10 Mistakes You're Making When Handling an Offer of Representation
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2021
- Handling an offer of representation from a literary agent is no easy task. There is a lot to consider -- which agents to alert, how to alert them, timeline, making a decision, how to inform everyone. In this video, Jessica and James sat down to discuss the top 10 mistakes authors make when handling their offer of representation, and how to avoid them.
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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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Since interning at BookEnds as an undergrad in the summer of 2015, James has (basically) never left. He's just continuously level-up-ed inside of BookEnds. Now he is the Literary Assistant and Social Media Manager for the team. He’s been a reader since his mom gave him the first A Series of Unfortunate Events book and ordered the sequels regularly through Scholastic book orders.
James is currently growing his own list and is actively seeking submissions in adult literary and upmarket fiction, mystery, thrillers, and suspense. He is also actively building his picture book list.
Connect with BookEnds!
Twitter: bookendslit
Instagram: bookends_literary
Website: www.bookendsliterary.com
Connect with Jessica: bookendsjessica
Connect with James: jmcgowanbks
I hear what you are saying, but I do think it is interesting that so many agents say that they don't send rejections. If you don't hear from them it's a no. And yet ... they expect to be notified immediately if they are rejected. Notifying of a rejection is the polite way to go, and it should be policy for agents to do the same.
We share your frustrations with this policy.
"I'm charming! Why wouldn't they want to talk to me again?" HAHAHA!!! Jessica, you crack me up. Also, celebrate every chance you get. ABSOLUTELY! Tx, again, for a fabulous vid. You guys rock.
These videos are so informative AND entertaining! I'm surprised that I've almost watched the entire channel in under a week! They just breeze by and are fun! So appreciative of you both sharing all your knowledge and laughs!
Thank you
"People quit. People die." 😂 You two always crack me up. I would pay to subscribe if you guys did daily episodes. Would be worth it for the education and humour. ❤️
Well... they do... HA! Thank you
Yup. My agent died last fall. Provisions were in place in the contract so I wasn't just left floating on my own, but it's still a gut punch on so many levels and it leaves you feeling orphaned and unsure of the future.
Back in 1977, I was in contact with an agent. He must have seen something in my query/synopsis because he offered to represent me. I asked him, if he would give me a chance to reread through my manuscript. He agreed, but by the time I was ready to send it, he died.
Had a smile come to my face when you reminded us to celebrate the small wins! I'm definitely one of those people who jumps ahead to planning for the next stages of anything and forgets to celebrate crossing milestones! Thanks for all the useful advice.
It was SO wonderfully encouraging to think about having more than one person wanting to represent me! Thanks to you I do have a list of things ready to ask an agent, but somewhere in the last few years I forgot to be excited about being out on submission. Thanks as always - you never fail to make me smile again.
Huzzah!
3 full ms out, one gave an offer. The other two received the professional notice, gave notice. The agency I loved and respected so much that has the full ms didn’t even respond. Why? The ms has been out to all parties between 2-3 months. What could I have done better to encourage them to be a part of an offer?
Glad to see you both back!🙂🌻
If 30 agents offer me representation I will know I died and went to heaven.
For reals!
So is it okay to do a happy dance, scream yes like a fan boy, and send the agent that offered to represent you baked goods. After I completed my last book I baked a lot of zucchini bread, banana nut bread, and carrot cake from scratch to celebrate. lol no regrets. It tastes amazing and gave me the energy to start another book. lol
hope you all have a great week. Can't wait for your next video.
That's amazing! But you should keep all the baked goods for yourself to enjoy. Haha
I'm not an agent but can't complain about banana bread. Carrot cake too.
What makes this so hard is all the agents who state in their submission guidelines, "We'll only contact you if we're interested in pursuing your project." But how do you know when they've passed? I feel like some of them don't send rejections just so you'll have to reach out if you get an offer, then they can chime in since obviously someone wants you; your book might be okay after all. I've had queries out for months with no reply, and I've gotten replies on queries out for months. I don't want to waste anyone's time, but I don't want someone to rep me who rejected my MS either--and now might only be interested because someone else is.
We share your frustrations about that policy.
Thanks for all of the tips! Love your ease and humor.
I'm so hooked. I'm laughing right now.
I haven't started querying yet, but I found this video so helpful! Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us! 💗
I'm so glad!
Your videos are stellar. Never stop!
About publishing breaking your plans: I was wondering if you could consider this for a vlog:
The big 5 publishing companies: Penguin/Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, Macmillan, and their imprints. Also, the smaller houses. Do you have lists about their characteristics? Do they work the same? What are their differences? Who is more inclined to do picture books or middle-grade? What about Scholastic? Can you talk about them without getting yourselves in trouble? Like, are they all East coast? Is everything virtual now? Do they all have offices in LA too? (near me). I've learned so much from you, and what you do is a little less intimidating now, but the publishing houses are an unknown. Thanks.
Publishers Marketplace, and also the bookstore, is a great way to get this information. It's how agents do (plus talking to the editors).
To my knowledge, most of those folks don't have LA offices.
@@BookEndsLiterary Thank you.
So if you write a saleable book do you get multiple responses? Most people I've heard about say they were glad to get one.
Greetings from California, Anne Boydston
Sure, but 90% of agents NEVER get back to us creators with even basic form rejections, so it’s a little rich to expect us to notify everyone and their puppies whenever we get an offer.
Imagine you're getting hundreds of emails every single day. Each email represents someone with hopes and dreams of becoming a published author. Each one put their heart and soul into their work and each one expects your full attention.
Would you be able to respond to hundreds of emails every single day? Also keep in mind, representing their clients, scheduling events, submissions to publishers, etc..
If an agent comes back to you after you have received an offer, you can let them know. For agents who don't then there's no need. It's hardly everyone and their puppies.
Thank you so much for the information.
great video. thanks for sharing :)
This is so informative!
Thanks so much for all your videos. They really help demystify the process. So appreciated!
I'd love to hear your thoughts on how flexible or inflexible the industry really is about fiction genres and shelving categories (such as Upmarket vs Women"s Fiction vs. Book Club vs. Commercial fiction... etc.) The general wisdom seems to be that if your book doesn't adhere precisely to strict rules,, or if you use the "wrong" label, it can lead to an auto-pass. Yet authors who are creative and original are applauded. Any suggestions for navigating originality vs. the expectations of genres and shelving categories when writing and submitting?
PS: Comps are scarier than hairy, eight-legged dentists.
Those subtle distinctions are probably less likely to lead to an auto-pass, but those who pitch as say adult romance when it's a YA romance, just to get in that agent's inbox will likely receive an auto pass.
@@BookEndsLiterary Thank you, much appreciated! 😎👍
Thanks again, you two are great as always! Jessica, you crack me up, "I'm charming, why wouldn't you want to talk to me a second time?!"
I have a tough question... Google has all sorts of scary and discouraging statistics out there about 1 in 6,000 authors signing with an agent (that's .01% chance!) and even on Query Tracker, more than half of the agents within my genre (YA) show 2% or less positive query- and obviously it would be even less than that for an offer of representation. In your professional options, how accurate are these extremely low statistics? It makes me feel like landing an agent is a pipe dream, is it? Watching your videos talking about multiple offers would literally be a dream come true... But in your honest opinion, is it a realistic one?
Hi! It's not uncommon for agents-particularly established agents-to have a query "acceptance" rate (or submission request rate) that's fairly small. Established agents, especially, get a lot of queries and don't have an infinite number of spots in their list to offer, which means that they end up having to reject many queries that are perfectly good and have low request rates. But new agents who are hungry to build their lists are typically a lot more likely to be requesting fulls and might have much higher request rates! It is unfortunate that there is definitely always an element of right place, right time with querying, but we do believe that it's realistic to hope to get offers!
At 3:00 in video, Jessica, you suggest to notify agents whom I've queried but haven't heard back from (and, yes, not all extant). How does that work? I message them via Query Tracker, wait for reply they want ms, and then send my full ms? Seems very tight for even 2 weeks.
I love your TH-cam channel btw: super informative, well balanced (most important, as many channels are click-bait quality), and quite fun! I"ve been posting on Twitter yous guys are boss!
Hi! We're so glad to hear you've been enjoying our channel! It is pretty tight, but it never hurts to try-even if they don't get a chance to check out your MS, you're no worse off than before had they never even seen your query in the first place :) There's an option in QueryManager to let agents know when you receive an offer of representation. When you do that, the agent gets a special pop-up notification about your query! Hopefully that will help speed up the time it takes them to read your query and decide if they want to see the submission
When you accept an offer do you tell the other offering agents who your signed with?
Completely up to you. You don't have to, you can just say you've decided to go elsewhere
I can't even decide between traditional publishing or self-publish. I'm doing a self edit before I decide. 😊
So if I got an offer of rep from an agent, but James was my top choice agent but hasn't replied to my query yet, in my email to him should I say something to the effect of "Just wanted to let you know that I've received an offer of representation, but I would love to have a chance to work with you because you are one of my top choices" or something like that?
Yes, but also include a date you need his response by.
@@BookEndsLiterary Oh good point! Thank you for the response, and the tip! :)
What are your thoughts on letting other agents you've queried that you're receiving full manuscript requests? I haven't been offered representation (yet, hopefully), but I've received 3 full manuscript requests, 2 from whom aren't my top picks (one of them is, and is from BookEnds!!!)
Hi! Usually you only have to notify other agents once you've received an offer of rep! Congrats on your full requests! :)
Thank you for posting this video! Question, I plan to send my first batch of queries soon, but my first batch will be sent to about 5 agents only - I want to test the waters and make sure my query submission works well. If I am lucky enough to get an offer of representation from the first batch, is it okay for me to notify the agents in my top tier who haven't yet received an initial query from me?
Hi! Typically, we only expect to receive offer of rep notices for something that is already sitting in our query inbox, so I don't think I'd recommend notifying agents you haven't already queried. To help mitigate this issue, ideally each batch of queries should be a mix of "tiers" of agents you'd like, so that even if an agent you're not sure you want to sign with offers, you are able to nudge other agents that you might want to sign with more and use the original offer as leverage. Additionally, you should never feel like you have to accept someone's offer-if after a call you feel that they're not a good fit, it's okay to say so even if you don't have other offers on the line, and continue querying!
@@BookEndsLiterary This is super helpful! I will definitely use this approach when I begin querying. And I appreciate you reinforcing that it’s also okay to decline an offer that doesn’t fit. I feel like that option often gets overlooked in the excitement of an offer. Thank you again!!
Hi, I have a question. If you query an agent through querytracker, how to you email about being offered reputation? Do you requery them and let them know?
Hi Jes, when you query through querytracker, you should get a confirmation email that your submission has been received and a box at the bottom that you can click on to check your query status. When you click on this, it will take you to the agent's Query Manager page and you can check the status of your query here, as well as view your activities such as the query letter you submitted. There is also a box to click on to "Send a Message". Use this to inform the agent that you've received another offer. I just did this.
@@NatashaYimCarter thank you!
@@jesbrimer3096 You're welcome! Good luck on querying.
Hey guys, love the channel. What do you think about sending out query letters in waves of 6-8 to allow space and time to amend the query letter/synopsis/manuscript rather than querying your entire list of agents in one go? I've heard that this approach is slower but more effective given that you've essentially got one shot per agent for a manuscript. Thanks.
If this is a manageable approach for you, you can definitely use this strategy! It might go a little slower, but you can use the feedback as you go.
@@BookEndsLiterary Great. Thanks for the advice.
This was great, and not just for publishing. The graceful 'thank you for letting me submit', I just want to let you know I'm signing with someone else... leaves that door open. Information with grace. The flip side is not that unusual as a plot point. George in Seinfeld quitting his job and then showing up pretending nothing happened....
And of course in dating... Hey, I know you were angry with me when you kicked me out (of your moving car...) I just want to let you know I'm going to Bora Bora with Jennifer Anniston, so I'm sorry but it'll be about three weeks before I'll be able to pick up my sweaty gym clothes you've left on your porch. No hard feelings. Talk to you soon! Let's have drinks. Maybe toss them in the washer in the meantime....
Is an acceptance on the first call okay if it's the authors dream agent?
Good video. But getting multiple offers from your dream agent? Huh. I'd be happy if my book I'm polishing for the query letters would Stop flipping in my fumbling fingers like a life trout. Yes I am using the forbidden word. Draft. Draft 3. Drafted bl**dy grey witch refusing to learn how to behave. Drafted brambles of the character arc I'm entangled in. Hunting the line editing beast while she hunts mere Vargs....
I wonder does the publishing thing become easier once an agent steps in to safe the day?
If you put it on 1.25 speed, they sound normal.
cheers