Jessica Faust of Book Ends Literary Ask An Agent Guest

Hi Jessica, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

I just have one question (at this point): do you think it is important to personalize query letters? Thanks.

gigig said:

Yay! Thanks so much for doing this.

A question for a friend: At what point in the querying process should one reassess a query or pages?

One of my CPs has just started querying and in the first couple weeks I'd say she has about a 25% request rate. In my mind, that's a great percentage! I'd heard 10% is good and anything above that is pretty phenomenal in this industry. But she's worried that that there might be something in her first couple chapters that's putting off that other 75%.

I think that's probably pretty standard writer anxiety, but I have been wondering: at what point should an author re-assess their query or first chapters? At what percentage request rate (or what number of rejections) should we maybe go back and get another round of betas or hire an editor or otherwise reassess the book we thought was ready to query?

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Congratulations to your friend!

I think any request rate, let alone 25% shows your query is working. I'm not sure I'd change things. I say you reassess if you're not getting any requests at all. I also always suggest that it might not be just the query or pages, but the overall idea that needs evaluation.

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goddessofgliese said:

Hi Jessica, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

I just have one question (at this point): do you think it is important to personalize query letters? Thanks.

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I do. I think something personal always, always helps.

Jjanejayne said:

Hi Jessica, Thanks for taking the time to answer questions.
I have a couple of agent/potential client etiquette questions.

I went through pitmad on twitter a few weeks ago. A couple of agents requested that I submit a query. I did. This led to two requests for full manuscripts. THRILLED MY SOUL! I sent in the manuscript and I haven't heard a thing. It's only been three weeks so I guess I'm just being impatient but the waiting for a response is driving me crazy I'm wondering how long is a typical turnaround on these kinds of things. Also, should I continue to query this book or just wait til I hear from these two people. I know that the answers to the first question probably varies from agency to agency but if you could just give me a ballpark figure, on how long I can expect to wait for an answer, I'd appreciate it.


Also, I've checked both agency websites. They give a time frame for response to a query but there's nothing mentioned on either about how long it will take to evaluate a manuscript once it's been requested.


THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP.

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Congratulations!!! That is so exciting and that request is definitely yet another step in your publishing career. I'm glad you're celebrating.

BookEnds states that we respond to requested material in 8-12 weeks. I think 12 weeks is fairly standard. Although a lot of respond faster, and some will take longer, I don't know that I would bother checking on requested material earlier than that. Think about having a TBR pile of about 30 books (that's the number of requested manuscripts I have in my inbox right now) and how long it would take you to get to them all.

I hope that helps.

Harlequin said:

Hi Jessica. Just wondering--do you make the decision to sign clients on an individual basis, or do agents consult with each other (or with you, as president) before taking someone on?

I know it's different for every agency, so my question is Bookends-specific in this case.

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While all agencies run differently, at BookEnds everyone is free to make their own decision when it comes to signing clients. That being said, we often do lean on each other for other opinions. Sometimes that help comes in the form of revision suggestions, other times it might be who would be perfect to submit to. BookEnds works very collaboratively, but no one's permission is needed to take on a client.

Good morning everyone. Thank you for the great questions. I think I am getting to them all, but if for some reason I missed yours please know it was unintentional and don't be afraid to ask again.

Have a great Wednesday!

jessica

Thanks so much for the reply. I appreciate it, very much.

Hi Jessica, thank you for your time. One issue I'm having (among many) with my MS is that there are several POV characters, which I think is necessary because of the sort of snowballing effects my main characters' actions have on their wider world. This seems to be a big no no, especially for a debut author. Is there a right way to pitch a multi-POV story? Is it really that hard of a sell? It's a 95K word adult fantasy, if that's relevant. Thank you!

mafiaking1936 said:

Hi Jessica, thank you for your time. One issue I'm having (among many) with my MS is that there are several POV characters, which I think is necessary because of the sort of snowballing effects my main characters' actions have on their wider world. This seems to be a big no no, especially for a debut author. Is there a right way to pitch a multi-POV story? Is it really that hard of a sell? It's a 95K word adult fantasy, if that's relevant. Thank you!

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Thanks for the question. I don't represent fantasy so I'm not necessarily the right person for a genre question. That being said, I don't know that multiple POV is a no-no, but I do think it can be tricky to handle which is why some people shy away from it. A question/challenge for you. Is it really necessary? If it is, then it's certainly possible to continue forward, but you do need to really look at it with an objective eye. Station Eleven was written in multiple POV and multiple timelines. It definitely worked which is proof that it can be done.

One thing I believe is there is no such thing as things that can't be done, but they need to be done well and if you're struggling it might not be because you've done something you shouldn't, but because it's not working in the way it should.

As for pitching the story I dont' see any reason to call it multiple POV. That has nothing to do with your story, but is a style of writing. I think instead you need to write a blurb about the story. Look at the cover copy for Station Eleven as an example.

Thanks again for doing this!

So, #ownvoices question:

I know that you (and many other agents) are looking for more ownvoices stories. So I'm curious: how big a part of the story does the marginalization need to be in order for it to be ownvoices?

It feels clear to me that an issue book (e.g. if I'm writing a story about mental health and my experience is reflected therein) would be ownvoices, but what about when the shared characteristic is a more minor part of the story?

For example: I have Complex PTSD and so does one of my two POV characters. If the CPTSD is part of her day-to-day life but not a key theme or plot-driver in the book overall, is it worth mentioning? As an agent, at what point does that information become useful to you?

I'm not concerned about sharing my diagnosis with agents (I feel strongly about breaking the stigma and write publicly about mental health, so the right agent probably isn't someone who's going to get squeamish about it in a query), but I don't want to set the expectation that the story is going to be driven by CPTSD or even that I'm going to call it out in the text (my project is Historical Fiction and the term wouldn't have existed). So is it always worth mentioning or when you think of ownvoices as an agent, do you think of issue-driven books?

I actually sent this question over to your team for the blog/videos, but I'm getting ready to query next week, so hope it's okay to ask it here for a quick answer (since I know video and blog production probably take quite a bit more time and you likely have a queue)!

Oh! One more:

Is it okay to comp across categories?

For example: If you have a Historical Mystery but its best comp is a contemporary mystery, is that okay or should you look for another comp? Likewise, if your book is YA but the best comp you can find is adult (or vice versa), can you comp across categories? Or let's say there's a non-fiction book that inspired your story, do you comp to that? Finally, do you think this varies agent by agent or is there a hard and fast rule?

Thanks so much!

I'm still not clear on what the common imperfections are in submissions.

Agencies say 'be perfect' before submitting. But also say: Query in batches. If there is no interest? Tweak. Query a new batch.

OK, I'm happy to do that. Let's say I'm tweaking and introducing new elements. Enhancing 'current market' things that might make a book more easy to sell, rather than ... whatever else the book is--thought provoking or cinematic or whatever.

So this means that at any point, I might have some queries out there that haven't been responded to, because that's another variable. (Response rate -- all Rs -- is 30% for me.) It also means that my tendency to keep tweaking/shifting/alternating/questioning/adding/subtracting is actually enabled by the process. No real harm done, because no one wants the thing.

Conceivably one of the queries I sent in July could net me a request tomorrow--but I guarantee this manuscript has changed since then because of the advice that no requests=tweak further. Keep working on it.

I cannot square all of this. Add to it--'this is a subjective business.'

My question is:

What are the common (or uncommon) imperfections that agents see in submissions?

If I at least had a handle on that, then I could ensure that those were not present in my submissions.

Hi Jessica,

I've got three questions, the first two more agency operations related.

My first is a financial question that I've been meaning to ask for a while. I've been wondering, how feasible is it for an agent to work in that professional capacity full-time? I mean, if the math holds up, and agents are getting an average of 15% per sale to a publisher, and not every acquisition is going to be a five--let alone six--figure deal, then how many sales need to go through in a year to make it possible to do it full-time? Do most agents do the job full-time, or, like a lot of writers, it's something done on the side, out of love?

My second is aside from the inherent "two/or more heads are better than one" advantage of forming an agency, are there any financial advantages to an agent deciding to found and run an agency with subordinate agents? Like is there any "tribute" to the agency founder, or are all agents completely financially independent of each other?

And my last question is one that my spouse and I may have to tackle soon. What happens when two people, represented by two different agencies, decide to collaborate? My spouse is with an agent at Bookends, and she's an author/illustrator, but I'm with the Donald Maass agency. In the past, when we've collaborated on comics/graphic novels, there's never been an issue, because neither of us were represented, but now, if, for example, we decided to work on a picture book or a chapter book where I write and she illustrates, do our respective agents collaborate, or, because my agent is adult SFF, I would just work with her agent on this?

Hi Jessica! Thanks so much for taking our questions! I have 2:

1.) How do you gauge the marketability of a potential project?

2.) I have heard that debut authors should try to stay under 100k words, but how short is too short? I have a sci-fi that looks like it's going to end up around 80-85k. I know you don't rep that genre, but I wondered if you knew whether that would be considered too short for a genre that tends to have a lot of long books.

Hi, Jessica. Thanks for participating. My question is about picture books. I’ve heard that, these days, slice of life books are harder sells than books with more traditional narratives. Any truth to that? Would it be advisable to try and sell a more traditionally structured book first if you’re an unpublished writer? Thanks again.

Marc

gigig said:

Thanks again for doing this!

So, #ownvoices question:

I know that you (and many other agents) are looking for more ownvoices stories. So I'm curious: how big a part of the story does the marginalization need to be in order for it to be ownvoices?

It feels clear to me that an issue book (e.g. if I'm writing a story about mental health and my experience is reflected therein) would be ownvoices, but what about when the shared characteristic is a more minor part of the story?

For example: I have Complex PTSD and so does one of my two POV characters. If the CPTSD is part of her day-to-day life but not a key theme or plot-driver in the book overall, is it worth mentioning? As an agent, at what point does that information become useful to you?

I'm not concerned about sharing my diagnosis with agents (I feel strongly about breaking the stigma and write publicly about mental health, so the right agent probably isn't someone who's going to get squeamish about it in a query), but I don't want to set the expectation that the story is going to be driven by CPTSD or even that I'm going to call it out in the text (my project is Historical Fiction and the term wouldn't have existed). So is it always worth mentioning or when you think of ownvoices as an agent, do you think of issue-driven books?

I actually sent this question over to your team for the blog/videos, but I'm getting ready to query next week, so hope it's okay to ask it here for a quick answer (since I know video and blog production probably take quite a bit more time and you likely have a queue)!

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Thanks for the question. Own Voices is something we are all passionate about at BookEnds so I always love teaching people more about it.

I don't think the marginalization needs to play into the story at all frankly. Recently I read The Dime, a mystery featuring a lesbian police officer from Texas. It was really about a crime in TX, it just so happened to be that the character was a lesbian and was in a strong and solid long-term relationship. Those are the kinds of own voices stories most of us are looking for. So yes, day-to-day life, but not a key theme. I guess I could have just simplified my answer and said that in the first place.

And thank you for sending it for the blog/videos. We will definitely still answer it there.

gigig said:

Oh! One more:

Is it okay to comp across categories?

For example: If you have a Historical Mystery but its best comp is a contemporary mystery, is that okay or should you look for another comp? Likewise, if your book is YA but the best comp you can find is adult (or vice versa), can you comp across categories? Or let's say there's a non-fiction book that inspired your story, do you comp to that? Finally, do you think this varies agent by agent or is there a hard and fast rule?

Thanks so much!

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Ha! I just wrote a future blog post on this very topic so your timing is perfect. I think that's the perfect comp. In fact, I sometimes think what people want is the mystery version of.... or the adult version of... And I definitely want the fiction version of Cheryl Strayed's Wild so yes, that all works great.

Thanks!

Patty said:

I'm still not clear on what the common imperfections are in submissions.

Agencies say 'be perfect' before submitting. But also say: Query in batches. If there is no interest? Tweak. Query a new batch.

OK, I'm happy to do that. Let's say I'm tweaking and introducing new elements. Enhancing 'current market' things that might make a book more easy to sell, rather than ... whatever else the book is--thought provoking or cinematic or whatever.

So this means that at any point, I might have some queries out there that haven't been responded to, because that's another variable. (Response rate -- all Rs -- is 30% for me.) It also means that my tendency to keep tweaking/shifting/alternating/questioning/adding/subtracting is actually enabled by the process. No real harm done, because no one wants the thing.

Conceivably one of the queries I sent in July could net me a request tomorrow--but I guarantee this manuscript has changed since then because of the advice that no requests=tweak further. Keep working on it.

I cannot square all of this. Add to it--'this is a subjective business.'

My question is:

What are the common (or uncommon) imperfections that agents see in submissions?

If I at least had a handle on that, then I could ensure that those were not present in my submissions.

Click to expand...

Honestly, I don't think you should submit until the book is done. Think of it as submitting the contracted book to your publisher. While you will go through edits with your publisher, no editor wants to hear that an author has tweaked and reworked things while they were doing the copyedits on their end. My best advice is that once you start submitting it means you have started writing your next book. An agent and a publisher want to know they have a career author on their hands, one who will write books for years to come and that means putting one aside and starting on another. Take what you've learned from one book to make your next book even stronger.

As or common imperfections, I don't think it's typically tweaks. It's commonly things like the voice isn't there, the writing isn't ready for publication, the characters feel cardboard, the plotting is too linear. I mean there are a million things, but those come top of mind. Every agent will have weak spots that they'll learn to fix for years, and that's fine, I think by perfect we mean you are done and moving on to the next thing.

Shoeless said:

Hi Jessica,

I've got three questions, the first two more agency operations related.

My first is a financial question that I've been meaning to ask for a while. I've been wondering, how feasible is it for an agent to work in that professional capacity full-time? I mean, if the math holds up, and agents are getting an average of 15% per sale to a publisher, and not every acquisition is going to be a five--let alone six--figure deal, then how many sales need to go through in a year to make it possible to do it full-time? Do most agents do the job full-time, or, like a lot of writers, it's something done on the side, out of love?

My second is aside from the inherent "two/or more heads are better than one" advantage of forming an agency, are there any financial advantages to an agent deciding to found and run an agency with subordinate agents? Like is there any "tribute" to the agency founder, or are all agents completely financially independent of each other?

And my last question is one that my spouse and I may have to tackle soon. What happens when two people, represented by two different agencies, decide to collaborate? My spouse is with an agent at Bookends, and she's an author/illustrator, but I'm with the Donald Maass agency. In the past, when we've collaborated on comics/graphic novels, there's never been an issue, because neither of us were represented, but now, if, for example, we decided to work on a picture book or a chapter book where I write and she illustrates, do our respective agents collaborate, or, because my agent is adult SFF, I would just work with her agent on this?

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Oh, these are not questions I was expecting, but as the owner of an agency I like them.

1. Well I think that depends on the agent. I've been doing this full-time for nearly fifteen years (for about the first five years I did do freelance work on the side to keep my salary livable). I think the real answer depends on the agent, how hard she is going to hustle and the kinds of books she gets. But I do think a LOT of agents do this full time and many are not supported by anyone else or do support others on what they earn. So it is feasible. Also keep in mind that the more we sell the bigger our backlist grows and that 15% also includes royalties. To be honest, royalties are the bread and butter of agents and authors. While we all want the big advance, what we truly want is to be earning off that same book for years to come.

2. I don't know if there are any advantages or disadvantages to founding an agency with others working with you. I really think it's a matter of preference. Some agents want to work for someone who can handle the business details, others are entrepreneurs at heart and want to run a business, and all that goes with it. I do know, as an agency owner, that my job is much different than that of my agents in that, in addition to representing clients, I am also running and overseeing an agency and all that goes along with that. And I guess, in the end, how much you make wholely depends on how the work is being done.

3. It is quite possible for authors with two different agents to collaborate. It happens all the time. Typically the agents will work together on submissions and negotiations and when contracts come through they come through to the respective agents.

aus10phile said:

Hi Jessica! Thanks so much for taking our questions! I have 2:

1.) How do you gauge the marketability of a potential project?

2.) I have heard that debut authors should try to stay under 100k words, but how short is too short? I have a sci-fi that looks like it's going to end up around 80-85k. I know you don't rep that genre, but I wondered if you knew whether that would be considered too short for a genre that tends to have a lot of long books.

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Hi!

I don't know if marketability is always that easy to explain. The truth is that it comes from constantly being immersed in the business. For me it comes from reading Publishers Marketplace and PW on a daily basis. It comes from knowing what's being published and what are the big buzz books and it comes from talking about books day in and out with the group at BookEnds and editors and publishers. We know by looking at numbers what's selling, what's not, what's growing, and what seems to be leveling off. Authors can do a lot of this same stuff. Prowling bookstores on a regular basis to see what people are excited about is a big first step.

2. SFF should be in the range of 80,000-100,000. The same can be said of most adult fiction to be honest.

MarcP said:

Hi, Jessica. Thanks for participating. My question is about picture books. I’ve heard that, these days, slice of life books are harder sells than books with more traditional narratives. Any truth to that? Would it be advisable to try and sell a more traditionally structured book first if you’re an unpublished writer? Thanks again.

Marc

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I think you also asked this on our Twitter #askagent which I'm grateful for, because I'm going to steal Tracy's answer. Since I don't represent picture books I would have had to ask anyway,

Tracy WANTS A NAP Marchini
‏

@TracyMarchini
1h1 hour ago
More
Tracy WANTS A NAP Marchini Retweeted Marc Poliquin
I think slice of life are (and have been) more difficult for a while now, so as a debut if you do write both character-driven narratives and slice-of-lifes, I probably would start with the character-driven book! #AskAgent #askbookendsjr #picturebooks

I did, but thanks for taking the time to respond here. I'm wondering why they're harder sells, though. Is it that publishers fear the kids won't connect to the characters as much?

Jessica,

Thank you for taking the time to visit with us.
No doubt you've answered this question before.

What made you want become an agent?

Hi Jessica!


I'm always interested to know, is there anything you're seeing a lot of at the moment in submissions?
Maybe things that we as writers wouldn't expect or realise are cliche or common, because we don't see the huge volume of queries that agents do.

MarcP said:

I did, but thanks for taking the time to respond here. I'm wondering why they're harder sells, though. Is it that publishers fear the kids won't connect to the characters as much?

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Asking one of the agents from BookEnds, Jr will probably give you a more definitive answer, but typically when something is hard to sell it's because readers aren't buying them. Usually publishers have tried them and learned, from experience, that the market just isn't threre. Of course it doesn't mean they will never try one again or the market can't change, it just means lack of sales have made that particular thing more difficult to sell.

Michael Myers said:

Jessica,

Thank you for taking the time to visit with us.
No doubt you've answered this question before.

What made you want become an agent?

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Thanks Michael. I have answered that question before, but it's been a very long time. In one word, I became an agent for the freedom.

Working for a publisher means working within the confines of what that publisher does. A nonfiction only publisher isn't going to let you edit fiction and romance publishers aren't buying a lot of nonfiction. As an agent I have the freedom to represent the kinds of books I want to represent, which is ever-changing and evolving in a market that is ever-changing. I can also take risks that I wasn't always allowed at a publisher. In other words, even if I know a book is going to be a difficult sell I can still give it a shot. It's my own time and money I'm spending to do so. While every book is a bit of a risk, when you're spending someone else's money it's often harder to get the support to take the really big risks.