Literary Agents (a resource for writers)

If a reputable agency accepts your work, they will charge from 20% to 25% of all monies that they make for you.

Any agency that demands a "reading fee" or up-front money by any other name is a scam.

More and more book and magazine publishers are refusing to deal with free lance, "over the transom" submissions. The legendary slush piles are gone with global warming.

Since an agent makes no money unless your work sells, they will accept only those clients with work that they consider marketable--time is money and they don't want to waste either.

In serch for a good literary agent-First time Author
Hello,
I am a first time author or potential author in search of a literary agent. I am in the USA but not in the hot spot of New York city. I have searched but how do you know if the agent is good at what they do? Some seem so scary that you don't want to apply because its too daunting. Is it perhaps better to look to another country for an agent and get published/accepted this way?Like Spain or London?
I still have work on my manuscript...but I have started looking. It's a lot of work and brick walls.

My work is of a Spiritual and Philosophical nature. Can maybe someone guide me to a potential literary agent who deals with this? Also with philosophical and Art?
I would appreciate any help...
Thanks.

Cloakd--

Welcome to A2K.

Sorry, I don't think there are any shortcuts to finding a literary agent. Do you have a full outline of your project and a sample chapter to submit?

Manuscript-Literary search
yes I do. The manuscript is not entirely complete but I have the title and table of contents complete and the basic manuscript complete but it needs a lot of proofreading by me and than other sources.

The second book is an illuminated book with my original Art(copies) with a spiritual/philosophical discourse as the Introduction. I still need to complete the text for each of the Art pieces. So yes i do have the chapters clearly laid out for this one....with table of contents, they have to be completed.

You are right...I already have been browsing. Gone through 600 Agents.
But I still don't know which to choose out of the non-fiction. There's soooo many who could help or could not. My work is spiritually inclined towards the Islamic world different from what we are being told and described...I don't know who would accept work speaking about this area? I rather go towards a source someone has already used with credentials. Of course there's no guarantee I will be accepted.
anyhow thank you for your effort and reply. I appreciate it.

I may go directly to the publisher maybe? Do you recommend this?

Sustainably,
cloakd1

Cloakd--

You aren't ready for an agent yet.

Agents are not editors. They sell manuscripts. They don't copyread them or polish them. They need a finished product to sell.

For a first time author, this generally means a completed book--finished and polished.

Your agent has to convince a publisher that your book is worth investing money in. He needs a completed product to sell.

Good luck.

You need to pull together a proposal. This should consist of a fairly detailed outline and two chapters that are in final, or close to final, form. You also need information on the market and a bio.

I refer you to a book called Putting Your Passion into Print by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry (Workman Publishing Company, 2005). There's enough info in that book to give you a good idea of what you need to do.

Good luck.

Has anyone here had a non-fiction book published within the past, say 30, years? I just wrote a math textbook, at least I think that's the term, although "monograph" would probably be more accurate, and I have no idea how to proceed. I do not want to self-publish. Do I need a literary agent, or is that irrelevant for textbooks? If I do get a literary agent and sign a typical representation contract, and then the agent doesn't do much, would I be able to terminate the relationship and get another? If I don't need an agent, how will I know if a publishing company's contract is fair or what to ask for?

I wish my mother was still alive, because she was a book editor and could have told me exactly how to get a book published. Any ideas from someone who has actually done this before?

Thanks.

I'm fic pubbed, so it's not exactly congruent. I did not have an agent - I was published because I won a contest, actually.

For nonfiction, I wonder if you could talk to your alma mater - lots of colleges and universities seem to have a press arm for scholarly works. I'd suggest your math professors, too, so you can at least start to get some ideas. Plus professors have to publish scholarly articles - there might be some hints there.

Hi, Jespah.

I could ask a friend of mine who is a prominent physicist, although I doubt he's done more than publish in journals. He might know, though, from being around colleagues who have written books. I suspect, though, that college professors may use resources only available or only relevant for college professors. Also, I wonder how concerned they would be with the commercial aspects, e.g. marketing, making money, placement in stores, etc.

Also, they might kind of look down on me, since my background is a BS, MS in physics and not a PhD in math.

My first real question is whether it is good for a textbook writer to have an agent. I would think that agents know what to ask for in a contract and can keep a writer from being taken advantage of.

I can say I would have liked to have had an agent, and I do sometimes take part in #mswl and pitch (so far unsuccessful). Agents also know the players. But I'm unsure of how you get an agent for non-fic. Do you know any of your mother's colleagues? Even retired, someone might be able to point you in the right direction.

That's certainly an intelligent question, but my mother died in her 80s 11 years ago. Anyone whose name I recall would be at least in his 90s, if even living, and I only remember a couple of names.

Hi Brandon, I was an editor at a prominent publishing company for almost 20 years. I worked in the area of textbooks. When I was "downsized," I was asked to write several textbooks, which I did. Only once in my 20 years did an author have an agent. Note that I did not work in academic publishing; I was in business publishing.

An important element in textbook publishing is being able to identify the course a textbook would work for. Without a course, you won't have a chance. If possible, you should find out what book(s) are most widely used in the course and then establish how your book could compete with the best sellers. (What does it have that the other books don't, and why is yours better.)

Although textbook publishing (in fact, all of publishing) has changed considerably since I was in it, I believe that the basics I mention would still apply.

I don't mean to discourage you from getting an agent. If you think it would work for you, by all means pursue it.

I wish you luck.

You're giving me the feedback that I want.

If I don't have an agent, how would I know whether the contract I am given is fair or whether I should seek or avoid some contract feature in particular?

Roberta, in science and math, there are many books that are not necessarily for a course, but that people working in that area buy in order to learn something that they need or want to know. I personally have bought perhaps hundred such books in my life. People in the sciences or math are usually in those fields because they have a passion for them and often buy books just because they want to know something. While my book could be used for a one semester course, it is slightly under 200 pages long. It really is more like a monograph.

I don't want to be specific, because, should it be published, I don't want anyone on A2K to use the details to find my identity. I can say that it is about a prominent, and not esoteric, area of higher math used constantly in science and engineering. At this point, you may be thinking that if it is such a prominent area of math, it has been covered a thousand times, and that is correct. The thing is, though, that all of the treatments are more or less identical and about two or three dozen pages long. I have covered it in a depth which I have never seen in any published work, and I did search a university library when I started writing it. In some cases, I had to figure out the techniques myself because I had never seen them covered.

Let's put aside questions about publishability. You seem to be saying that I should write queries directly to publishing companies? Again, how would I know if a contract is fair?

As far as I know, most contracts with reputable publishers are standard.

If a book isn't taught in a specific class, then I wouldn't call it a textbook. In this case, I suggest that you determine which publishers handle such books. A standard textbook publisher wouldn't be right for you.

There may be websites that provide information about monograph publishers, royalties, agents, etc. Have you already checked these out?

I'm sorry if I'm not giving you the info you need. I've been away from the front lines for a long time. If you have more questions, I'll try to answer them.

Roberta,

I'm extremely grateful for the information that you're giving me. I only called it a textbook because it's a book of non-fiction instruction. Actually, I have just concluded an extremely long period of proof-reading and adjusting. Finally, there is nothing more left to do except sell it. I now plan to look for such publishers. I am vaguely aware of Dover, Prentice Hall, Wiley, and Addison Wesley, but I must see who really publishes new scientific (or in this case math) monographs.

So, what I think you have told me so far is that getting an agent would be unusual and that I should approach a publisher directly. Does that also hold for scientific monograph publishers whose books could be, but typically aren't, used for courses? And you are saying that reputable publishers are not terribly likely to offer me contracts that are one sided beyond the norm?

Brandon, I don't know much about the publication of monographs and nontextbook nonfiction. It seems to me that you would feel more comfortable with an agent. If you go to a known and established publisher, you will likely be offered a standard royalty rate. There's generally very little wiggle room. And you would have to share with the agent.

Please bear in mind that I know next to nothing about agents. If you feel that you want to pursue one , you're on your own.

An afterthought. Your book might be more appropriate at the professional level rather than as something for school. Something to consider.

Thanks for continuing to discuss this with me, because I have no understanding of this subject. I would be happy without an agent as long as I could be reasonably confident that the publishing company wouldn't have features in the contract that I would later realize put me at a big disadvantage, e.g. what happens if the publishing company just sits on the book, what happens when it goes out of print, etc. I think I need to be concerned about more than just royalty rate. Do you believe that most authors of "scholarly works" do not sell through agents, even if the books are not necessarily destined to be textbooks?

I think that this book would serve everyone using math for science and engineering, whether students or professionals. One can get many of the solutions to the problems covered in my book from tables, but some people might like to know how the answers were obtained, and it is convenient to be able to solve the problems oneself.

Brandon, There are standard contracts, and I'm fairly certain that what happens when a book goes out of print is covered. As for sitting on the book, I doubt that this is covered. This is where you negotiate.

Are you planning to create a proposal? (I think you really have to.) This would include the table of contents, a sample chapter or two, a summary, the book's special features that distinguish it from other works, and where and to whom it should be sold. It would also include something about you that will demonstrate your expertise and experience. Until you have the answer to the boldface issue, the publisher won't know who or where the customers are. (And you may not know which publisher would be appropriate for the book.)

The more you tell me, the more I'm inclined to think that the book would be more appropriate for a professional audience; but I'm not sure. I think you need to do some investigating, digging, and poking around. Or perhaps this is where an agent might be of assistance, if you find the right agent who is knowledgeable about such things.

I'm now worried that I didn't include everything you should include in the proposal. Does the Internet have something somewhere about developing a proposal for publishers? (I just took a quick look. There are lots of sites on book proposals on Google.)

There's a lot out there on querying publishers, although it's generally slanted toward fic writers.

Brandon, absent an agent, you could get a lawyer to look over any contract, too.

Personally, I went into this operating under the assumption that I wouldn't make a dime. That set the expectation, and it makes sense - unknown writer in a fairly unpopular genre? That's me. Your circumstances are different, of course, but I found that having that expectation has made things easier. While I care about my contract, etc., I'm a lot less bothered by slow sales.

I know that I have to do a proposal, and that it must be along the lines that Roberta suggested, but I still don't feel like I have an answer about whether I need an agent for a math monograph which might be used for, but isn't specifically intended for, a class. I think the answer I'm getting from these discussions is "probably not." Is that right?

The target audience is anyone who took the basic class in this math area and wants to know more than anyone else seems to be telling about one important class of problem.