"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." (Boswell's Life of Johnson)
I've been exploring the process of getting published in the traditional book world, and a lot of what I've been doing lately – and writing about – has to do with literary agents. I should make it clear at the outset that I have never knowingly met a literary agent. They supposedly look like you and me, but are surrounded by a faint aura of literate sophistication almost undetectable to the unaided eye. I have, however, had the pleasure of communicating with several of them through various media, and therein lie the complications.
The proper form of approach to literary agents with whom you have not been previously acquainted is the query. The best way to approach agents is by recommendation, usually from an existing client of theirs, or through some mutual acquaintance who has credentials in publishing, writing, or in your field. Most beginning authors rely on the query, or query letter: a brief introduction to their book (or proposed book), to their background, and to why they think their ideas or work would be saleable.
In a previous Confession, I mentioned that two agents had responded favorably to my query, one asking for the manuscript, another for my book proposal. To this last agency, I replied, with unnecessary candor, that I hadn't actually written the proposal yet, just the book, and could they wait a week or so? I didn't hear back, but sent the proposal a week later anyway. I may have committed a tactical error by a) not having a proposal ready to go; b) telling the agent about a). At any rate, I still haven’t heard back from them – not diagnostic, since agents often take months to respond to anything more than a query, but suggestive.
I talk a little about proposals here, but to recapitulate, a book proposal is a document that describes your book, your credentials, the market, the competition, and your marketing plan. It's like a query on steroids. Why, you ask, didn't I have a proposal? Because, I answer with deep chagrin, I didn't know I needed one.
My book is a memoir about my experiences as an estate gardener. Memoir is a funny category. It's technically non-fiction, but in many ways it is read, appreciated, and sold like fiction. If a book is the memoir of a very famous or very interesting person, things like voice, flow, and style become less important than the events and facts of that person's life. (there are, of course, many well-written, literary memoirs of famous and interesting people.) If, as in my case, you are neither famous nor especially interesting, then the literary qualities of your memoir – the story, the voice, the language – become its primary assets. Agents and publishers prefer to see a complete memoir, whereas in other types of non-fiction, it's best to send them a proposal. Most of the authorities that I consulted said to query your memoir as though it were fiction. They didn't say to have a proposal ready in the wings, but I should have figured that out myself. One final note: memoir and autobiography are not the same. Memoir is slanted and selective, with details carefully contrived to produce an effect. Autobiography is the kitchen sink on paper, artfully arranged if possible, but complete.
I have since contacted a few other agents, and the majority have asked to see all or part of my manuscript. This is the good news. The bad news is not, as you might suspect, that those agents passed on my book. Two did, by the way, but that's neither unusual or unexpected. What made life complicated was that one agent asked for an exclusive.
An exclusive, in literary agent terms, is the opportunity to read a manuscript while no one else is reading it. This is a flattering request from the perspective of the unpublished author, but it presents her – or in my case, him – with a dilemma. An agent may take several months to read a manuscript – and before you get all indignant about "How could it take anyone that long to read a book?", consider that agents may get dozens of queries a day. They already have clients for who they are supposed to be working. If an agency receives 100 queries in a week and asks to read only 4% of those manuscripts, that's four books a week. You'd be better off back in college (where I never read anything if I could weasel out of it.) Literary agencies also don't want to invest time in reading and discussing a manuscript only to find that someone else has signed the author in the interim.
From the author's perspective, though, an exclusive is problematic. It means that for weeks or months, his (or her) manuscript can't go anywhere else. The agency that requested an exclusive read of my book seemed like a good match, and they were unusually charming and personable in their communications. I might have been tempted to give them the exclusive, were it not for one complicating factor: another agency was already reading my book.
I wrote back and explained the situation. They could wait until the other agency was finished, or they were welcome to read the manuscript simultaneously, with the understanding that I would inform them if anything happened. "Anything" was my euphemism for having the other agent make me an offer, or reject the book outright. Fortunately, the agency that had requested the exclusive dropped the request, and is hopefully enjoying my work as we speak.
Over the next few weeks, a pattern will emerge. If agents keep responding to my query, but keep passing on the actual book, I will deduce that I have written a very good query letter and a not-so-good book. If anything else happens, I will keep you informed. To all the commenters who have themselves written or published books in traditional or untraditional ways: please keep the rest of us informed about your trials and triumphs. More to come when it happens!