New agents vs. established

I have no experience myself, but this agented tweeter gave an excellent story about (and good arguments in favor of) her then-very-new agent just yesterday. Should answer some questions.

If the new agent has some experience in publishing then yes, that can be a great route to take.

(This fits better in Ask the Agent, rather than in Publishing FAQs, so I'm going to move it there now.)

New agents are fine if they have experience with the agenting thing. However, I don't think that new agents are specifically going to spend more time on you as a client than a more experienced agent. (The only reason this might be true would be if a new agent didn't have other responsibilities at the agency - many of them do, either handling certain parts of the administrative work or otherwise assisting the senior agents - or if they never signed more clients - which would be a bit of a red flag to me anyway because it would either indicate they were too busy to rep more folks or they didn't have the experience to handle a larger client list.) Agents only make money when you do so it really doesn't follow that reputable agents will sign a client and then not work to get their MS sold.

One thing to be cautious of with new agents is every now and then you see folks who are so excited about being an actual agent that they sign a bunch of folks off the bat and then struggle because they haven't learned how to balance the workload yet.

I've had a brand new agent (I think I was her 5th client*) and an experienced agent. I'd never sign with a BNA again. I understand that it works out great for some people but your odds are better with someone who's been in the business, knows more editors, and has more tricks up their sleeve. Of course a new agent has that fire, but they don't have clients you can call and get references and so yeah. It's a risk.

*Details changed to protect the innocent. It's not her fault she was figuring things out.