Finding Another Literary Agent

Thinking about finding another literary agent? Here are some tips to help smooth the transition.

Video Transcript: Finding Another Literary Agent

Hello, this is Mary Kole, and Good Story Company. Welcome to our YouTube channel if you're new here. Today, I'm going to talk about the slightly more advanced topic of finding another literary agent, and some of you may be wondering, "Another one? I'm still looking for my first one." Well, this is for those writers who may have parted ways with a literary agent and just a few tips to smooth that transition and encourage you if that's what you want, to get back out there again.

Now, it's nothing anybody wants to hear, but not all agent relationships are meant to ride off into the sunset and last forever. There are ruptures in the agent-writer relationship just like in any relationship. A lot of them have to do with communication or you feel like the agent's enthusiasm for your project has maybe bottomed out if you didn't sell a book or there hasn't been much for reaction to a book. There are many, many reasons why these things can fall flat.

But what you do to get back in the saddle...and some don't. Some decide to go off and independently publish, and anything is valid that you do here. But if you do decide to get back in the saddle and look for another agent, there are things that you will need to do that a first-time unagented writer would know baggage—I don't think it's baggage, first of all—that kind of writer doesn't have to do.

You will want to disclose your status at some point to any agent that you have gotten interest from because, if you've been agented once, it is a fair thing to say that you may have a little bit more attention to your project. Especially if you've sold a project already, you have a publishing deal, you have a few books out, you have a career kind of already in motion, another agent may come along that's interested in that because you are sort of a proven writer and you have a track record.

One thing that you will want to do and I am of the school...I believe that communication is absolutely key, and you want to overcommunicate, if at all possible, and be very, very honest. You will want to disclose that you were agented at some point, maybe even in your query letter. You don't have to say who it was. If you guys get to talking, maybe disclose it there but you will want to let them know, "Hey, I recently parted ways with my agent, and I'm looking for new representation." It doesn't have to be the whole story of what happened if anything did happen. Just mention it.

You will probably be asked who the agent was at some point just because the books that they sold on your behalf, they're going to be the agent of record for those books, and so if your publisher is trying to have a conversation with your old agent and your new agent about an ongoing series for example and your first agent sold the first two books and your new agent is selling the next two books or whatever, you will have to have some kind of joint communication at some point. So just be honest.

But, again, you don't want to spill the whole story. And one thing I would caution you against is badmouthing the agent even if they were horrible if you didn't get along at all, anything like that, it's a small industry. No matter what category you're in, there are surprisingly few players, and they all know one another. And so you don't want to burn any bridges no matter how much you want to. You can absolutely sort of say, "You know, they didn't really handle me. These are the problems that I felt I encountered," but try to keep it as civil and professional as possible even if there was something in the relationship that you felt like was not your fault. The best approach here would be civility and not to gossip.

You can absolutely sort of share your experience. There's a whisper network online of writers who share experiences with their agents sometimes anonymously. I would participate in that sort of thing cautiously because you don't want to sort of be on the receiving end of a lot of attention for burning a bridge and, you know, calling somebody out.

If it is a larger issue that you want many writers to be aware of, you can take a stand against a former agent. You can do it publicly. You can do it under an anonymous account. There are many ways to sort of advocate, but one thing to note is that you could bring some unfavorable attention onto yourself depending on how you do it. I absolutely believe that there are very valid reasons to part ways from a representative and not all representatives are made equal. But I would try to sort of just stick to the facts and leave emotion or spite or any kind of negativity out of it so that you can let... If you choose to talk about a bad experience with an agent or a publisher, you can let readers come to their own conclusions without you sort of putting adjectives on people and venting in that way no matter how tempting. I absolutely love the honest approach, but I also like the classy approach and there are writers who have been burned for speaking out against their publishers, speaking out against their agents.

Another thing that can be an issue there is it may get more difficult for you to retain representation or get a new publisher if you have sort of been really, really outspoken about negative experiences that you've had. So there definitely is a way to approach these things with an eye toward getting another agent, getting another publisher if the rupture was with your publisher.

These can be really, really tricky situations though because a lot of writers, they're loathed to start over. If they've had a bad experience with an agent, they wonder if the next agent is going to be good or just more of the same, you know? There have been sham agencies that haven't even sent submissions out for writers that are huge red flags. If you were with one of those agents, you might wonder, you know, "Is my other agent going to do anything for me? Is my other agent going to stop communicating with me as well?" And these are valid valid questions, but one negative experience with an agent or with a publisher should not put you off of writing if that is what you want to do with your life.

I don't believe that there aren't good fish in the sea and there aren't good apples. That's not to say I excuse people's bad behavior. The sham agencies that didn't even send anything out for writers are such a heartbreaking situation for me to hear about because it's just...agents in that position, they're playing with people's hopes and dreams, but I would say a bad experience in that vein doesn't guarantee more bad experiences.

So I would give you a little pep talk and say, if you want to get back out there, do it intelligently, do it honestly, disclose what happened but maybe without strong emotion, so that you don't sort of start off on a negative foot with a new person, and keep trying. Publishing can be really hard without having a falling out with your agent, but there's more good out there. There are great people working in publishing, and I just wish you courage to advocate for yourself so you can find the advocate that you deserve.

My name is Mary Kole and here's to a good story.