Surprising Advice Agents Give on an Offer Call
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.พ. 2023
- Literary agents Jessica Faust and James McGowan discuss some of the advice you might not expect to receive from agents during an offer call.
BookEnds is dedicated to making publishing a book traditionally a more transparent process, and it starts with these videos!
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Jessica Faust’s love for books is what first brought her to open BookEnds Literary Agency. It is her desire to be an advocate for all authors that pushed her to create her blog, the BookEnds TH-cam channel and to maintain a vibrant presence on Twitter.
Jessica is proud to have grown BookEnds to an agency that represents authors of all genres for children and adults, allowing her to reach more readers and help more authors and illustrators achieve their dreams.
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James McGowan is a Literary Agent at BookEnds and writer for children. He began working with the agency as an intern in the summer of 2015, and basically never left. He represents a talented group of authors and illustrators working in everything from board books to middle grade graphic novels. He also works in adult nonfiction, and adult mystery and suspense projects. James is the author of GOOD NIGHT OPPY, which is available now.
Connect with BookEnds!
Twitter: bookendslit
Instagram: bookends_literary
Website: www.bookendsliterary.com
Connect with Jessica: bookendsjessica
Connect with James: jmcgowanbks
I received an agent offer at 77, sold my first book with her at 78, second at 79 and currently third at 80. Three revisions are in the future. Fortunately, authors are judged on their writing, not their age. I learned to write a little faster.
Sexagenarian here, and your story is good news for me! thanks for sharing.
Fanfabulous! Sending youthful vibes your way! I'm so incredibly happy for you!❤️
That's amazing! Kudos to you. You're the perfect example that age is only a number, and the world is definitely your oyster!
"The right agent will wait." That's beautiful and comforting. But also respectful of the fact that most authors have waited agonizing weeks-to-months for a response from agents.
Thanks for this perspective.
I love the integrity in evidence here. An author who values that will definitely say yes to you. You guys seem so fun to work with!
I've never commented on anything but the topic but had told myself that y'all wouldn't come back and be laughing at the end! I loved that so much!😂
The fear of course, when an agent makes an offer but says it's only good for 48 hours, is to say but I need two weeks to notify the other agents I queried and then you lose the offering agent and never hear from those other agents.
Yawning is one way we get more oxygen to our brains when our breathing is shallow or otherwise impeded.
So you're coworker telling you to breath better is logical.
Thumbs upping this one for the opener alone 😂
Could you please make a video about "agent's vision for a manuscript"? What exactly does it mean, like to which publishers will the agent submit?
We can make a video about this! But yes, it can mean their ideas for the submission list based on who they think the audience for the book is/could be, or it can also (and often does) mean their editorial vision. Like the changes that they think should be made to the book to make it more salable based on their current market knowledge/knowledge as readers
Hi Jessica and James, love your topics and the great work you're doing! Are you able to do a discussion on "why does it take 2yrs to get your book finally published ". Thanks.
So glad you've enjoyed our videos! If you search "why does it take so long" on our channel, you'll find videos titled "Why Querying Takes So Long," "Why Selling Your Book Can Take So Long," and "Why Publishing Your Book Takes So Long." All three of those videos should help answer why it takes about 2 years to publish a book :)
Hi there! Big fan! I’m sorry if this has been discussed but I haven’t come across it so far with your vlogs. My request: could you share about the process to get a second book (or third or fourth, etc) published? If an author secures an agent, does that automatically mean that agent is willing to try to sell any book that author writes? Do you come up with themes/plots and present then to your agent for them to agree to try to work with? What if an agent doesn’t think they can sell a particular book you’ve written? I’m writing middle grade and picture books. What if an agent selects me for my MG writing but dislikes my PB idea a year down the road? Thanks so much!
Great idea, thank you! We'll add it to our list!
Question for Jessica or James: When an author has multiple agents offering rep, and you are one of them, how often do you know who the other agents are?
It doesn't happen all the time, but occasionally agents will know if the author chooses to share!
He'll yeah. We do all like to win
Totally random but: His smile reminds me of Ewan McGregors smile! Just realised this. I always thought he reminded me of someone I liked but couldn't put it together.^^
Do you think the timeline should be roughly the same (so two weeks) when it comes to illustrators?
That's a fair amount of time!
Great insight about how each offer call will differ. Unpopular question: What if the selected agent drops you after a few months, would it be appropriate to connect with previous other offers (hopefully this doesn't happen ofc)?
Hi! Yes, you can definitely do that. You'd most likely have to go through the standard querying process (unless the agent has left the door open in a previous conversation giving you another avenue to reach out to them) and just mention that they previously offered and that you've parted ways with your other agent and are interested in working with them if they're still interested.
@@BookEndsLiterary thank you ♥
I have a question from an earlier blog. You recommended contacting an agent after their stated time frame of query response. What do we do when there is no way to contact the agent?
I sent a query to a Bookends agent in December but have not heard back. I can't find any email or contact info on the website.
Hi there! You should be able to contact our agents directly via QueryManager. We do not discuss queries over email, which is why we don't have email addresses listed on our site! There should be a page for checking on the status of your query, which is where you should be able to contact the agent you queried
I have a question that I hope either Jessica or James can answer. I have written a four novel SciFi-Fantasy series. The books are complete. The first is being professionally edited while I create query letters and summations for the other three books. Book two, three and four are between ninety two and one hundred and three thousand words. My problem is, book one is one hundred and forty-six thousand words. I was unaware of book lengths when I wrote the novel. The story was writing itself and I was having fun. I will gladly work with an agent on this issue and I was hoping you could provide some guidance on my situation. I would love to say its a great book but only an agent would know and I would hate it if my work wasn't even looked at due to the word count.
Any and all help would be appreciated.
Hi Steve-- I had the same exact problem. I wrote a scifi trilogy. The first book--seriously--wound up at around 180K words in its earlier incarnation. Somehow I was able to edit down to about 108K words and it's a better book now, let me tell you.
I am obvs not Jessica or James. But if your first book is being professionally edited, then ask them to do some structural edits. That is, look for areas, subplots, excessive description, etc that can be cut without hurting the central narrative and conflict. 146k is too much for a debut. If you are unable to see what can be cut because you are too close, then you need an outside editor. Try if at all possible to get it under 120k.
The other issue is, for instance, if an agent does like your book. But then tells you to cut 30k words in order for them to rep you. Could you do it? I know you don't want to, but would you? Because that is the choice facing you right now, even before the queries go out. 146k is too long. For your genre the upper limit is 120k.
Hi there! We do generally recommend getting it cut down to 120k, although 140k isn't necessarily high enough over the limit to warrant an immediate dismissal at the query stage for all agents. We agree with other commenters that you should definitely bring up your word count concerns with the editor and work on getting that count down as much as you can, because it's likely that any agents interested in the book will ask that of you anyways!
@@BookEndsLiterary Great advice as always! In my case, I self-edited my original ms. and was ruthless; I actually enjoyed editing it down so much. I wanted it to move quickly. Many darlings were killed but it became a brisk and concise read.
Breathe from your diaphragm, James...
Lol yawning cools the brain..