What Does An Agent Really Do For You?

For many writers, they seem to believe that an agent's only responsibility is contract negotiation and getting you signed with a publisher that you have no access to. While this is indeed part of the job, agents do a lot more for writers. Please do understand every agent is different. There is a range of things they do and don't do. It is for this reason, you need to take the time to review what you need as a writer and seek out the agent that best fits your needs. So, let's look at some of the additional things we do:

DEVELOPMENTAL EDITING This is one area that really is a huge difference between a lot of agents. Developmental editing is when we get in there and really work with your manuscript. Our job is to make sure that the project you are working on is ready to get to the editors. For myself, I read partials, I read full manuscripts. I do a lot of the work you would normally see the editors doing. I know that you are buried in that manuscript and see things only one way. I can provide you a second set of eyes to help out out. Do I take care of copy editing? For me, if I see something, I will let you know. I have, in the past, with some authors, taken the time to go through and do the copy edits because we were finding issues that were not getting caught. 

COACHING This is when we help you plan out new projects and come up with new directions for you. Coaching is really about getting you heading in the right direction and getting you over roadblocks that you cannot seem to get over. 

CAREER BUILDING This is a difficult one. As an agent, we cannot plan your career for you. This is YOUR career. What we can do is help you find that correct path to where you want to be. This might also be a time when we have to help you see that the direction you want to go may not be the best approach. 

GOOD COP/BAD COP This is a really important piece of the puzzle. We want you, as a writer, to have a great creative relationship with your editor. We want you to work hard to create that perfect manuscript that is going to be loved by your readers. However, there may be times when things happen with the publisher and you want to have these fixed. It might be things such as a bad cover, a problem with your royalties, a marketing issue. You name it, problems will happen. This is when your agent steps in to help you out. You just keep working and playing nice with your editor and we will take care of those problems. Part of this is also because your editor might not be the person who is in charge of the department with the problem. 

MARKETING GUIDANCE Are we PR people? No. Will we market your book for you? No. What we can do is help you think of some approaches to take to promote those books and get information about your writing in front of readers. We can give you some ideas that we might have seen being done by other people. Yes we will promote those books when they come out on our social feeds. We will make sure the world know that one of our favorite authors is having great success. 

The point, is, we are not just contact lawyers. We are part of a team!