What is a literary agent? In short, they’re the person whose job it is to sell your book to a publisher. Literary agents work to present great manuscripts to potential publishers, and while the agent’s primary role is to sell books and negotiate contracts, your agent can also be your motivation, your first editor, and your biggest supporter.
WHERE LITERARY AGENTS CAME FROM
The easiest way to understand the role of literary agents is to first understand their history. The idea of an agent for unpublished books was unheard of—until the late 19th century, when publishing and literacy had reached new levels in Victorian England.
To accommodate for the exponential growth in both emerging authors and emerging publishers, a new role began to develop: a middleman between writer and publisher. In the 1890s, much like today, the majority of writers were far more comfortable writing than engaging in “the business of writing”—in other words, what writers need to do to make enough money from writing. But if a business-minded individual who likes books were to come along to champion new titles, it might make all the difference for new authors.
Literary agents were born from this need for a middleman. Publishers used to despise these agents, but that has changed entirely, and many publishers now require an author to be represented by someone else.
WHAT DOES A LITERARY AGENT DO?
The job duties of top literary agents can be divided into three categories: fielding new submissions, preparing finished manuscripts, and bargaining with book publishers.
1. FIELDING NEW SUBMISSIONS
Most literary agents work on multiple projects at a time, and the moment one project finishes, another soon takes its place. Later in this article, we list different spaces for finding a literary agent; in short, agents seek new works using social media like Twitter, websites like DuoTrope, and also by responding to emails and query letters.
2. PREPARING FINISHED MANUSCRIPTS
The best literary agents have an ear on the contemporary book market: they know what makes a book easy to market and sell. Once they’ve selected a manuscript they’d like to represent, the agent might request certain edits or changes before they present that manuscript to the publisher.
3. REPRESENTATION AND NEGOTIATION WITH PUBLISHERS
This is the part of the job that most people are familiar with. After all, “agents” in any profession act as middlemen between artists and businesses. Literary agents are no different, and many authors rely on their agents for their legal and book publishing expertise.
Many book publishers only accept solicitation from literary agents. Unless you’re an author with a highly recognizable name, book printers like Penguin, MacMillan, HarperCollins, and even some indie presses like Graywolf will only speak with your agent.
What does a Literary Agent do?
A Literary Agent is someone who helps writers get their stories made into books. Their job is to read as many stories as possible and find the best ones and then find a publisher who is willing to pay the writer to turn the story into a book which is then sold in bookshops or online.
Literary agents then work for the writer to help them make money from their stories by selling them to different types of publishers. Publishers will pay an author to turn their story into a book, ebook or audiobook, and to publish in different languages. The agent will get a share of the profit.
They work with writers and publishers acting as a middleman between the two. They split their time between reading and selling. They can work in a big office with lots of other literary agents, or they can work on their own.
What is a Literary Agent good at?
- Reading; reading lots of stories and choosing which are the best ones that other people are likely to spend money to read
- Writing; helping writers to improve their stories
- Selling; getting other people to pay money to turn the story into a book
- Communication; talking on the phone with lots of writers and publishers
- Organisation; making sure that everything is done on time and is within budget