When you begin researching how to get a book published, you’ll likely discover that some authors hire literary agents. You may even have heard authors talking about how wonderful their agent is or seen agents in movies haggling with publishers over royalties.
But what does a literary agent really do, and how do you know if you should hire one?
Below, we dig into what literary agents do, how they get paid, and how to decide whether your book needs an agent to help it reach its full potential.
- What Is a Literary Agent?
- History of Literary Agents
- What Does a Literary Agent Do?
- How Literary Agents Get Paid
- Benefits of Hiring a Literary Agent
- Downsides of Hiring a Literary Agent
- Do You Need a Literary Agent?
- Get Help Preparing Your Book for a Query
What Is a Literary Agent?
A literary agent acts as a middle-man between authors and large publishing houses. They advocate for your book and sell it to the publisher.
They may also do some editing on your book to get it polished to publishers’ standards.
Most literary agents work placing books with the Big 5 publishers – HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette. These publishers are much too large and prestigious to allow for open submissions from anyone with a book idea.
Publicists help to weed the exceptional books out from the mediocre ones, streamlining the submission process.
History of Literary Agents
Literary agents first entered the publishing world around the end of the 1800s. Literacy rates were up, and the industrial revolution had grown the publishing industry to never-before-seen heights.
As is often the case today, authors were far more comfortable dealing with the art of writing than the business of publishing. A writer might have a fantastic book and have no idea how to get it out to the world effectively.
And so entered the literary agent. They had a passion for books and a good sense for business and could advocate for authors, helping them to find the best path to publication.
Although publishers initially viewed literary agents as a nuisance, they soon realized the value they provided. Today, literary agents are as crucial a part of the publishing world as editors and publicists.
What Does a Literary Agent Do?
Literary agents have several responsibilities in taking a manuscript from finished draft to published work.
Review Queries
It will come as no surprise that an important part of a literary agent’s responsibilities is reviewing the queries they receive.
Authors put together submissions for their books, trying to convince the agent that it would be a good fit for their portfolio. The agent then combs through these manuscripts looking for a few key qualities.
Of course, literary agents want to make sure a book fits within their specific area of expertise. Most agents work within a specific genre or few genres, and they have a network of editors and other publishing industry contacts who also work within those genres. An agent who represents exclusively fantasy books isn’t likely to take on a historical nonfiction book, and vice versa.
They also want to see if this is the sort of book likely to get accepted by the Big 5 publishers. Even if a manuscript is well-written, it may not be well-suited to a national audience. And, of course, some manuscripts are just well-written, plain and simple.
And on a more subjective level, an agent is going to look for projects they’re excited about and authors they want to work with. A literary agent relationship requires a high level of respect and trust on all sides, so agents want to look for authors they click with.
Tweak Finished Manuscripts
By the time you’re sending your manuscript to a literary agent, it should be complete, edited, and grammatically clean. That being said, the version you send to a literary agent for review is likely not the final version of your book.
Literary agents are very familiar with the styles, standards, and quality editors at the Big 5 look for. They revise finished manuscripts to more closely line up with these expectations and give the book the best possible shot at success.
They can also help streamline writing and improve clarity throughout the book. Think of your agent as your last-line editor and another pair of well-trained eyes helping to make your book into its best possible version.
Pitch to Publishers
Of course, literary agents also pitch books to editors at publishing houses – especially the Big 5.
These agents put a lot of effort into curating strong relationships with editors and learning what they look for in a book. They can tell you which publisher is going to be the best fit for your book and which editor is going to be most likely to take the project on.
Once your book is polished and ready to go, your agent will send it out to their editor contacts. They’ll act as something of a salesperson for your book, highlighting its strengths, underlining any platform you may already have established, and generally working to get you a publishing offer.
Throughout the submission and review process, your agent should keep you posted on who they’re sending the book to and why, as well as what progress has been made in negotiations.
Negotiate for their Clients
Even after an editor agrees to publish a manuscript, the literary agent is advocating for their clients. As with real estate deals, there’s a lot of negotiating that goes on between the initial agreement and the final signing.
During this process, your agent will advocate for your interests the same way a realtor does during a home purchase.
There are a lot of rights that get sold when a book deal is signed, and your agent will fight to make sure you retain the most profitable rights or get a fair offer for them. These rights can impact your profits from international sales, whether your book will be translated into other languages, and even whether it may eventually become a movie.
Getting a good deal with your rights can significantly increase the profit you see from your book.
Your agent knows which rights are going to net the most profit for you and what a fair offer from a publisher looks like. They’ll leverage all that expertise and their professional connections to get you the best possible offer for your manuscript.
How Literary Agents Get Paid
The good thing about literary agents is that you don’t have to worry about how you’ll pay them for their work before you’re earning money from book sales.
Agents work on commission, meaning they take a percentage of the sum the publisher agrees to pay for the rights to your book. Typically, this is a 15 percent commission that gets taken off the top before you get the rest of your payments.
Often, literary agents even handle the payments you get for your book sales. Your publisher will send your payment to the literary agency, where your agent will take their 15 percent off the top. Then they’ll forward on the remaining 85 percent of the payment to you.
Benefits of Hiring a Literary Agent
Hiring a literary agent can help your career as an author in a number of ways.
More Lucrative Book Deals
One of the biggest advantages of working with a literary agent is that you get the opportunity for much more lucrative book deals.
Sales from the Big 5 publishers tend to be much higher than from smaller regional publishers or self-publishing. And the only way you get your book submitted to these publishers is through a literary agent.
But even beyond the raw marketing power of the Big 5 publishers, working with a literary agent can help you get a larger payday. All that negotiating over rights that we discussed can turn into a much bigger payday once your book hits the market.
And if your book is expected to perform well, your agent can help you to secure a larger advance, which can be helpful for investing in a publicist and paying for things like book tours.
Focus on Your Writing
Today, literary agents still serve the same purpose they did 150 years ago – they allow writers to focus on the art of writing, rather than the business of publishing.
The publishing world is complex, and most authors can’t afford the time or money it takes to learn all the intricacies of the industry. Literary agents provide the business expertise authors need so they can focus their time and energy on crafting more stories.
Better Writing Career Development
If you hope to have a full-time writing career, a literary agent can be an invaluable asset. Because they get paid on commission, it’s in their best interest for you to be as successful as you can be.
Literary agents often provide advice to their writers even after their book is in print. They may give you feedback on a new book concept, advise you on branching out into other genres, or help you take advantage of writing-adjacent opportunities, such as podcasting or public speaking.
In an ideal author-agent relationship, your agent is your advocate and guide throughout your writing career.
Downsides of Hiring a Literary Agent
Of course, there can be some downsides to hiring a literary agent, too.
Risk of a Bad Fit
A relationship between an author and an agent is just that – a relationship. And like any other relationship, some people are just going to be incompatible.
If you have a good agent with whom you connect well, your literary career may go further than you ever imagined. But if your agent is a bad fit for you, you might find yourself spending more time arguing with them than promoting your book.
A bad agent fit can mean your vision for your book gets ignored, you don’t get the help you need to grow your career, and you spend a lot more time trying to figure out if your agent is actually working for your best interests.
In those cases, you may feel like you would have been better off just going it alone in the publishing world.
Cost
Of course, as with any professional, working with an agent is going to cost you money. And even though you don’t have to pay them up front, watching that 15 percent come off the top of your royalties can sting a bit.
When you self-publish, you get much higher royalties and you don’t have to pay any of them out to an agent. And when you work with regional presses, you may be able to submit to them directly, cutting out the cost of the middle man.
That being said, a good agent is more than worth the 15 percent they get paid, and the higher sales you’ll get from a contract with the Big 5 may more than make up for the money you’re paying out to your agent.
Longer Path to Publication
One of the hardest parts of working with an agent is the extra time it adds to the publication process.
Often, by the time authors reach the stage where they’re ready to publish, they’ve already been working on their book for years. Publishing with the Big 5 can easily take another two years. And if you have to spend time querying a literary agent, you may feel like you’ll die of old age and frustration before you ever see your book in print.
Although the query process can be long and frustrating, finding the right agent in the end can be more than worth it.
Do You Need a Literary Agent?
The biggest thing you need to consider when deciding if you need to hire a literary agent is your goals for your book.
If you want a contract with the Big 5, nationwide sales, and a book tour, you absolutely need a good agent in your corner. The larger publishers don’t work directly with authors, plain and simple, so if you hope to go that route, you need the help of an agent.
If you’re just hoping to see your book in print, or if you’d like a publishing process that sticks closer to your original vision for your book, a small press or self-publishing may be the best route for you. In this case, you won’t need to work with an agent.
Spend some time thinking about your goals for your book and where it will fit best before you put together a list of agents to query.
Get Help Preparing Your Book for a Query
In the right circumstances, a literary agent can be an invaluable asset on your path to publication. They advocate for you with the larger publishing houses and can help you build a solid literary career. That being said, not every book needs an agent’s help, so spend some time deciding where you’d like to place your book before you decide whether to hire an agent.
If you’d like help deciding if you should hire an agent and preparing your book for a query, Quickbeam Literary can help. We are passionate about helping you find the best path to publication, and we provide expert editing services, as well as publishing guidance. Contact us today and start making your dreams for your book a reality.
Quickbeam Literary Consulting 