a bad prior agent isn't a deal-breaker. It just depends on whether or not they made submissions. You have to keep in mind that publishers—but not all agents—do log in submissions. Hence, if they see that the same book was seen and rejected by another editor in the past, they will likely just return it. My advice to you if you are going to change agents is to get a complete submission list of where your work has been and give it to your new agent. Also, you might want to consider a title change.

Re: Ask the Agent

A very helpful thread Andrew - thanks!

I have a question regarding the type of book that I wish to pursue. For lack of a better description, it would fall into the very broad "coffee table" book category, but not a traditional one. I'm an engineer interested in doing an illustrated bridges book, that offers the reader a glimpse into this very interesting world. The book would also include some text but the focus would be sketches, illustrations, photos, etc.

So the book is a bit of a cross-breed (coffee table & text book) designed to engage anyone with some basic math & science background (say Junior High students and up).

My question is: Do I need an agent to represent this type of work? I ask because it seems that there are not any agents who list this type of work as something that they are interested in representing.

Also, I have queried two agencies via email, but not received any word back. Is it normal not to reply to email queries from potential authors, even just to say "PFO"? It seems to me that ignoring the very submissions that were openly invited is a bit rude (although one did have a "if you don't hear from us in two weeks, then take the hint" blurb at the bottom of their form).

Re: Ask the Agent

Thanks for the great thread!

if you don't mind revealing the dirty details, could you give us a run down of your average day (and maybe even a few not-so-average days)?

what is it like to be an agent full time? many writers would probably have a better time negotiating their impatience if they knew the average difficulties you face on a daily basis.

thanks for taking the time to give us all a glimpse!

Re: Ask the Agent

Emerald,

That's a very good suggestion. Other than finding every
negative aspect of agenting, why not find out what a typical
agent endures (or suffers) as a result of voluminous public contact, which can't be all that rosy of a vocation when dealing with personalities and artistic sensibilities.

Triceratops

Re: Ask the Agent

Well, it's 1 pm. What have I done today?

I started at 9 am, when my intern showed up. He has a big interview for a real job today at a major publisher. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a sport coat, so we spent a few minutes seeing if mine would fit him and could he wear it to the interview (he can).

I read and answered several emails from clients and editors.

I reviewed materials in advance of a meeting and then went to a meeting with an investment advisor to discuss my firm's pension plan.

I returned to read a long email from a client about the cover of his book (brilliant observations!) and wrote an email to him and the publisher that I hope will keep things on a cooperative level rather than the publisher just picking the cover and doing what they want (the work is religious nonfiction and the author pointed out in a very clear manner that none of the images they want to use are applicable).

I read and logged a rejection on a project and forwarded it to the author to review.

I opened a giant tin of chocolate-covered, peanut-butter pretzels one of my clients sent me for Xmas. Apparently any hopes of keeping trim this month are doomed.

This afternoon, I need to finish reviewing a contract from a major house. Now here's a way to waste an agent's time: send them the contract as a Word document, but protect it so that it is read-only. I cannot mark it up or make any of the changes I need to make. Several publishers have policies of refusing to send contracts by email or, if they do, they will send them only as PDF or read-only documents. This, of course, is grossly inefficient and has no real function. While I can use the comments and edits feature of Adobe to mark up a PDF, it is not nearly as efficient as Word. And a read-only file is really no better than a fax.

My other favorite is a fairly major publisher that routinely sends five copies of the first draft of the contract. It's over a dozen pages long, I think, and I have never used that first draft. Thus, they spend the money to print all these copies and then to messenger it to me, and I shred four copies and use the fifth as a working copy. It's a tremendous waste of time, money, and trees.

Re: Ask the Agent

Pixel:

I don't actually take email queries, so I can't comment on what's normal or not normal about them. Though, if I did, I'd have an autoresponder on it that said, "Thanks for your query. It has been safely received. If we are interested, we will contact you." Then I would not respond unless I was interested. Just my take, though. Not sure about the ones you ran into.

As for the book...illustrated books are a very difficult sell. They tend to be expensive to produce and the cover prices are high, which keeps sales low. I have recently heard that one major publisher of them is 9 months or so behind in paying advances and royalties.

Honestly, you may have better luck writing an illustrated childrens' book about bridges. You'd certainly sell more, I think.

Re: Ask the Agent

I opened a giant tin of chocolate-covered, peanut-butter pretzels one of my clients sent me for Xmas.

Click to expand...

This makes me want to be an agent.

Re: Ask the Agent

Thank you for the information on your day. However, I never heard you talk about reading queries. This is what I have come up with in my own mind. While you are doing all the stuff you described, your interns are busy opening, reading and then sorting the queries. Those that are obviously poorly written are sent to the NO THANK YOU PILE. You never even see them...right? Then at the end of the day, your interns have a handful/select few/a couple of great queries. Do you review these daily? Weekly?

Do you ever get concerned that MAYBE your interns are throwing away a GREAT book?

Once more...YOU ARE APPRECIATED!!! I'll send you a box of whatever you want to keep you answering our questions!

hmm

I know many writers who are afraid of even asking their agent a question or even moderately disagreeing with them for fear the agent will dump them. (LOL something I've never suffered from)

I think a lot of writers would rest easy knowing that a question or not understanding something or even saying: Look, I like this scene or character and then discussing the scene is not going to get them tossed out with the trash.

So what are the main reasons an author would leave an agent, or an agent would want to (or indeed do so) get rid of a client?

Thanks,

Shawn

Re: Ask the Agent

I rarely read queries during the day. But, also, my interns do not generally reject queries. Yes, there are some they are allowed to chuck (40,000 word romance novels, anything written in crayon, anything with obvious drool on it, etc.), but I read pretty much everything else.

The point of "what's an agent's day like" is that it's not about reading. It's about paperwork, emails and phone calls. It's about writing submission letters and then packing up (or having an assistant or intern who packs them up) submissions, and getting them out. Remember, this is NYC. I don't have a car. How do you imagine a submission of 10 or 15 400-page manuscripts gets out the door?

The reason the reading takes so long is that it's the last thing that gets done, often in the evening or on the weekend, etc. And at that point, even the most enthusiastic agent and editor might be a little worn out.

I don't review queries on a set schedule. Sometimes I have let an entire month accumulate and then spent four hours going through them. Lately, I've been reading them daily. I'd like to keep doing that, if my schedule permits. That said, though, I haven't been to the gym in over a week. And it's probably more important right now that I get to the gym and keep myself healthy than anything.

We've also added a "stats" page at http://www.zackcompany.com/submissions.htm, which shows any author where we stand as of the last date we tallied everything.

And, no, I've never worried anyone was throwing away a great book. The odds are awfully long that could happen.

Re: hmm

When an agent and author reach irreconcilable differences, it's time to part ways. When an author starts to give an agent orders or tell him how to sell a book, that's when it's time for the agent to say good-bye. While there is certainly a time and place for an agent to ask an author for a direct request for action (say not making something a deal-breaker), agents are not the employees of authors.

And, neither are authors the employees of agents. If an author feels like an agent is treating him as such, then it is time for author to say good-bye.

The author/agent relationship is a partnership, just as the editorial/sale relationship is a partnership. You should be rowing together, in the same direction; not barking at one another to go one way or another.

Re: Advising the Agent

Well, it's 1 pm. What have I done today?

It's after 4p here and I've decided to do this post.

I started at 9 am, when my intern showed up. He has a big interview for a real job today at a major publisher. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a sport coat, so we spent a few minutes seeing if mine would fit him and could he wear it to the interview (he can).

My advice here is to suggest to the young man that he start dropping hints to his folks that he needs a few new items of clothing to help in his career search. It's that time of year, y'know, so now's the perfect time while there's still a few shopping days left.

I read and answered several emails from clients and editors.

This requires no advice. I'd have done this too if I were an agent. Good job!

I reviewed materials in advance of a meeting and then went to a meeting with an investment advisor to discuss my firm's pension plan.

This is businessy stuff. Businessy stuff makes my ears bleed and my eyes glaze over. :\

I returned to read a long email from a client about the cover of his book (brilliant observations!) and wrote an email to him and the publisher that I hope will keep things on a cooperative level rather than the publisher just picking the cover and doing what they want (the work is religious nonfiction and the author pointed out in a very clear manner that none of the images they want to use are applicable).

This sounds perfectly reasonable. If the publisher fails to consider the author's well thought out arguments then I think we should arrange a visit to suggest more firmly that he/she reconsider using vice-grip pliers and a screwdriver.

I read and logged a rejection on a project and forwarded it to the author to review.

What's this? The author's work was rejected!? Then the course is clear; he/she must be dropped in favor of a more promising writer. Myself, for instance. :smokin

I opened a giant tin of chocolate-covered, peanut-butter pretzels one of my clients sent me for Xmas.
Apparently any hopes of keeping trim this month are doomed.

It's Christmas! This is no time to concern yourself with proper diet and nutrition. That's for the other 92% of the year.

This afternoon, I need to finish reviewing a contract from a major house. Now here's a way to waste an agent's time: send them the contract as a Word document, but protect it so that it is read-only. I cannot mark it up or make any of the changes I need to make. Several publishers have policies of refusing to send contracts by email or, if they do, they will send them only as PDF or read-only documents. This, of course, is grossly inefficient and has no real function. While I can use the comments and edits feature of Adobe to mark up a PDF, it is not nearly as efficient as Word. And a read-only file is really no better than a fax.

Can't you save a copy of the Word doc under a different name to edit?

My other favorite is a fairly major publisher that routinely sends five copies of the first draft of the contract. It's over a dozen pages long, I think, and I have never used that first draft. Thus, they spend the money to print all these copies and then to messenger it to me, and I shred four copies and use the fifth as a working copy. It's a tremendous waste of time, money, and trees.

Much of this is the reason that I, personally, think electronic copy, submission, and delivery should become the standard. Paperless is progress. I'd rather have trees than a lotta crap on paper to be shredded or tossed. I work for a huge company and I see a small deciduous forest worth of useless or outdated paperwork being thrown out every week. It gives me intestinal cramps to see that, especially when there's recycle bins in several locations throughout the building.

Sorry, I'm rambling.

Andy Zack
President
The Zack Company, Inc.
www.zackcompany.com

This is all correct and requires no further discussion.


On a Personal Note: Most of my questions are being asked by others. If I come up with anything else I'll post it. Glad to have you here offering your insights. It was damn swell of ya to do this, Andy.