If you’ve ever tried to get a novel published without a literary agent, you know how daunting it is to get any editor or publisher to pay attention to your work. I’ve written before about why your literary agent is hands-down the most important partner in your literary career. Today, I want to share with you the story of how I met my agent.
I met my literary agent in 2003 at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. By then, I’d queried and been rejected by dozens of agents, but had managed to publish a story collection with University of Massachusetts Press and a debut novel with MacAdam/Cage, a small literary publisher in San Francisco. Sales had been disappointing, and I knew that if I wanted a promising writing career, with decent advances and good distribution, I had to have an agent fighting for me.
Sewanee is an intense two-week conference, packed with workshops, readings, parties, and nature. On the day I met my agents, I had two choices: I could either go spelunking with a group of my friends, or take the opportunity to meet a respected literary agent couple who had seen a portion of my manuscript and agreed to meet with me. It shocks me now that for half a second I actually considered spelunking! But reason prevailed, we met, they were gracious and impressive in every way, and they told me to send them my novel as soon as it was finished.
Upon my return home to the real world, I made finishing my novel my number one priority. At the time, I was spending a semester as Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University. Removed from my normal routines, with my husband far away on the West Coast, I was able to really buckle down, typing away in my little studio apartment in the dorm, with a view out over the snow to the train tracks and the Dairy Queen. I sent the manuscript to the agents about six months after we met, signed on with the agency, and went through serious revisions with my agent before she began sending the novel out to publishers.
Another year passed, rejection after rejection, before the book was bought by a young editor at Bantam, a division of Random House. The book was The Year of Fog, which went on to sell half a million copies in the U.S., spend six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and be translated in 10 languages. None of this could have happened without an agent. We’ve been together ever since.
When my most recent novel was sitting at my publisher, waiting for a publication date, my agent took it to the London Book Fair and sold it in 29 languages. This was after my previous novel had turned in minor sales, a fact which did not exactly ingratiate me to my US publisher. But she persisted, book after book, contract after contract. Trust me: that is a dream agent.
Not every writer’s relationship with his or her agent works out so well. I’ve known writers who have cut ties with their agents, or whose agents have cut ties with them. I’ve known writers who felt their agents weren’t working in their best interests. That’s why it’s so important to find an agent you can trust. Never work with someone who seems dismissive of you or your writing. Never work with someone who has left behind a trail of unhappy writers (every agent will probably have one or two stories of soured relationships with authors–that’s not a red flag. But watch out if the same story keeps repeating itself). Newer agents may not have a glorious track record yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a good bet. Enthusiasm for your work, responsiveness, and good word of mouth are strong indicators that you’ve found a good agent.