Q. I have this really great nonfiction book idea. Now what?
A. The well-worn path to publication goes like this: You check the competition to see if anyone has published anything too much like yours. (www.Amazon.com) You develop your concept into a proposal that is really clear and marketable. Then you write one heck of a great query email and send it to agents who meet two criteria: they HAVE sold and ARE currently selling books like yours. (For instance, this agency rejects at least 100 fiction queries a month because we never, ever handle fiction). If you get an agent interested, we'll take it from there, guiding you the rest of the way.
Q. Can I send my idea straight to the publishers?
A. Yes and no. The tiny mom-and-pop publishers may or may not look at your submission if you send it in. But the big houses most certainly will NOT, due to time and legal issues. Agents are the gatekeepers of the publishing industry. We serve publishers by screening out the junk and the wackos. We serve authors by getting your stuff read by the best publishers for it, and then helping you get the best possible deal. So many times, authors get confused. They report they tried to sell their self-help book to a publisher who turned out to only do business books, or their illustrated children's book to someone who does adult health and wellness books. It's hard for you to know who does what and why. Agents work for their 15% commission - and are worth every penny. That's why every best selling author has representation.
Q. I researched lots of literary agents. You look like exactly the right firm for me. Why do you keep rejecting my idea?
A. We reject more than 500 projects every single month! The deluge of content would make you think we're just not paying attention, but actually we carefully consider everything nonfiction that comes our way. If we're turning you down, it means that in our opinion, your book is highly unlikely to sell for much money. Since all reputable agents work on 100% straight commission, we don't take careless risks. If we say yes, we believe we can sell it. If we say no, we believe not only that we cannot sell it but that it cannot be sold at this time by any agent.
Q. Ouch! That's really cruel! You're missing the big picture. If you get me a good publisher, I just know my book will be a best seller!
A. If we had a nickel for every time an author whose book never sold told us that! Here's the stark reality of American publishing at this time in history: if you as an author don't have a platform for your topic (media exposure, lots of speaking engagements, huge internet presence, major corporation behind you, previous book sold a lot of copies, etc.) your chances of getting a good deal with a major publisher are microscopic. We strongly recommend you build your platform and THEN sell your book. Go to www.FameFinders.com to learn more about how to do this.
Q. Why don't you sell fiction, Christian, juvenile, illustrated, poetry, true crime and other categories of books? My stuff is really, really good! You should be more open-minded!
A. An agency nurtures and cultivates extremely valuable relationships with key editors. Our senior agent Wendy Keller has been "doing lunch" with important New York editors for more than 18 years. The editors we work with specialize in the same kinds of books we sell. Asking a nonfiction agent to represent a children's book or fiction is sort of like asking your dentist to take a look at your ingrown toenail. Totally different specialties.
Q. How can an author from outside the USA become successful inside the USA?
A. The American publishing market is the largest in the world. We'd be honored to consider your material if you can make it available in English and can commit to spending at least 6 months in the USA timed around the release of your book so you can do appropriate promotion. Note: we can read your first draft in Spanish, French or Italian, but you'll need at least some of it translated before we can sell it.
Q. What's a query? I already wrote the book. Why do I need to write a query now?
A. A query is a concise, clear description of your book and its benefits, its market and your credentials. Like most agents, we prefer getting queries by email. Never send any agent an unsolicited manuscript by email or surface mail. A query letter is mandatory, so just sit yourself down and create one. If publishing is a game, this is one of the rules.
Q. What's a proposal? The book is done. Why do I need to write a proposal now?
A. A proposal is the tool agents use to sell books to publishers. It is a specific, honed, well-written marketing document that proves to the publisher that you have the right credentials, your book is needed and timely and that there are lots of people who will buy it once it is printed. To find out how to write a successful proposal, click here.
Q. How can I prove you're a real agent, not one of those scam fly-by-nights they warned me about at the writer's conference I attended?
A. Go to our sold list. Write down the titles of any five books you see there. Then go to the bookstore and look at (or preferably BUY) each one. Read the Acknowledgements page. That's where almost every one of our dear, respected clients praises how instrumental we were in their success. Also, note that this agency will never ask you for money to read your work or represent you. On the contrary, if your book is good, we'll soon be sending money to you!
Q. You make the saucy remark that you don't handle "books by incarcerated persons, channeled by dead people or first person medical memoirs." Why?
A. You may not like the truth, but every query we've ever gotten from an inmate tells in explicit, graphic detail the crime they claim they did not commit. Seems a little fishy, doesn't it? We get hundreds of queries a year allegedly directly from or channeled by Mother Teresa, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Princess Diana, Gandhi, the newest dead celebrity, Moses, Elvis and so on. Gosh, I guess if we handled all those famous names, we'd be the number one agency in the country! Either that or we'd be the laughingstock. And as for medical memoirs, the endless flood of books on how a person overcame cancer/mental illness/muscular dystrophy/HIV or whatever add up to about 25% of everything we get offered in a month. (That's a LOT of books!) It's our humble opinion that just writing these has already served a great purpose by allowing the author to process on paper all the tragic stuff that has occurred. We recommend an excellent subsidy publisher: www.GreenleafBookGroup.com to assist you in getting this sort of book published. If you sell more than 5,000 copies in less than a year, please contact us again and we'll be interested then. Promise.
Q. Why is getting an agent so hard?
A. If you were to go back and read between the lines, you'd see that we are always hungry and hunting for good stuff. It's rare that any agency finds something wonderful, and you'd be surprised how fiercely we all fight for anything good that comes to us simultaneously. If you have credentials on your topic, a good idea and the willingness to work at building your reputation in the subject area, we'd be thrilled to talk to you. Otherwise, you're right: it IS hard to get the agency's attention. Consider reframing the way you look at publishing. Like founder Wendy Keller always tells new authors, "Publishing is not just an adventure, it's a job!"