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

Hello! Just curious here. How common do you think it is for an author to sort of throw out something random to fulfill the option clause? Like submit something that they don't really think is great or don't feel would actually be a good fit because they want to fulfill the option clause, then getting out of it so the author and agent can submit widely?

this is what I would call "burning the option" - basically sending something bad so the publisher will turn it down and you are free from further obligations.

I think it happens, but I don't think it happens as much as people might IMAGINE that it happens.

First of all, because authors have egos; why would you want to put your name on something you KNOW isn't good or wouldn't be a good fit -- and what if, god forbid, they say YES and make an offer. Now do you have to write it? Or have to say "oh yikes, actually I don't want to write this I think it sucks and assumed you would turn it down"

Also: it's hard enough to get published, I think most authors, if they see an opportunity to potentially sell another book, would like to actually try and do so! If the first experience was terrible, the feeling is likely mutual and they won't make an offer anyway, so just why not just turn what you are actually working on in to fulfill the option, they say no, and you are done with it and can submit widely? OR, they say yes and make an offer and you can decide what to do at that point.

I mean - maybe the bird in hand is a good bird, actually. Or not! But it’s worth hearing the bird out at least. Remember, just because they make an offer doesn't mean you are REQUIRED to say yes to their offer. If you/your agent don't think it is fair and they won't negotiate in good faith, you can always turn it down and submit more widely.

Hi Jenn! I submitted an R&R eight months ago, got proof of receipt and haven't heard back. Should I nudge? What are the odds of the agent not having gotten around to my manuscript at all? Would they feel rushed to read it at this point and just reject?

I think you should nudge. (Gently!)

I feel like the odds are high that they haven't gotten around to it? Because if they HAD gotten around to it, they would have responded. It's also possible they dipped in, got called away, thought "I'll get back to this soon" and didn't get back to it. It's also possible they read it, thought "I'll take some time and formulate my thoughts" and haven't finished that formulation.

But whatever the case may be: Nudging them is perfectly appropriate.

They won't feel rushed if you aren't rushing them. Rushing them would be giving them some sort of deadline or demanding an immediate answer. "Hey there, just checking in on this" is not rushing them.

The nudge definitely might result in a decline! But if that's the case, they would have declined (or just forever ghosted you) anyway.

What do you love, like, dislike, and hate about being an agent?

Love: I love working with authors, I love giving authors good news, I love working with books and seeing the potential in something and watching it become real!

Like: I like that every day is different, and every project is different, and there is always something new to think about!

Dislike: I dislike all the paperwork and admin and spreadsheets. (I mean, whatever, it's all FINE, it's better than digging ditches, but admin is definitely not my fav by any stretch!)

Hate: I hate having to chase people for answers to things constantly, I hate waiting around for a thousand years for everything, I hate giving authors bad news or disappointing them. :-/

Hi Jenn! How do agents generally feel about their clients requesting they submit to editors who seem to match their manuscript when the agent doesn’t have an existing relationship with the editor or imprint?

Not to brag or anything, but I think most editors at normal publishers would recognize my name or at least the name of my agency. So if this is a good publisher / imprint, and it really seems like a great fit, just for whatever reason I haven't come across that person before, I'm fine with introducing myself to them!

First I'd ask my colleagues if any of them know the editor, in which case I'd say "so-and-so suggested I reach out to you" -- but if not, I'd just reach out to them cold. It's not a big deal. I'm not scared of editors lol. Quite the contrary, I'm delighted to meet new-to-me editors, because I WANT more good places to send my client's work!

That being said. IF for some reason your agent thinks there is a reason NOT to send to them, and your agent seems smart and has been in the business for awhile, I would suggest you listen to their counsel.

For example, if it is a perfectly good imprint/editor, but for some reason not appropriate for this book at this time -- we already submitted to somebody at that imprint or something like that -- subbing to them might be a bad move etiquette-wise. I don't know about you, but I WANT to sell books, and damaging my own reputation by ignoring best practices is not really something I'd love to do!

OR, if this publisher has a bad rep, they don't pay decently (or at all), they have an atrocious contract, they make ugly books, or for whatever reason it's not a place I would want to send my client's work, that is definitely advice worth heeding. I guess if you REALLY INSISTED, I might do it for you (and brace myself for the terrible experience to come)... or we might just be at a crossroads in our relationship.

Assuming none of that is true, though, it's probably fine. Again: WE WANT TO SELL BOOKS. So if you have a relationship with an editor, or you have a friend who works with so-and-so and has great things to say about them, or you have particular editors/publishers/imprints you admire or think might be a great fit: TELL YOUR AGENT!

It might not always be a match for any number of reasons, but it MIGHT be a great lead that we'd be very happy to follow up on, and our having a pre-existing relationship with them is not really a factor, IMO.

---

ETA: Just offer it either as a neutral statement/suggestion, or in the form of a question, NOT as a demand.

Good: "I really like XYZ editor, I met them at a retreat and they were super nice about my book, and we're still in touch on social media, if they might be a fit."

Good: "what do you think of sending this to XYZ, they edited GREAT BOOK, could this be something they might like?"

BAD: "send it to XYZ"!

Hi! Sorry for the silly question but do agents have to pay to attend agent-publisher conferences, including travel and accommodation? Are there other agent-related things you have to pay for?

Do you mean like attending ALA or Bologna or something like that?

Some agents might have expense accounts where the agency pays for some of that kind of stuff? Like possibly agents who are not on commission, but are paid a salary? OR, agents who are doing something specific FOR THE AGENCY at the conference; for example, let's say they are selling foreign rights on behalf of the whole agency, the agency would likely foot the bill for that agent to go to the Bologna Book Fair.

I certainly don't have an expense account nor does the agency pay for me to travel (LMAO!) I think most commish-only agents, like myself, who just work on our own clients and don't have a different role working "for the agency" the way a foreign rights agent or somebody would, well -- we aren't obligated to go to ALA or Bologna or anywhere else, so if we WANT to go, we would pay for it ourselves.

(This is different, of course, from a writing conference like SCBWI or some such -- in that case, if we are going it's because we have been invited to speak or do crits or teach classes or all of the above, and they pay US and pay for all expenses, because we are working for them!)

What else do agents pay for? It would probably be easier to say what we DON'T pay for.

At my agency at least, individual agents don't pay out of pocket for anything to do with the running of the main office. For example, the website, our costly databases, our costly BookScan subscription, paying the admin staff who process payments and royalties and whatnot, paying the bookkeepers or lawyers or postage for the agency sending things out, our stationery, our holiday cards, etc -- we don't have to pay for that stuff.

(It does come out of the money we bring in to the agency, obviously, but it doesn't come out of our cut of the commission!)

However anything that we personally are using in the running of our own business, we pay for. So, my computers, my various subscriptions like Zoom and Dropbox and blah blah blah, my phone, my internet, my assistant, my travel, postage for ME sending things out, MY holiday cards, my taking authors out to lunch, whatever? I pay for that stuff. (But also it's tax deductible).

hi jenn, do you set “closes” for other editors on submission upon editor interest? if that means the interested/offering editor needs to wait a few weeks, is that harmful to the process or a normal part of deal making?

Short answer: Sometimes (kinda), and yah it's normal.

Long answer:

A Closing Date is, basically, a deadline: the date by which all interested editors should have their offers in. Whether or not to set a close (nice use of parlance!) depends on the likelihood that there will be multiple offers / an auction scenario.

But I'm probably not even nudging other editors, let alone putting a deadline on them, based solely upon "editor interest." (I'm interested in eels, that doesn't mean I want to buy one!)

If/when they send an actual offer, or at least I have strong reason to believe that that there WILL be an offer -- like they have said, for example, "This FLEW through our editorial meeting, everyone on my team LOVES it, I'm excited to bring it to acquisitions!" -- or better yet, "I'm putting an offer together!!" -- OK, then I'll nudge others.

First order of business: Take stock of how many editors still have this, when they got it, what the general tenor of reactions has been, etc. If there are only a few editors left, people have had this for a long while, it was a small round, etc, I can probably just nudge, say "Heyyyyy I have an offer coming in, can you let me know ASAP if you are interested or what?"

If they haven't gotten to it and aren't inspired to get to it, or if they liked it but were waffling and clearly are not going to make an offer, they will just bow out.

But IF some come back and say "WAIT WAIT I AM ALSO INTERESTED" -- THEN I would set a closing date. This date should be far enough in the future that all the interested editors have time to share with their teams, bring it to acquisitions, whatever they need to do -- which, yes, is probably a couple/few weeks in the future, depending on the time of year and what else is going on.

This isn't weird, and the offering editor will either:

a) wait, and realize that their offer will be considered when the closing date happens alongside all the other offers, and it's only fair that we hear everyone out.

b) attempt to improve their offer such that we are willing to take the project off the table for them (a "pre-empt", where they are trying to circumvent the wait time and avoid an auction, but that offer would have to be very compelling for us to consider not hearing everyone out).

That's it. It's highly unlikely that they will get mad about it either way. Publishing, as you have no doubt noticed, moves with extreme slowness. What difference does waiting a week or two make to an editor? That's like five minutes to them!

Is it okay for an agented author to sign up for a critique from an editor at a conference?

Sure, I don't see why not.

With the following caveats:

-- DO tell your agent about this. It's not a big deal or anything, just don't make it weird by purposely NOT telling them or something like that! IF you have any concerns like "should I talk about such-and-such project" or "should I NOT talk about such-and-such project", or whatever the case may be, you can ask them about it. You can even ask them for advice - I have a client who loves to go to conferences, and will ask me which editor she should make a point of signing up to get a crit from if there are choices! But even if you don't need advice, DO tell them. "I'm going to a conference next month and have a crit with so-and-so -- anything special I should mention"? Or something like that.

-- By all means tell the editor that you are agented. Again, you don't need to make it a whole THING, just mention it. "Nice to meet you, my agent said you were great!" or some such. IF you forget or it just doesn't seem natural to mention, no biggie, but:

-- If the editor requests material, say, "I'll ask my agent to send it!" or "should I have my agent send it?" And then, either way, TELL YOUR AGENT. I can't stress this enough:

**Do not send things to an editor without your agent's knowledge!**

Hi Jenn! I found an author I really like. I want to ask them to blurb my upcoming book. BUT I also have another project that seems more like their project. That similar project of mine isn’t even on sub yet. Do you think it’s okay to ask the author to blurb the book that’s coming out, then maybe ask them to blurb again if my other project ever sells (probably a while from now)? Or should I NOT ask that author to blurb my upcoming book and see if my other project ever sells? Help!

IMO, you should only ask for a blurb from a stranger once. (Maybe if they are a good friend, you can ask for more than one book, but somebody you don't really know like that? No.)

I can't tell you whether to "use up your ask" on this book or the next book. I guess I feel like, if they are appropriate for this book (ie, their audience is similar to your audience, the books are TONALLY similar, etc), you might as well ask for this one. Bird in hand, etc.

After all, you don't know when, or if, your next book will come out, or how it might change in the meantime, or if it will even be remotely similar to the draft you currently have. You don't know whether, at that point, this will still be the style or genre this other writer writes in, or whether they will have decided to change careers, or retire to the Isle of Capri, or what. So, hey, why not ask now rather than wait.

(Now if you just personally like this author but actually they AREN'T the same genre / audience / tone, THEN sure, wait until you have a book that is more appropriate.)

Either way, they might say no. Don't take it personally!

Okay, maybe a stupid question but if an imprint shuts down, where does the money earned on their books go? I mean, the author and agent will get a cut, but what about the publisher's cut? If there's no imprint, does it just go to the main house (like PRH or whatever?

It's not a stupid question! (How could you know if you hadn't seen it happen?)

So, first off, if anyone doesn't know what an "Imprint" is vs a "publisher" vs a "group", here's an explainer.

To be clear, using PRH as an example: While your contract may specify an imprint, your contract is WITH PRH. And PRH royalties (regardless of imprint) come from PRH, not from whatever individual imprint. At the end of the day, PRH is the one getting the publisher earnings.

(How they allot those earnings, whether particularly successful imprints get a budget commensurate with their books earnings, or what have you? No idea on that one!)

So OK, that answers your question: The money earned on the books goes to the publisher, who in turn gives the agent/author their cut.

But what happens to the books? Well, sticking with our example of PRH: When Dial closed recently, the books just got assigned to a different imprint within Penguin Young Readers Group. Many/most (possibly all???) of those Dial books will be Putnam books going forward.

Backlist books that are still selling will keep selling exactly as they have been, and the only thing that will change from the author's perspective is that the book, when reprinted, will have the Putnam colophon (logo) on the spine rather than Dial.

Books that were still in progress at the time of the closure will either have the same editor, just at a different imprint, OR, if their editor was laid off, they will be assigned a new editor. (It's also possible that a small number of books would be cancelled -- I haven't HEARD of that happening in this particular case, but it's definitely POSSIBLE, if there's nobody to take over!)

-- OF COURSE, there are other possible scenarios of imprints (or even whole publishers) closing, consolidating, or being bought. It happens with some regularity.

The publisher, imprint or list could be bought by another company entirely. In that case, the seller would "assign rights" to the buyer. (All publishing contracts should have an "Assignment" clause for this very reason - what happens when a publisher wants to sell their list, goes bankrupt, or gets bought out, or whatever? It's in the assignment clause!)

Examples of this: Disney sold a bunch of their Hyperion list to Hachette/Little Brown. Those books are now published by LittleBrown, and royalties, etc, go through LB.

Algonquin Young Readers was bought by Hachette and then subsequently got absorbed by LittleBrown and shuttered - those books that are still in print are now LB books. (No, it's not always LittleBrown lol. Those are just the two examples that popped into my head!)

-- if it is a small publisher where like, THE WHOLE PUBLISHER is going out of business, just closing, NOT getting bought by another company, I guess the books would be put out of print and the rights reverted to the author (in which case, no money goes anywhere because they can't sell the book anymore). I haven't seen that particular scenario, though, if the books are still making money, usually a different company buys out those contracts or something!

I'm currently working on a novel and want to post weekly chapters to my blog for accountability and to share with the writing community. Will this ruin my chances of getting an agent and/or book deal if I were to query? I come from the lit magazine world where posts on personal blogs make something "previously published."

I don't know about "ruin" your chances, but I personally wouldn't advise you to do that.

It's not so much that it counts as "previously published"; IMO, it doesn't, though you should certainly check the terms and conditions of whatever site you are using to be sure that you aren't inadvertently giving away some rights!

BUT, even if that WERE the case, a publisher would be unlikely to have a problem with it having been published before, as long as they think it is a safe bet that they will be able to make money off it.

(Like, for example: had you self-published the book and it was wildly successful in e-book form, there's absolutely nothing stopping a publisher from picking up the paperback rights or audio rights, or even buying out the whole thing and republishing it in ALL formats. That happens with some regularity, and obviously the fact that it was published before is not a problem in those instances, so...)

Rather, IMO, I wouldn't advise you to do that for several DIFFERENT reasons.

a) Your work -- even if it is GREAT WORK -- is not done at this point. Manuscripts that are going to be published go through many rounds of revision -- the author revises, they revise again with the agent, they revise again with the publisher, there are copyedits, etc. Do you REALLY want to share unfinished work with the whole wide world? I wouldn't.

b) Agents and editors like to be ENTICED. They like to feel as though you have CHOSEN to share something special with them, that it is FRESH and AWESOME. If they go to your website and realize you've been sharing this book for a year and only have a hundred "likes" or whatever, they are going to think "yikes." Basically: Having all your work just OUT THERE as a free-for-all, it doesn't lend itself to enticement, and can make your work feel like it's already old.

c) And speaking of free-for-alls -- you want the audience to BUY your book when it comes out. You know the saying "why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free"? Well. IF they read it already - why in hell are they gonna pay for it later?

d) And btw - this is not a great way to build an audience, actually. No offense to you, but people who don't know who you are probably don't care to read your chapters as they come out. You want to share things with the "writing community"? Try book recommendations. Or funny pet videos. Or wild stories. Or hey, gossip, they love that. TEASE your book, sure, share small snippets, talk about the process, etc etc -- but don't give it all away! Leave a little mystery! Leave them wanting to BUY IT!

e) if you want "accountability" -- have a private critique group where you all share your work. There's literally zero need to do this in public.

But hey, it's your life, do what you want I guess!

Out of curiosity, is there a reason why the industry standard is still Word? Or is it just an archaic leftover type of situation? For the other anon - pretty much all word processors have a way of exporting to docx these days, which is super convenient. I'm stubborn and I use Obsidian, then paste into Scrivener for compiling, THEN export to docx. Scrivener even has a way to export tracked changes as a docx so they show up in Word as well!

I have no idea.

Hi Jenn! Would you ever put a regular prose novel and a graphic novel on sub at the same time gor the same client in the same age category? Is that a no-no?

As with pretty much every question any of you ever ask, um... it depends? Case-by-case basis?

Would I EVER? Sure. It's not ILLEGAL or anything.

Would that be my PREFERENCE? Not really, but, whatever, sometimes this kind of thing happens.

Ideally, in such a situation, they wouldn't be going out at LITERALLY the exact same time, but rather, one is on submission, we know where it is and who is considering it, etc, and then at some point, weeks or months later, the other one is ready, and we can create a submission list that is very different from the first submission list, so they aren't being considered by the same editors/publishers.

It's probably not that big a deal in the scenario you outlined here, with a GN and a regular novel, because there are GN only imprints, etc, so there are places we can send the one that we COULDN'T have sent the other (and vice-versa). Whereas, if they were both regular novels (or both GN) that could potentially be more problematic and limiting.

(BUT ALSO: This could vary BY AUTHOR. If, say, you have an option clause or existing relationships that have to be honored, that might mean that there has to be a certain strategy in how things are submitted. Or if, I don't know, you are building a brand at Publisher A, we might want to stagger a different kind of book into a totally different season, which might mean we approach the submission differently. WHO KNOWS? This is a great conversation to have with your agent when you are actually in this situation!)

Hi! Do you have advice for us on newer agents? People recommend checking that the newer agent has good mentorship (which is hard to verify) from an agency that sells to big 5 or big independent publishers, but are there any additional green flags or red flags to look out for? It’s really hard to see anything about new agents, including if they plan to stay in the industry.

If you are looking at a newer agent who doesn't have a history of sales (yet!), the important thing is to vet their AGENCY. Does the AGENCY have a history of sales? Does the AGENCY have a great reputation? Have they been in the business for a long time, do they have high-profile clients, bestsellers, books you recognize and can find in any bookstore, etc? Those are all green flags.

So if you query one of the newer agents at a great, green-flag agency, you can get a better sense of the agent if they are actually interested and want to offer you rep. In that convo, you can ask about the "mentorship" of it all, how they are supported within their team, etc. Perhaps they work closely with more senior agents. Perhaps they have a close-knit team that they can go to with any questions they may have. ETC.

This is info they will probably give you before you even have to ask, because they KNOW it's important! But if it falls on you to ask, you can just say "I know you are newer at the agency, how does it work when you have questions or need support?"

I guess if they SAY "actually the senior agents ignore me and I'm on my own" you can back away -- but hopefully if it really is a good agency, they WON'T say anything like that!

On the OTHER hand, if it seems to be a new AGENCY, and the head of the agency doesn't have a long history in agenting/publishing, and they don't seem to have high profile clients or books you recognize... those are red flags. I would avoid that agency altogether.

(I don't really know how you could tell if an agent "plans to stay in the industry." I kinda don't think anyone is becoming an agent with the PLAN to not stay an agent! But if they have been an agent for multiple years and don't have sales to show for it, welp, that is not a great sign.)

I know a lot of people have already switched to alternatives like LibreOffice for the zillions of different scummy things Microsoft has been getting up to lately, but are Word documents still industry standard in publishing? Is there any alternative to Word that doesn't have compatibility issues that fuck up formatting?

Word is definitely 100% industry standard in publishing.

I'm afraid I really don't know anything about alternatives, it all always comes back to Word as far as I know. Some authors do use Pages or Google Docs or something else to write, but if it is sent to me in some other format, I or they always have to export them into Word .doc/.docx at the end of the day, and there will be track changes in .doc/.docx from the publisher that they will have to be able to read, etc.

(And I don't know anything about compatibility issues, I haven't really noticed anything MAJOR when exporting from pages to doc or whatever, but I also haven't LOOKED for that and it isn't something that happens often because most everyone uses Word!)

But perhaps some of you big brains will know more about it and can put better info the comments?

Is YA still "alive" anywhere? I'm just concerned about the sheer number of YA agents who now only take adult, not to mention the number of YA imprints closing post-COVID. The problem is- my storytelling voice is very "teen" and there's no way my stories would work as adult. I guess I'm just wondering... is there a category of YA that's more likely to bounce back in the next couple of years. Sorry- I know you're not a crystal ball, but wanted to ask in case you have some knowledge.

I personally don’t think that having a “teen” storytelling voice is a PROBLEM if you want to write YA.

While it is true that the YA market is not exactly THRIVING at the moment… also, SO WHAT? That doesn’t mean you can’t sell a YA book. It just means that YA publishers are very very picky.

BUT NEWSFLASH: *ALL* PUBLISHERS ARE VERY VERY PICKY!

There are YA publishers who still have to buy and publish books. New YA books are published every week. They have to come from somewhere, do they not?

FWIW, I am at ALA this weekend and have spoken to a lot of editors. The ones that like YA are looking for YA. NONE of them said anything about NOT looking for YA. In fact, the general feeling seemed (from my convos at least) to be that since many “upper YA” books are now being classified as Adult books, that makes more room for True YA, actually FOR TEENAGERS.

I had specific requests for:

— contemporary realistic rom-coms, super fun and smart

— “Lynn Painter” style YA

— a “great new cool voice in YA” something “refreshing”, could be fantasy or contemporary

— cool horror

— commercial, dystopian or speculative romance

— fun YA books with ZERO romance

— literary *and* commercial “young YA”

Does that help? Idk!

Hi Jenn! I’m agented as an author only. I’m not an artist. I have this manuscript that I just realized could work as a graphic novel. But I have no idea how to turn this words-only manuscript into a possible graphic novel work. Where do I begin? Help!

I've sold lots of graphic novel manuscripts. Much like a picture book manuscript, if you sell ms-only, the publisher will hire an illustrator.

You just have to learn to write a graphic novel script. Every writer I rep who has written them learned how at some point, none of them was born with that knowledge! The info is out there!

The first steps are probably to read and dissect a lot of GN so you get a sense of how the pacing works over panels, how much text is needed per page, etc, and also do some research about what a graphic novel ms looks like. (Hint: it is formatted kinda like a screenplay, you, the author, put "stage directions" and pagination and whatnot). There may even be classes for it, or SCBWI talks, etc, idk!

It's a distinct format that is different from a novel, but it's very much learnable. Good luck!

ETA: also, btw, this feels like a great question to ASK YOUR AGENT about. Perhaps they have repped GN before and have access to some mss that might be helpful!

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