pbray | 5 Writers Walk Into A Bar

5 Writers Walk Into A Bar

Keeping the stereotypes alive, when writers get together, it's often in a bar, and this weekend was no exception. As we talked about the state of the industry and our careers, some of those present lamented the difficulty in finding the right agent--someone who is not only a skilled negotiator, industry-savvy and enthusiastic about your work, but also someone whose personality and business style meshes with your own.

Being happily represented by superagent

arcaedia, I could not join in the laments but instead offered my beer-inspired realization that what the world really needs is a MATCH dot COM for writers and agents. It's so perfect, I can't believe no one has thought of this before.

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I think your beer forgot how to implement a system that calculates manuscript quality on this matchmaking site....

Well, we were assuming that the pool of entrants is made up of published authors who have never had an agent, or find themselves in need of a new agent.

So it's less about the query letter and sample writing pages, and more about "Is this client likely to become a super-stalker like my psycho ex?" or "When the agent says we'll live happily ever after, do they have the same vision of HEA as I do?"

Obviously if there'd been more beer, we would have elaborated on this idea.

Edited 2009-01-27 20:08 (UTC)

Interesting concept. As I continue my search for an agent, I've often thought that there should be a service a person could enlist to help find one. Whether it would be a dot COM or an actual person, I don't know, and I certainly haven't looked at all the details. For the most part it's a nebulos idea floating around in the vacuum between brain cells.
Dave
PS I find that enough beer either solves the problem or make it go away!

Beer is always an answer to any writing dilemma. It may not be a good answer... :-)

One of the trickiest part of the author/agent relationship is the realization that simply because AgentX is a good agent for some authors does not mean that AgentX is the right fit for you. Which is where a dating service to iron out compatibility issues isn't quite as crazy as it seems.

Because in the end, the wrong agent can be worse than no agent at all.

Stalk them at cons, follow them into bathrooms, even if they are the opposite gender, make sure you carry at _least_ ten copies of everything you've written and can rattle off rejection letters verbatim at the drop of a hat.

Works like a charm.

Hee!

Seriously, though, it's been known to happen. And at least one romance editor reportedly received a manuscript shoved under the bathroom stall door at a conference. As she commented "I put the manuscript to the use it deserved."

In the manuscript being used as it deserved, I hope it in itself did not cause any problems. I don't believe typical printer paper desolves as readily as that which is normally put to such use.

Dave

Uh, thanks? Yes, I've heard that some writers actually do those sort of things. But I thought we wanted to attract agents, not send them running for the hills.
For the past three years I've attended the PNWA conference in Seattle, and at least once each year I've found myself walking back to the hotel area with the same agent. While this would seem the perfect opportunity to pitch my material, other than the fact that I write fiction and this particular agent only represents non-fiction.

See that's the thing, you want to catch a _healthy_ agent. If you get one of the ones that considers sweating a fate worse than death, you'll probably have to find _another one_ in three to five years.

I absolutely agree. I *know* the novels on my hard drive are publishable. I mean, a rejection from the top of a Big House that says "easily publishable," just, er, not by them. Yet agent after agent has said, "I'm not the right agent to represent this."

It's so frustrating...

The alternative, as I see it, is to take vespican's userpic and all be Pirate Writers, storming all those "agented MS only" houses and forcing them to read our great prose.

Neat idea! I do suggest we wait until I've written Edward Pierce into command of a larger and more powerful ship. A handful of twelve pounders may not have as much influence on reluctant publishers as would an extensive array of twenty-four and thirty-two pounders.
Dave

Er...

I suppose it's _possible_ to do, but i suspect it would work as well as mot of the dating sites.

Hey, you never know. Of course, I can just see advertising that you'll match writers to agents based on "27 areas of compatibility," or whatever the heck eHarmony claims.
I'm still for going pirate. I think storming the agents' offices en mass (say ten or twenty writers at a time) holding them down and saying, "Read these proposals and pick one of us!" would work better than a matching site....

(Wanders into the distance, humming "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man' Chest.")

Given the pervasive qualities of most slush piles, and agents temperaments you're probably better off going in with good hooch and music selections...

Offering to buy them a drink at the bar and engaging them in friendly conversation (as opposed to a strongarm pitch of your latest manuscript) is a very good tactic indeed.

Some agent's are known to like vodka, Svedka in particular, but Kettle One and Gray Goose are acceptable too.

Well any flaws in the site would have to be addressed by additional beer-fueled brainstorming sessions :-)

Alas, this was a pub-inspired daydream, but the hard kernel of truth is that the personality factor is a significant part of the author/agent relationship, and it's obviously the hardest thing to research ahead of time when you're looking for an agent (or for an agent to know about a potential client.)

To stretch the dating analogy further--I've known a number of authors who were initially thrilled when an agent agreed to represent them, but then as time passed the initial glow wore off and they realized that this wasn't the kind of relationship they wanted.

Keeping in mind, of course, that things that one author loves in her agent can be the exact same behaviors that causes another author to pull their hair out in frustration.

Piffle! If people were going to let logic interfere with real life 2/3 of the service industry, most Japanese inventors, and 80% of credit card companies wouldn't have enough work.

Sally forth!

Again, just as with relationships. The things that your friends consider the best characteristics of their S.O.s are the things that would absolutely drive you nuts. Which is why *you're* not dating that person. Client lists can only tell you so much about an agent. Myself, I wouldn't mind the kind of agent who tells me what needs to be fixed, but I also am not sure I would consider it essential.

My sister has two novels and two non-fiction books for young people actually *on the market, right now* and has run into the same kind of issues I have. I've had three agents respond personally and address specific reasons they didn't want to represent my work, which is fine. That would be part of what a matching service would do. My sister actually had an agent insist on being sent a copy of one her her extant books, and then form-rejected her. If you go on Amazon, you'll find her. The YA Fiction is *not* with a small press.

So, if you want to get programming on your matching service, I'll be willing to supply fuel ;-). (Bonus; since I'm allergic to alcohol, I won't even try to eat your brain when you're refueling.)

Hmmm... beer and someone who won't devour my brains. Sounds tempting!

I can get chocolate....

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