Ask the Agent: @literaticat - Tumblr Blog

Ask the Agent FAQs + How to Search & Get Notifications

I’ve assembled some of the Most Frequently Asked questions here. I’ll add to it as I remember. I strongly suggest that you look at the FAQs *and* try and do a quick keyword search BEFORE asking your question; instructions for that are below the FAQ section.

Please do try to be as concise as you can be and confine yourself to ONE “ask box” - there are a limited number of characters, so sometimes people spread their asks into multiple boxes -- this makes answering them problematic and confusing.

Please do be civil, and respectful of my time: I allow anonymous asks because I want people to feel they can ask sensitive questions, in the hopes that the answers will be useful for others as well, I’ll turn them off if people get abusive, stalkerish, or generally weird in my inbox.

Please don’t ask me if your book will sell, or how much money you will make: I don’t know. And truly, EVERYTHING I know about word count has been compiled into the link below under “word count.”

APRIL 2026 UPDATE: ABLA has new submission guidelines (linked!) Please follow the submission guidelines carefully - we cannot accept queries through email or social media.

BOOKSTORE STUFF, EVENTS & SCHOOL VISITS

How do bookstores find out about and choose books to stock and display? And what’s “co-op”?

What are Returns? Remainders? “Strippable” books?

Does a book being remaindered mean that it is going Out of Print?

Do you have tips for approaching bookstores to do events?

Can you give me some nuts & bolts of how School Visits work? And what’s a booking agency?

CHAPTER BOOKS

Here’s a link to a series of posts about Chapter Books - how do you write a CB proposal, why do agents rarely list CB as something they rep, etc.

COMPS

Are comps necessary? Can I use a TV show or movie as a comp? What parameters should I use when choosing comps?

CONTRACT STUFF

What even IS an Option Clause, what does it contain and how should it be limited?

DEALMAKING

What are the steps between submitting a book to a publisher and getting an offer?

What's an "Auction"? What's a "Pre-empt"?

Which is better, a one book deal, or a multi-book deal?

ENCOURAGEMENT / REALITY CHECKS

Feeling down about being in the query trenches?

Dealing with Imposter Syndrome?

But what are the chances I’ll get out of the slush pile REALLY?

I heard traditional publishing is dying / dead. Is that true???

Do you have a pep talk for people who are sad about shelving / trunking manuscripts?

Everyone says there are “no original ideas” - but agents only want “original ideas.” How can both these things be true?

I know it’s pointless to chase trends -- but my book is not trendy. Should I write something else?

OK, but now my book is gonna come out and what if everyone hates it????

ILLUSTRATORS

I know somebody who is a talented artist, what should they do to break into kid’s books? Here: A newbie’s guide to becoming a professional book illustrator.

What should ideally be in an aspiring illustrators portfolio?

What do agents do to “shop” illustrator’s work that is different from authors?

INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS

What’s the story with “Foreign Rights”? Should I keep them?

How does selling international rights / translation rights work?

MONEY

How book accounting works 101: Advances, royalties, joint accounting and separate accounting.

What’s the REAL scoop on “six-figure deals”?

How are advances calculated?

Should a writer start an LLC?

PEN NAMES

Here are a bunch of posts about Pen Names - can I use one, when do I have to decide, what if I can’t pick one, how do I query with one, etc.

PICTURE BOOKS

What’s your best advice for learning to write Picture Books?

What’s the deal with Holiday Themed picture books?

Do agents really hate Rhyming picture books?

Why do so many agents want author-illustrators specifically?

Do picture books need to have conflict?

PITCHING YOUR BOOK

What are “best practices” for pitch sessions at conferences and the like?

PUBLICITY, MARKETING & SELF-PROMO

What’s the difference between Marketing and Publicity?

Should I hire my own publicist?

Social Media Best Practices for Authors who are Scared of Social Media

Dealing with Negative Reviews (Spoiler: Don’t read them in the first place, and definitely don’t respond!)

PUBLISHER 101

What’s an “imprint” and are some better than others?

QUERYING

How do I write a query letter?

How do I address a query? Dear Ms Agent, or what?

How do I write the “Bio” section of the query if I don’t have any prior publications or special credentials?

Does it matter when I query?

Should I personalize my query letter? (OK, I get it, but tell me more!)

What if I pitch a book “too soon” and it isn’t ready yet? How much time do I have to reply to a request?

If an agent has my full, when is it OK to nudge? What are the RULES about nudging? What if I get another offer? WHEN SHOULD I NUDGE?

Why are responses soooo slow? (2021 "post-covid-era")

Can I query American agents / get published in America, if I live in another country?

Do I need a massive social media presence or connections or anything else in order to query an agent?

What’s the weirdest query you ever got?

Will an agency that says they share queries with one another REALLY share them? Which ones? ALL of them? What’s the deal with that?

RESEARCHING AGENTS: SCAMS AND SCHMAGENTS

What are some big red flags for Agents (and Publishers)?

I’m worried my Agent may be... A SCHMAGENT. How can I tell?

REVISION

How do you decide what feedback to implement from a critique partner, agent or editor?

Any wisdom about that roller-coaster feeling of “my work is great!” followed by “my work is garbage!” that happens in revision?

What if an agent or editor wants you to change something that you really love?

TITLES

What if my publisher wants me to change my title but I like it?

WORD COUNT

Here's my famous post from long ago containing everything I know about Word Count. It's still accurate, IMO.

Here's a post about two ways to find out the word count of published books.

WORK FOR HIRE / IP PROJECTS

How do I get work on “IP Projects” / Work for Hire gigs?

WORKING WITH AN AGENT

What is “The Call” with a potential agent like?

What does a typical author-agent contract / agency agreement look like? Do I need a lawyer to look at it?

How does an agent “sell a book” - is it like a door-to-door salesman sitch, or what?

How do books “go on submission” - like, what is the process?

What's the etiquette around giving gifts to your agent?

What happens if my agent leaves the agency, or leaves the business entirely?

WRITING TIPS

What is the BEST writing tip you have for somebody who wants to break into Children’s Books? OK, but can you expand on that?

What are some great books to read to study the craft of writing fiction?

What’s the difference between goals, stakes, and conflict - and are all of them important in a kid’s book?

Can you open a book with dialogue? (What’s an example of a great opening line?)

How To Search

* SEARCH: Go to the URL/search/keyword -- for example, literaticat.tumblr.com/search/query -- It's not the most intuitive but it does work!

* TAGS: I have enabled TAGS on the posts. (I used to do this all the time when I had a different theme, but then I got this theme, which didn’t automatically show tags, and then I forgot.) SO, the tags are things like “working with an agent”, “querying an agent”, “scandals”, “contract stuff” etc - and they should show up. Not every ask is tagged, but the most “important” ones generally are. If you click one of the tags, all other posts with that tag should show up. (of course if I forgot to tag, or your question could be in more than one category... it’s not a FLAWLESS system, but hey).

* ARCHIVE: I have added a button to the top of the page that says “Archive” (right next to “ask me anything”) - if you click on that, you’ll see thumbnail images of a ton of questions - this doesn’t show the whole question or answer but if you are like “man, I know it was a question about Hollywood Contracts and it was about a month ago” you can click on that Archive link and very quickly probably find the thing you want. (Additionally, the tags show up on that when you hover/tap)

How to See New Posts

* RSS FEED: You can add this to an RSS feed, such as Feedly, so that you will get to see the most recent questions automatically in that feed as they come. (How? That would be a great question for Feedly, or Google!)

* GET NOTIFICATIONS: In the top right corner, there’s a person-shaped icon that you click for following a blog, etc. It has an option for “get notifications when this blog posts”. It looks like this:

#technical questions #faq

Hi, I know you’ve talked about the absolute write forums in the past, but I see that they’ve quit approving new users. Do you know if writers are moving to a new spot? I haven’t been able to find much activity elsewhere.

Is that the case? I just went there (admittedly for the first time in a LONG time) and, while it's not exactly a buzzing hive of activity, there were new members introducing themselves recently! And I went to "register an account" and it looked normal. (I didn't actually try to register an account, because I have one, but I would think there would be a notification, or there wouldn't be an application if they were not approving new members?) (But IDK!)

Anywho, Reddit has a wide variety of writing and publishing subreddits for different topics, including self-publishing, writing, etc. Some of them seem to be full of straight-up nonsense. In my very limited experience, r/PubTips is probably the best for discussion questions about traditional publishing and for query critiques, it is quite active and there are published writers and publishing professionals on there giving good advice.

(That particular subreddit is highly moderated so inappropriate stuff and off-topic stuff that doesn't follow the rules doesn't really show up there, which is a good thing IMO. Still, of course, as with any internet-based forum, it's possible to run into a few trolls and meanies and opinionated know-nothings, so your mileage may vary, grain of salt, ETC. )

Other than that, I don't really know. For things like writerly craft and community and whatnot, I think a lot of writers have discord servers or slack or other kinds of "closed group" chats. Which I am, of course, not privy to!

But if anyone has great ideas, comment them!

I’ve parted with my agent and am looking for a new one. I have a bestselling book… would it be tacky if I put in the email subject line “bestselling author seeking new representation”? Or should that just be in the bio? Or neither since that was a past book and doesn’t say anything about future books?

Sorry, I'm about to get into the weeds here, but agents tend to see a lot of "bestseller!" claims from dubious sources, so I think if you are going to use that as a bragging point, you are gonna need to be specific, and different types of bestseller are weighed differently.

And of course, most importantly, you should follow the directions. So if they don't accept email queries, or if they ask for some specific subject line, follow that guidance, because otherwise your query might get lost! BUT OK, assuming it IS an email and you have free rein over the subject line, etc:

-- If your book listed for more than one week specifically on the New York Times Bestseller List, the subject line could be "NYT Bestselling author seeking new representation". And (/or, if it's not an email or if your email line can't be that because they ask for something different in the directions), you can lead with that in the query itself. "I'm Heather McWriterpants, author of the New York Times bestselling AMAZINGBOOK, and I'm seeking new representation. And then the rest of the query, including full bio, in which you can add other accolades, etc.

-- If your book didn't hit NYT but was a multi-week bestseller on a different major list: USA Today, PW Bestseller List, Sunday Times (UK), Bookseller (UK)- subject line could be "Bestselling author seeking new representation" and/or your intro could be "I'm Heather McWriterpants; my book AMAZINGBOOK was a Sunday Times and USA Today bestseller, and I'm seeking new representation." (You DO want to specify which major lists these are, don't just say "bestselling" again, fine for the subject line but not for the intro.) Then the rest of the query, and full bio.

-- If your book listed for one week on NYT and/or one week on other major lists, don't put it in the subject line, but it could be in the intro, and certainly in your bio. No need to get specific about how long it was on there, hey, it hit the list! But do specify what lists. "AMAZINGBOOK was a NYT and USA Today Bestseller" not just "bestseller."

-- If your book listed for any amount of time on the (national) Indie Bestseller list, I wouldn't put it as the subject line or the intro, but should definitely be highly featured and specifically named in your bio among other accolades. "My previous novel, AMAZINGBOOK, was an Indie bestseller; in a starred review, Kirkus declared it 'Luminous.'"

-- If your book was an Indie Next pick, and/or it landed on one or more regional Indie bestseller list(s) (Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association, for example), or one or more specific indie bookstore bestseller list(s) (Book Passage bestseller list, for example) -- don't put it in the subject line, don't put it in the intro, and don't call it a "Bestseller", because that implies something this isn't. Instead, in the bio something like "My previous novel, AMAZINGBOOK, was an Indie Next Pick and bookseller favorite; in a starred review, Kirkus declared it 'Luminous'"

-- If your basis for calling this a "Bestseller" came from anything miscellaneous, such as Amazon Bestseller (like, it had an orange banner), no need to mention. I say this for several reasons. First: some of those categories are so granular that it's ridiculous. (Children's > Sports > Flyfishing??? COME ON. How many other books in that category could there even be, OF COURSE your book is a "bestseller" in that tiny category!) Second: The bestsellers on Amazon change constantly according to sales. So let's say somebody buys 30 copies of one book in an hour, and that happens to be the most copies of any other book sold in that hour, it could be a "bestseller" for that moment in time, but that doesn't mean it will last. Finally: Amazon sales DO count toward all the major lists. So if your book actually IS selling well enough consistently enough on Amazon, it will certainly also hit at least one of the major lists. IF your book gets an orange banner but it DOESN'T hit a major list, it's not selling well enough consistently enough to use that as a bragging point.

#bestseller lists

I've been seeing more and more agents becoming "conference attendee and referral-only." This is frustrating because not everyone can or is comfortable attending conferences, and not everyone is friends with published authors. I feel like if this continues, publishing will pretty much become a closed circuit. What do you think are possible solutions?

Here's a potentially hot take: "Open to conference attendee and referral only" is just a nicer way to say "Closed."

It doesn't mean the agent is expecting people to attend conferences or get referrals in order to query them. In fact, I'll go a step further and say they are hoping people WILL NOT do that.

Well, OK, I can't speak for every agent, but I am in this exact position. I am currently closed to queries.

Of course I do take referrals and conference attendees even while closed, I'm not a monster. But they are few and far between, because, just as I don't have time to be open to queries, I also don't really have time to go to conferences. And as for referrals: Great referrals usually come from my fellow agents or from editors, much less often authors, and I do hope/think authors would really only refer somebody to me if they legit thought it was great and could potentially be a great fit; they aren't just referring people they are friends with.

So I don't bother to say "open to conference attendee and referral only" because, while it is true, it's also kind of a worthless piece of info -- if you ARE a conference attendee or are being referred, you already know I'm otherwise closed, and if you AREN'T, all you have to know is I'm closed.

It's not that I can NEVER take somebody new on (I signed somebody new last month! It was a referral from a fellow ABLA agent!), but I would have to MAKE TIME for anything new, because my existing time is already spoken for. I already barely have one day off a week. I already work more than 8 hours a day. Once or twice a year, for something really special that I have a strong feeling about, that could be worth making time for. But I can't be taking new things on WILLY NILLY. I'm sure the authors I already rep wouldn't love it if I slowed down working on their stuff. I'm already slow enough, and publishing is 100x as slow -- I can't be adding EXTRA slowness! And I wouldn't love it if I burned out completely. So, here are possible solutions:

-- I fire my existing clients. (That's a terrible solution!)

-- I could just be open to be open, because it seems like something nice to be. But who is reading hundreds of queries a month? ME? I just said, I work like 50+ hours a week as it is. I don't have TIME FOR THAT. If I am open, that means I am paying somebody to look through the queries I don't have time to read for potential clients I don't have time to take on. (Not a great solution).

-- Clones? (note to self: look into that)

-- Time turner? (fictional unfortch)

-- You query people who are open? There are a lot of agents who are open! (ding ding ding that's the one!)

I don't really worry about publishing becoming "a closed circuit." There will always be new agents building their lists who HAVE to be open, and established agents who can afford lots of assistants to help them manage queries who CAN be open.

Agents LOVE to find new talent, is the thing. So if an agent is closed, believe me, it's probably not because they don't WANT to consider your work -- they either have such a backlog that they need time to catch up, or they know they just can't take on new clients right now, and it wouldn't be fair to YOU for you to just throw your query into a void. When they catch up and catch their breath, most will likely re-open!

(if YOU think of a great solution, lmk!)

where would you place autobiographies which are sometimes embellished or sensationalized or include some fiction. often they don't even make it clear what's fact vs fiction

"Where would I place them" in what sense? Like... where would I put them in a bookstore? That depends how the publisher has categorized them.

One of my favorite classes in college was about this very topic, and one of the things we talked about in that class was the fact that Autobiography or Memoir, by its nature, is from the POV of a kind of unreliable narrator! Like, the author is telling their own story from their perspective, right? But their perspective might be limited. Their memory might be faulty. They know how THEY felt about whatever-it-was, what THEY saw and remember, but they don't necessarily know how OTHER people felt about it or saw it or remember it.

That being said, assuming that it is meant to be a memoir, we can assume that it's a relatively faithful account of the person's life (or whatever section of their life they are covering in that book).

-- If you are a memoirist, you are making a pact with the reader: the story they are about to read is TRUE from your perspective. If that's the case, it goes in the Autobiography/Memoir section of the bookstore, and it's nonfiction.

-- If you are making up stories, then it's fiction.

-- If a story is "Based On True Events" but has some fictionalized parts, it's fiction.

-- Here's a good article about "autofiction", short for Autobiographical Fiction, that is, a story that is based on your own life but you've changed things significantly / made things up. TL;DR, it's FICTION!

You can, of course, write a memoir (nonfiction) but omit lurid details that might get you or somebody else in trouble. I've made up an example:

"I was at a house in Laurel Canyon doing cocaine with a group of party girls, including a mysterious redhead, supposedly the secret daughter of a Hollywood legend. Let's call her "Harley." When Harley said "let's rob a bank!" I laughed... but I'm pretty sure she was serious. I'm not sure what happened next, but I woke up three days later in a Tijuana motel room, alone, with an infected Elvis Presley tattoo on my thigh and no memory of the missing days. I never saw Harley again."

-- You probably DON'T want to say this person's name, assuming they are still alive and you don't know them well enough to ask permission for telling their business and you are telling bad stories about them and don't want to get sued! You could give her a fake name that is clearly fake ("let's call her Harley"), or just call her "the mysterious redhead," or whatever.

-- If the idea that she was "the secret daughter of a Hollywood legend" is just a rumor that you heard, you might say "supposedly" or "allegedly" or "somebody told me, but I'm not sure I believe it" or "she bragged about it but as far as I could tell that was a lie"-- or omit that detail.

-- Same with stories you might have heard about your own young childhood-- you obviously can't remember things that happened when you were a baby, but if there's some story like that you want to include, you can just say you don't know the exact details or this is a passed-down story. Like: "there's a legendary story in my family about how I drove Grampa's Buick Skylark into the side of the barn when I was two. I don't remember, and nobody took a picture, but..."

-- Or if you want to tell a story that you weren't there for, you can say this is something that happened long ago, or that you heard it second-hand, and it will be clear that it might not be exactly right. Like: "My dad Harry's father Hal died in the late 1940's, when Harry was barely five years old. Some say Hal was a Bootlegger. Others say he was a Riverboat Gambler. All I know is, he had been rich, and left my grandmother and Harry a fortune. It didn't last, though. By the time I was ten and Harry died, all that was left was a miserable patch of swampland off Dogpound Road in Slidell, Louisiana, that Hal had won in a bet.**

-- Your POV might be flawed (and in fact probably IS flawed!). Your version of an event might even be wholly different from how other people saw it. That doesn't make it fiction.

-- Omitting details or changing things like names that might get you in trouble or deciding to tell one part of a story over another doesn't make it fiction, either, you are just selecting which true things to tell. All memoirists have to select which stories to tell and how to tell them! Otherwise all memoirs would be a million pages long!

IF you read all this jibber-jabber and are still interested in memoirs, I would strongly suggest you read Mary Karr's superb memoir THE LIAR'S CLUB as well as her book about writing memoirs, THE ART OF MEMOIR, and listen or read this interview with her on NPR.

NPR: ...How do you make sure, in your writing, that you've gotten things right? KARR: Well, obviously, I don't. I have no doubt that I've gotten a million things wrong and that someday, some cavalry of people will ride into my life and say, this is so much horse dookey, we can't even believe it.

** PS: The story about Hal the Riverboat Gambler is true, insofar as that's my grandfather, and the only thing my dad left me was some land off Dogpound Road. I went to look at it when I was 18 or so; it was worthless, it had no road frontage, I ended up donating it to Habitat for Humanity because they were building houses in the area. So don't steal that story, it might be in MY memoir some day! ;-) But I have no idea if Hal really was a riverboat gambler or a bootlegger, or both, or neither, or if he really won the land in a bet - he died 40 years before I was born, and I'm sure my dad didn't even remember him well enough to have told me the truth if I had known to ask him. which I didn't!

#memoir writing #memoir #nonfiction

Hi Jennifer,

A win to share anonymously: when my book came out, my editor told me their 2-year sales goal (because I asked). And my book just met that goal in 11 months. I know sales goals are guesswork and not real, but it feels good. My book was a bit of a risk for them to take on, so I’m glad it worked out!

Just wanted to share good news with someone who gets it!

HOORAY! I love this for you, congratulations! 🎈🎉🍾🎊

Of course, any kind of “sales goal” IS kinda arbitrary. But it still feels good as hell to meet it. 😘

And now, the only metric that is actually tangible: I hope you have, or will soon, earn out and receive royalties for many years to come!

Hi Jenn! Are there legitimate situations where someone who isn’t famous that’s wanting to publish nonfiction can skip the need for a platform? Like for investigative nonfiction or the need for anonymity?

I do think you always need some kind of a platform for adult non-fiction, (which is what I assume you are talking about) -- but "platform" can look different for different kinds of projects. Plenty of "non-famous" authors write nonfiction all the time.

Platform can mean "People know who you are and want to hear what you have to say." So sometimes this is Platform is very obvious.

-- You are a gold medalist in skiing who was horribly injured and then overcame the obstacles to win gold again, a story that was widely shared all over the world when you medaled again. You want to write a book that is *inspirational*. You should write the book because you have a unique POV, and people will want to read it because YOUR STORY IS INSPIRING, you are famous, and millions of people are clearly interested!

-- You are a professional YouTuber with very popular channel where you tell jokes and play D&D, and you want to write a funny book about D&D. You should write the book because you are funny and an expert, people will want to read it because they follow you and and like you and are interested in the subject!

But SOMETIMES (a lot of times!) you aren't already a known quantity. I do think, though, that you still need a BASE for the platform. That is at least knowing "why YOU should be the one to write this, and why there is an audience of people will want to read it". If there's a good reason why YOU are the one to write this book, and there's an audience that will be interested in this book, that's a strong base for a platform; the publisher can market it toward that audience ahead of publication and build the platform out. (Then you BECOME a known quantity because of the book!) Examples of what I mean:

-- You are an investigative journalist blowing the lid off some scandal. IDEALLY, you'll have already published some of your journalism, so, though you aren't "a household name" or anything by any means, you've got credentials to back you up. Also, ideally, you'll have been doing deep research or otherwise have been in some position to get intel that most other people don't have, and you'll have the receipts for that, so it will be clear that you aren't just some crackpot wandering in off the street with a head full of conspiracy theories that you made up. That journalism background + deep research or special knowledge that other people don't have is why you should write the book. The juicy scandal you are blowing the lid off of is why there is an audience for this book.

-- You are a professional chemist. You have degrees and expertise, you are "accredited" (or whatever Chemists have to be!), you belong to professional Chemist associations, etc. You also love makeup, and have been working on a personal passion project about the formulation of cosmetics in the US and around the world, and how standards differ, and why American cosmetics and SPF are worse for you than Korean cosmetics, or something. You aren't an influencer or anything, but you DO know your audience and have a knack for writing that is both candid and fun to read, in addition to being packed full of info! You've even shared some of this info on your personal TikTok page or blog, or had some articles in a beauty magazine, and some of those posts have even "gone viral", so while you aren't by any means famous, you know your message is getting read and amplified by beauty influencers, and you've had some fun DMs with them, and even been invited to talk with the heads of some makeup production company! Your expertise and deep knowledge of the subject is why you should write the book. This information is extremely interesting to millions of people, there is an audience for this book! (And, bonus, there are already people who have demonstrated willingness to amplify your message!)

-- You were born into a cult or secret society of some kind, a lifelong member and devotee. A few years ago, you decided to break free, and have spent the intervening years "deprogramming" -- and you want to tell your story. However! The cult famously will smear, harass or even PHYSICALLY HARM former members who speak out against it! (Uh-oh!) -- so you are afraid to have social media, etc, but you are sitting on a GOLDMINE of information! What to do?! Well, even if you publish anonymously, you ARE a former lifelong member of this cult. Your agent and publisher KNOW you are and will back you up and honor your need for anonymity. The fact that you have all this info that NOBODY ELSE HAS (or at least, nobody else is willing to speak up about) is why YOU should write the book. The fact that it's about an extremely weird secret cult that people are obsessed with is why there is an audience for this book, and in fact, the idea that you HAVE to be "anonymous" to tell this story makes it all the more compelling. (However, be warned that if you publish anonymously and that becomes "part of the story", as it will, there ARE people who will make it their life mission to figure out who you are and doxx you, no matter how "anonymous" you think you are. So stay safe!)

-- You are a zoologist and photographer who hangs out with cute animals all day and loves to take photos of them. You have access to animals that few people have, and you have a knack for taking great pictures. Additionally, you are on the board of various Zoo organizations and speak at Animal Conservation conferences and whatnot all the time, in addition to being the community liaison for your Zoo. You decide to do a photography book about unexpected Animal Besties. The fact that you have access to all these cool animals and know how to speak about them in an interesting way AND you take great pictures of them is why you should write the book. People love cute animals AND you already have a built-in audience of folks who have heard you speak (and are on the mailing lists of all these organizations) -- boom, that's your platform.

Does that make sense?

TL;DR: I think if you DON'T have any particular reason why you should be the one to write the book, and you DON'T have a clear idea of who the audience is or why they would be interested, that's a problem. If you DO have those things, that's a good base for a workable platform. (Alternatively: Be famous!)

What do you think more people should know about literary agents?

I don't really think people in general are obliged to know ANYTHING about literary agents. (Which is good, because most people don't!) If I have to describe my job to somebody who doesn't know what a literary agent is, aka most people outside of publishing, I say, "you know how actors have agents that get them movie roles, and sports stars have agents that get them brand deals?" (yes, they always know that). "Well, I do that, basically, but with book authors." (And then they are usually either like "got it" or else "wow, books are still a thing? Huh!") LOL.

I think most writers who are at the stage where they might HAVE an agent already know about them. So the only people I can see benefitting from knowing about them who don't yet are newer authors. To them I guess I'd say, yes, it IS really hard to get an agent, but also, contrary to what some bitter internet people think, agents are NOT really monstrous gatekeepers trying to keep people out of trade publishing by any means necessary. In fact, we really want to find new talent and for authors to succeed. We're TRYING to break people INTO publishing, not keep people OUT of it!

My agent dumped me and never said anything about signing paperwork to officially part. I waited 30 days to ask about the paperwork, now they won’t respond. This feels weird right?? Why would they do this? I have a book coming out soon that they’re the agent for.

What does your agency agreement say? Does it SAY that there is some kind of "official" termination paperwork, or a waiting period, or anything like that?

If not, there might not be. For example, my agency's agreement says that either party may terminate at any time in writing. While we do have a sort of "official" termination letter that specifically says that the agency agreement is hereby terminated and outlines what we will remain responsible for, etc, there's nothing that anyone has to sign.

IMO, if they SAID that they are terminating the agent agreement, and there's no waiting period indicated in the original agreement or the email they sent (I presume it was an email), you are free to go on about your merry way and need not wait for any additional paperwork.

The agency agreement probably DOES say that they remain the agent for the book(s?) they repped, and so they will have to continue to pay you when/if there are royalties due and provide royalty statements and all that good stuff.

If for whatever reason you feel that they are being shady and are NOT doing that, or you can't get any answers out of them about where your statements are, etc, you can ask the publisher to split accounting and pay you your portion of any royalties directly and send their commission directly. Bigger publishers will do that without a problem, smaller publishers might or might not. But regardless, I don't think you need to worry about that right this second since the book isn't even out yet, if it is NOT a shady agency, hopefully it will be fine!

On the PW On-Sale Calendars, the listings sometimes include the number of copies to be printed. Do publishers report this information in order to create buzz? Have you seen any changes in these numbers over the last few years?

For those who don't know, the asker is talking about this: PW's on-sale calendar.

I wouldn't say it's "to build buzz", because consumers aren't reading PW at all, and they certainly aren't scouring a bare-bones listing of a bunch of titles. Matter of fact, I have no clue WHO would find that useful. Maybe a bookseller or librarian, if they are just wanting to see if there are any big titles they missed?

Anyway. Some imprints/publishers seem to always announce a first print run, some publishers never do, and some do but only for certain titles. This "Announced First Print Run" is in the publisher catalogue which goes to buyers for bookstores and libraries. (If you have an Edelweiss account, you can look up titles yourself and see which ones have an announced first print run!) Here's a screenshot (I picked this book completely at random btw).

Like the trade magazine listings, publisher catalogues are not read by the general public, so while it isn't "buzz" for CUSTOMERS, I'd say the "announced first print run" is kind of a signal to the people ordering of where the publisher sees this landing.

A standard, normal, "we expect this to do well" kind of book may have an announced first print run of, say, 30-75k. This probably means they feel like this book will find its audience and do fine, especially in bookstores that sell that kind of book well, may even hit bestseller lists, but may not be in every store.

A book in a popular series by a NYT/Sunday Times bestselling author (like the example above) might be 250k. A BIG print run like that probably means that they anticipate this book will be very popular in lots of bookstores and be a bestseller.

A new book by a somebody with a super big following like, say, Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Martha Stewart might be 500k. A HUGE print run like that probably means that they anticipate that this book will be a hot commodity in pretty much every bookstore across the country, including the airport, etc.

A book GIANT celebrity or THE HOTTEST anticipated new book might be seven figures. Like SPARE by Prince Harry famously had a first print run of 2 million, and sold 1.5 million copies the first day it was on sale! If the announced print run is in the seven figures, they anticipate this book will do EXTREMELY well.

The thing is, I don't think Announced First Print Runs are strongly tied to reality. Those catalogues are distributed six months in advance, which is also how early bookstores and libraries place their orders, but it's before the actual book is at the printer and print run is finalized, so that number is kinda based on Vibes as far as I can tell.

Plus: Most books, famously, DON'T SELL THAT MANY COPIES. You mean to tell me that they are SERIOUSLY printing 30k of some niche-ass science book or whatever? COME ON. (And if EVERY book in the catalogue has a number that feels very high, it kinda becomes meaningless. Like if EVERY airline passenger has TSA pre-check, it stops being a time-saver.)

Like, a book that has 75k listed as a FPR, if it goes out to buyers and nobody wants to stock it, they probably aren't going to really print 75k of them. That's a LOT of books to have to warehouse. That would be crazy. If, on the other hand, there IS a lot of buzz and people are ordering like crazy ahead of time, maybe they would print MORE than 75k, or order another print run right away.

TL;DR - it's not really "buzz" for customers but it IS a sort of "signal" to buyers. But also it isn't accurate. And nobody is reading that weird bare-bones list from PW at all I don't think? And as far as I can tell, these numbers haven't changed dramatically at all in the 20 or so years since I've been an agent, it's always been inaccurate and Vibes-based and relatively meaningless.

But if you are interested. maybe do a deep dive into the archives of that list and see if you can notice trends. (I will not be doing that!)

I noticed that some PBs are coming out as audiobooks, too, which surprised me. What are your thoughts?

This is nothing new, actually. Kids do, famously, enjoy being read to. Why, when I was a kid back in the 80's, I had a record player in my room and would listen to storybooks on vinyl! And we had filmstrips and tapes in school, the idea being you'd read along -- maybe you are too young to remember that thing where the narration would pause and there would be a BEEP when you were supposed to turn the page?

But there is a challenge, of course, translating a story where visuals are very important! So, for kids audio books specifically, there are different ways to approach that, either by creating a visual element that is synced up to the audio, or by means of "read-along", the intention being that the child is following along with an actual physical copy of the book.

ICONOGRAPHIC: Companies like Vooks and Dreamscape and Weston Woods do what are sometimes called "iconographic" versions -- Basically they create an audio with music and sound effects, and that is synced up to a lightly animated version of the actual illustrations. These have existed since the 1950s btw - they used to be filmstrips back in the day, more recently CD-Roms and DVDs, and now streaming!

EMBEDDED: There might be different companies that do this, so maybe there are different names for it, but the one I'm most familiar with is Wonderbook: It's the physical book, with a little audio player thing actually bound into it. I have seen kids get these from the library.

BUNDLED AUDIO: Companies like Live Oak Media produce award-winning audio picture books, and they will often be sold as a bundle WITH a copy of the picture book itself included so the kid can read along. (Nowadays it looks like Live Oak also does have books in Wonderbook format, etc)

(There are also different ways that kids can interface with Audio books without having to have a smart phone or computer -- like the Yoto player! These are quite popular, I believe!)

If you want to get good recs for Kids Audio Books; check out the Odyssey Awards. It's been given by the ALA since 2008, and there are both picture books and graphic novels that have been honored in that time! There's also a yearly ALSC list of Notable Children's Audio. Again, this is not just picture books - but there definitely always are some picture books!

For illustrated mg and chapter books, since illustrations can take up a lot of page space, what would the lowest acceptable word count be? Especially considering kids have less attention span these days and some are struggling with reading. Like is 10,000 too low?

MG books and Chapter Books are different species with different norms. If you don't know the difference, I've answered MANY questions about that, look in the pinned FAQ! But basically: MG books are for 8-12 year olds who are fluent independent readers. Chapter books are for about 6-9 year olds who are still gaining confidence with independent reading. MG books can be standalone or series; Chapter books are pretty much always part of a series. 10k words is quite short for a MG novel (whether or not it is illustrated). It's long for a chapter book.

I would suggest you figure out what it is you are trying to write. Then look up popular books that are sorta like the kinda book you are imagining, see how long they are, and aim for something about that length. Really. It's that easy.

So for example, let's say you want to write a MG novel with a lot of illustrations, such as Katherine Applegate's POCKET BEAR. Go to AR Book Find, look it up. It's about 29k words. LAST KIDS ON EARTH is 21k. STUNTBOY is 29k. LOST EVANGELINE is very short for a MG: 14k. There might be some MG books that are 10k words, but that would definitely be quite low for a MG.

IF, on the other hand, you are writing a chapter book such as IVY AND BEAN, that's more like 7,800 words. DORY FANTASMAGORY, likewise, is in the 7k zone. There probably ARE some Chapter Books that are 10k words, but that's definitely on the high side.

Everything I have ever known about Word Count is in my EXHAUSTIVE WordCount post, which I have updated over the years -- most recently JUST NOW. Go forth and read it.

#wordcount #i hate questions about word count #shhhhhh don't ask me word count questions

Within the last three years, what's the longest you've waited to offer rep? Is there a day to your best guess if an agent hasn't offered rep, chances are less likely?

I FEEL like, once an agent has read the book and loved the book and knows they want to rep the book -- they wouldn't wait to offer rep. Why would they wait?

But you notice I said ONCE THEY READ THE BOOK. Getting to read the book is the part that takes time! Your thing is in the query manager slush pile with a thousand other manuscripts, and probably the agent is reading them in order of when they came in, so first they have to GET TO YOUR THING.

Once they get to your thing and have requested a full, the full goes in the queue (probably behind both client mss and other requested fulls), and they have to get to that. Etc. So... I don't know how long most people take to respond to fulls, but certainly many months would not be unusual at all.

(I know you want an actual number, so I'll make one up: How about if six months has passed, they probably aren't going to offer rep. UNLESS THEY HAVEN'T READ IT YET, in which case maybe! But if they are taking 6+ months to read a full, they are probably too busy for new clients, so... Again, I made that up, I'm sure there have been cases where an agent took a lot longer than that and ended up offering.)

You asked about me personally, but my situation is a little unusual because I'm not currently open to regular submissions and haven't been for a while. That said, whether or not I'm open to queries, I do usually pick up a couple of new clients a year. In the last three years (May 2023 - May 2026), I've signed 5 new clients. All of those clients came to me not through the query inbox, but rather via referral or via another agent at the agency, something like that.

So I looked it up, and in each of these cases, from when we initiated the conversation with one another to when they signed the contract is probably like... 2-3 weeks? But the thing is, In each of these cases, they had published before, I was already very familiar with their work, in a couple of cases I had even met them in the past, so it didn't take me any time to know that I would like to rep them!

The only time I would hesitate after having read the book is if something else is going on. Like, I really like the work and the author and would, in other circumstances, love to offer rep, but at this time I truly DO NOT have the time / bandwidth to take somebody new on, so I'm sharing with my colleagues. But if that is case, I'm probably just going to have to sadly decline if none of my colleagues bite. So it's not so much "waiting to offer rep" as it is "passing for myself but hoping that another avenue will work out." And I probably would have told the author exactly that: Look, I don't have time to take anything new on at this moment, but let me share. (But then in that case, I wouldn't be "waiting to offer rep"!)

the-prairies-calling-out

"Why do you buy books when the library is right there?"

Because publishing houses will not continue printing paper books if libraries are their only customers.

Also, I like being able to read at my leisure and generally have books at hand.

its-the-blob

#public libraries are good because they let people access books they might never otherwise read#private book ownership is good because it's Yours#physical books are good because they last a long time and again it's Yours#ebooks are good because you can fit a whole library into the physical space of a single book and they're cheaper to produce#audiobooks are good because they're accessible to people with eyesight or visual reading issues and leave your hands free#in conclusion: all books are good and people should enjoy them however and whenever they can#(lest it be misunderstood I agree with you completely OP I just also really like books in general and it got away from me)

YES. all books. every kind

adibkhorram

Yes to all this but I would like to add some extra context...

Publishers make a ton of money from selling paper books (and ebooks) to libraries. Public libraries, university libraries, K-12 school libraries...every major publisher has school and library marketing teams, school and library sales teams, school and library imprints...Libraries are a HUGE chunk of the market. Especially for children's literature, where, historically, school and library purchases accounted for around 75% of a book's earnings.

So the concerted attacks on books in schools and libraries since 2021 has had a devastating effect. Authors who used to make a living writing books that schools and libraries bought in large quantities (and then would go visit those schools and libraries to talk about books with kids) have seen their income plummet. Publishers have shuttered entire school and library imprints—one of which was 65 years old and had won every major award for children's literature multiple times. (Full disclosure they published MY award winning children's books!)

AND did you know right now the house is considering HR2616, which would ban books that have any mention of "gender ideology" from schools? That means any book written by or including trans people.

Call your reps!

drchucktingle

gift

good practical reflection for artists who feel like whatever theyre making just isnt working is the sit down and VERY HONESTLY ask yourself: what is the gift here? it can be a lot of things. what am i giving to myself? to the world? what feeling? what expression? art that resonates is art that GIVES

i think this is part of why theres such a disconnect for people who try to make 'art with ai.' if you REALLY ask yourself 'what is my gift here with this ai art?' the answer is nothing. no story to give, or real feeling, or new idea. then these folks they are confused when it doesnt resonate

time and attention are VERY precious. why would an audience give you one of the most existentially valuable things in the universe, their time, if they know you are not a giver in return? EVEN if it means you are giving back to yourself and writing for an audience of one. YOU STILL GOTTA BRING A GIFT

Would you happen to know how much query tracker shows in terms of how many queries you or other agents have gotten from query manager? Like in terms of percentage or anything. Example: “I, a truly fabulous agent, get 100 queries a day. My query tracker only shows 50 queries per day on average.” Uhh… I didn’t mean for that to read like the start of a math question?

I don't know what info QueryTracker shows to authors, and I'm certainly not going to pay for a premium subscription to find out.

That being said, I just looked myself up on QT. I don't have access to the more detailed reports, but from what I can SEE on the "all time queries received" part, it's a little weird to me:

It says that I have received 3 queries via "postal mail" -- I have never received any query via postal mail. It says I've received 1006 queries via email, but again, I haven't accepted email queries in over a decade, since I started using QM. And I was a pretty early adopter, so QM didn't exist yet when I did accept email queries! So, where is this info coming from?

I also don't know the difference between "via online form" and "via query manager" is. The "online form" IS QueryManager, no? Like... ???? What does that MEAN???? -- I have no idea. Also I have never (never!) requested "a partial" -- who are those 4 people claiming I did? And the idea that I have only ever requested 19 fulls in the entire time that QM has existed is rather bonkeroo as well.

So... big shrug on my end. Perhaps, rather than data pulled from QM itself, this is just info from people who use QueryTracker to track their queries? In other words, Janet Q Author is actively using query tracker, she forgot or got confused and clicked the thing that said "via email" when in reality it was QM, so it shows up like that on these stats. Whereas Phinneas F Writer is just querying me from our website or what have you, so he's doing it "via query manager" yes -- but he doesn't have a QT account and isn't using QT to track anything, so his query doesn't show up in these numbers?

That's the only conclusion I can come to. Basically: when I'm open to queries, 99% of my queries come through QueryManager. Perhaps 1% are like, I met the person at a conference or it was a referral where an editor emailed me and put me in touch with an author or some unusual circumstance like that. How many of those actually SHOW ON QT probably depends on if the author themselves uses QT.

(I'm guessing!)

Hi, Jenn! I know you don’t rep it, but you said you do read it, and you’re a bookseller, so… I want to write romance, and I was thinking I would do third—person POV, but it seems like most romance is first person now? What do you think I should do? And it seems like romance books are getting longer? Do I need to make my book longer? I don’t know! I’m lost!

I personally don't notice or care if something is in 1st vs 3rd, as long as it is a seamless reading experience. Like... I just don't keep track of that or remember, it really doesn't matter to me, I assume that the author has picked the one that they like best for THAT BOOK, and as long as it is done well, it would not bother me. (Ideally, I won't notice!)

That being said, I looked up a bunch of books just to check, and in so doing found an article about it from last month all about how yes, First Person is very popular in romance novels right now.

And yet... plenty of bestselling books are in third person. HEATED RIVALRY is in third person. Many (all? some? idk! But definitely many!) of Christina Lauren's books. Tessa Bailey. Jasmine Guillory. I could keep going! Many/most historicals are in third person. Lots of very "voice-driven" could-almost-be-YA books are in first person. There are benefits to both styles, neither is right or wrong, but to ME, first person tends to skew a little "younger" and funnier. Third person a little more sophisticated.

ANYWAY, THE POINT IS: Romance novels aren't a monolith! You don't say what kind of romance novel you want to write. Rom com? Romantic suspense? Romantasy? Historical? Something else? Perhaps the thing to do is to narrow it down.

And when you have, look at a bunch of other books in that specific style/ genre that are for the same audience as your book will be, published in the last year (ie, 2025/2026).

Are THEY mostly in 1st person? Or is it a mixed bag? IF your particular specific genre of romance novel is really incredibly dominated by 1st person only, that's probably indicative of a strong preference on the part of publishers and readers and that should inform your decision. If it's a mixed bag, some first, some third, then do what feels right for YOUR book and YOUR story.

(I also haven't noticed a marked increase in book length, but then again, I don't keep track of word count and don't care. So while you are scoping out all those books, look at about how long they are. Aim for about that long! You can look at some post in the FAQ if you want tips on finding word count for novels that aren't children's books, basically you can usually look up the word count on Kobo.)

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