Literary Agents

There was a time when an author could submit novels or nonfiction directly to a publisher.  As recently as the early 1990s, it was possible to send material to a particular editor at a major publishing house.  In the past fifteen years, however, direct submissions have been closed to almost all mainstream publishers with a few exceptions, such as Tor/Forge and some independent presses.  One now needs a literary agent.

Literary agents have been the gatekeepers as to what gets published and what doesn't for many years.  Even when direct submissions to publishers was still possible, the vast majority of books acquired by publishers were the result of agented submissions.  Agents knew where to submit a manuscripts and could secure a better, more profitable contract for their clients.

Getting agent representation has never been easy--rejection rates have hovered between 95% and 98% for many years--but it is now even harder to land an A-list agent.  With the advent of computers and word processing, it became somewhat easier to produce a manuscript.  Typing several revisions on a typewriter was a daunting, time-consuming endeavor, but MS WORD now allows the process to go a bit faster.  People also want to write books because they see how successful genre fiction has become.  The result is that agents receive more queries and book proposals than ever, and even with junior agents combing through the slushpiles, it is difficult to read every single submission in a timely fashion.  Many queries, in fact, go unanswered if the query shows no promise, and many agents just don't have time to return thousands of queries via snail mail regardless of whether return envelopes with postage were included.

Agents are also focusing more and more on seeing who is "breaking through" in self-publishing since many authors have been able to sell tens of thousands of copies of eBooks on Amazon, Smashwords, and other sites that offer books for electronic readers, such as the Kindle, Nook, and other digital platforms.  If an agent can find an author who has already gained an audience, it makes selling that author to a mainstream publisher that much easier.

Agents are an important part of the literary marketplace.  They work tirelessly to secure contracts for their clients.  More authors are turning to options such as Kindle Direct Publishing, but for those writers still seeking agents, it is imperative to send a great query letter with an irresistible hook, one written flawlessly.  There's a lot of competition out there. 

~ William Hammett

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