Asking The Right Questions
Thursday, February 16, 2012 First off, thanks to all of you who responded on Tuesday's post. I thought that many of your comments were incredibly valuable - much more so than my original post! - and I'm hopeful that others will continue to read both the post and the comments and glean some advice from them.
To that end, because there seems to be a lot to learn on this subject, I thought we could have a bit of a group think today on what to ask of your potential agent and what your expectations should be. As I've said time and time again, landing the RIGHT agent is more important than landing AN agent, and like anything in life, the way to do that (other than really honing your writing skills and writing a great manuscript!) is to ask the right questions.
I'll be honest: I haven't shopped for an agent in seven years, so my question-forming skills may be a bit rusty. But certainly, a few things I'd ask would include:
1) How do you like to communicate with your clients?
2) How often can I expect to be in touch with you? (Please note, however, that I can't imagine many agents would say "rarely," even if this is the case.)
3) How in-depth is your own editing process once we have the ms?
4) Where do you envision submitting this to?
5) Will you inform me as to whom you are submitting and can I offer up suggestions?
6) Who are some other authors whose careers you could (ideally) see me emulating? (This question might be a bit of a stretch, but I think you know what I'm trying to say...basically, who does he/she think you write like.)
7) Can I speak with a current client of yours for a referral? (This last one is hard to ask. Because it really feels like you're vetting the agent instead of being totally euphoric at his/her offer. But to be clear: you ARE vetting the agent. And I cannot tell you how many (okay, probably about 5-10) authors I've spoken to on behalf of my agent...they asked to speak with a client, and she understood this process, and I understood this process, and so I spoke with them. That's how it goes, and everyone knows this.)
So those are a few off the top of my head. Who else wants to add in their own questions that one should pose when deciding on an agent?
Reader Comments (3)
I found it helpful to ask them - what got you excited about my proposal? What is your vision for the book? (meaning if they were going to write it - what would they do)
How will you pitch this project? Do I get to see the pitch note/letter? Do you forward all written rejection/emails to the author when you get them? How quickly do you follow up when there's no response from an editor. How many submissions before you tend to give up on a manuscript?
When my co-author and I were deciding whether to sign with an agent, we also asked how she prefers to communicate with her clients. Because we were on separate coasts and I'm not much of a phone person, I liked that she was happy to do lots of email back and forth; because my co-author prefers to connect in real-time, she liked that our agent would set phone meetings at regular intervals, too. The agent's flexibility and willingness to communicate clearly both ways helped us both feel great about signing with her.