Besides the immeasurable joy and inevitable moments of self-destruction that the life of a writer entails, at its heart lies one glorious desire: to be read. Of course, it continues to be a struggle. Perhaps that’s putting it mildly – choosing to pursue a career as a writer of literary fiction or nonfiction is like having a death wish. Chances are you may have to quit your day job in favour of longer hours at your writing desk, which, unless you’re a trust fund baby, implies that you must either marry rich or, if you’re keen on independence, settle for a life of relative poverty.
Still, when you’ve spent as long as five or six years working on your breakthrough book, how do you ensure it finds its way into readers’ hands? Let’s face it, India’s English-language publishing industry is a small, fairly incestuous Delhi-based network. What do you do if you live elsewhere and don’t exactly have editor friends on speed dial or as drinking companions? Simple: only a literary agent can really get you on an editor’s radar screen.
What do these agents do anyway?
It’s possible for writers to perceive agents as heaven-sent messengers. Their job is to intercede on the writer’s behalf and liaise with editorial heads in order to get you the best deal. They inherit your best interests as a consequence of their contractual obligation to you.
Writers are not indebted to them for their fees. The cost for their services, usually 15% of your advance, is in fact borne by the publisher who does finally buy the rights to publish your book in the prescribed territory. It’s usually a win-win situation. Agents can play a key role as intermediaries between the writer and the publisher, and by extension, the reader.
How do you find these angels?
For the longest time Indian writers have had to depend on foreign agents to represent their books simply because there were near none within the region. This has changed over the last five years with agencies like Jacaranda, Siyahi, Sherna Khambhatta, Writer’s Side, Red Ink, Purple Folio, and the Indian wing of the famous Aitken Alexander Associates.
But finding the right agent isn’t as simple as scribbling names on pieces of paper and drawing one out of a hat. Fortunately, nor is it as complicated as finding a soul mate, or as elusive. It does, however, require research.
The best way to begin is to sample a selection of books published over the last two or three years and identify the ones you enjoy most, or those that best embody the spirit of your manuscript. Then backtrack, spend some time online and find out if any of the authors have had agents representing them. Once you’ve uncovered a list, go to the agencies’ websites and look at some of the other authors they represent.
A shorthand process is to hang out at literature festivals, hunt down visiting agents and make small talk. This, however, requires a certain amount of diplomacy, persistence, and a flair for networking, skills many excellent writers are not necessarily known to possess.
The query letter? What on earth is that?
Many writers’ groups I’ve been a part of have had long sessions about the dreaded query letter, one of those pieces of communication for which no institution prepares you well enough. Ideally a three-paragraph affair, a query letter must articulate with precision and fervour your reasons for contacting the agent, include a brief synopsis of your book, with perhaps a line or two about the genre in which it locates itself, and, finally, provide a short biography meant to introduce your writing to an absolute stranger.
You’re not expected to actually send your entire manuscript. I’ll repeat that. You’re not expected to actually send your entire manuscript. The purpose of the query letter is to inform the agent about the existence of your work-in-progress or completed manuscript in the hope that if it piques their interest, they may write back requesting a sample.
I’ve only ever had dealings with two agents; a woman I heard wonderful things about, who seemed to enjoy my sample chapters and dished out excellent advice that went a long way in terms of shaping the trajectory of my book. However, six chapters in, she was still unsure about whether she wanted to take it on.
On the other hand, one morning, after dilly dallying for what seemed like eternity, and after actually sending sample chapters to a few publisher friends who found themselves unable to commit to what seemed like a half-baked idea of a book, I found the nerve to write a random though friendly letter to an agent who seemed like a legend here in India.
In other words, I broke all the aforementioned rules. My letter was a formal mess. I even went ahead and sent in three sample chapters and left it at that. To my surprise, the agent actually responded saying he’d like to know more about me. In less than a week I received a call from London asking if I could do him the honour of letting him represent my book.
How can an agent change your life?
For a debutante writer, an agent agreeing to stand behind you is like nothing short of a vote of confidence, particularly if it is an agent who has a very impressive roster of writers and a couple of decades of experience dealing with the local and international market. The best advice I received from my agent was that we wait until I had finished my manuscript before shopping it around.
When he asked me if I’d like to use him as an editor, I replied requesting he be my timekeeper instead. He was my primary reader, providing the motivation I needed to finish each chapter. Simply knowing that there was someone out there waiting for me to be done induced in me the kind of rigour, discipline, and self-confidence I previously lacked.
I soon realised that this book I had been working on for more than four years (this was two years ago) was no longer just an idea. It was real and it was slowly taking shape, becoming flesh.
Once a book is complete, or if you’ve signed on with an agent with an already finished manuscript, the next logical step is to strategise. Having an agent means you have someone to show you the ropes, someone to guide you with process, content, and narrative, and finally, someone to shop your book around.
Debut writers without agents tend to make the mistake of selling off their world rights to the first publisher that comes along. This can take away from potential earnings as few publishers have enough incentive to push your book among the thousands of other books on their list.
An agent can facilitate a stronger deal based on print runs and the marketing potential of your book, not just in a single region but in multiple territories, even enabling translations. This means your scope for earning royalties increases. Your agent can help smoothen out the contract with your publisher and help you make wise decisions about the genre in which your book ought to be placed.
The bottomline
Finally, you’ll find that your agent invests not only in a single book but in your future career as an emerging writer. In signing you on, they declare their faith in your literary merit and its possibilities. They guide you as you embark on your next book. They protect you from the harsh truths that accompany the process of bidding by keeping rejections at bay and sharing with you only the essentials; like who is actually interested in the book as against who abhorred it.
Given that, fundamentally, writers are and will always be fragile creatures who will never successfully evolve immunity towards criticism, not to mention the omnipresent yet vital monster that is self-doubt, having someone who believes in you, often even more than you believe in yourself, is an invaluable asset.
Rosalyn D’Mello’s non-fiction erotic memoir, A Handbook For My Lover, will shortly be published in India. She is represented by the London-based agent David Godwin.
Still, when you’ve spent as long as five or six years working on your breakthrough book, how do you ensure it finds its way into readers’ hands? Let’s face it, India’s English-language publishing industry is a small, fairly incestuous Delhi-based network. What do you do if you live elsewhere and don’t exactly have editor friends on speed dial or as drinking companions? Simple: only a literary agent can really get you on an editor’s radar screen.
What do these agents do anyway?
It’s possible for writers to perceive agents as heaven-sent messengers. Their job is to intercede on the writer’s behalf and liaise with editorial heads in order to get you the best deal. They inherit your best interests as a consequence of their contractual obligation to you.
Writers are not indebted to them for their fees. The cost for their services, usually 15% of your advance, is in fact borne by the publisher who does finally buy the rights to publish your book in the prescribed territory. It’s usually a win-win situation. Agents can play a key role as intermediaries between the writer and the publisher, and by extension, the reader.
How do you find these angels?
For the longest time Indian writers have had to depend on foreign agents to represent their books simply because there were near none within the region. This has changed over the last five years with agencies like Jacaranda, Siyahi, Sherna Khambhatta, Writer’s Side, Red Ink, Purple Folio, and the Indian wing of the famous Aitken Alexander Associates.
But finding the right agent isn’t as simple as scribbling names on pieces of paper and drawing one out of a hat. Fortunately, nor is it as complicated as finding a soul mate, or as elusive. It does, however, require research.
The best way to begin is to sample a selection of books published over the last two or three years and identify the ones you enjoy most, or those that best embody the spirit of your manuscript. Then backtrack, spend some time online and find out if any of the authors have had agents representing them. Once you’ve uncovered a list, go to the agencies’ websites and look at some of the other authors they represent.
A shorthand process is to hang out at literature festivals, hunt down visiting agents and make small talk. This, however, requires a certain amount of diplomacy, persistence, and a flair for networking, skills many excellent writers are not necessarily known to possess.
The query letter? What on earth is that?
Many writers’ groups I’ve been a part of have had long sessions about the dreaded query letter, one of those pieces of communication for which no institution prepares you well enough. Ideally a three-paragraph affair, a query letter must articulate with precision and fervour your reasons for contacting the agent, include a brief synopsis of your book, with perhaps a line or two about the genre in which it locates itself, and, finally, provide a short biography meant to introduce your writing to an absolute stranger.
You’re not expected to actually send your entire manuscript. I’ll repeat that. You’re not expected to actually send your entire manuscript. The purpose of the query letter is to inform the agent about the existence of your work-in-progress or completed manuscript in the hope that if it piques their interest, they may write back requesting a sample.
I’ve only ever had dealings with two agents; a woman I heard wonderful things about, who seemed to enjoy my sample chapters and dished out excellent advice that went a long way in terms of shaping the trajectory of my book. However, six chapters in, she was still unsure about whether she wanted to take it on.
On the other hand, one morning, after dilly dallying for what seemed like eternity, and after actually sending sample chapters to a few publisher friends who found themselves unable to commit to what seemed like a half-baked idea of a book, I found the nerve to write a random though friendly letter to an agent who seemed like a legend here in India.
In other words, I broke all the aforementioned rules. My letter was a formal mess. I even went ahead and sent in three sample chapters and left it at that. To my surprise, the agent actually responded saying he’d like to know more about me. In less than a week I received a call from London asking if I could do him the honour of letting him represent my book.
How can an agent change your life?
For a debutante writer, an agent agreeing to stand behind you is like nothing short of a vote of confidence, particularly if it is an agent who has a very impressive roster of writers and a couple of decades of experience dealing with the local and international market. The best advice I received from my agent was that we wait until I had finished my manuscript before shopping it around.
When he asked me if I’d like to use him as an editor, I replied requesting he be my timekeeper instead. He was my primary reader, providing the motivation I needed to finish each chapter. Simply knowing that there was someone out there waiting for me to be done induced in me the kind of rigour, discipline, and self-confidence I previously lacked.
I soon realised that this book I had been working on for more than four years (this was two years ago) was no longer just an idea. It was real and it was slowly taking shape, becoming flesh.
Once a book is complete, or if you’ve signed on with an agent with an already finished manuscript, the next logical step is to strategise. Having an agent means you have someone to show you the ropes, someone to guide you with process, content, and narrative, and finally, someone to shop your book around.
Debut writers without agents tend to make the mistake of selling off their world rights to the first publisher that comes along. This can take away from potential earnings as few publishers have enough incentive to push your book among the thousands of other books on their list.
An agent can facilitate a stronger deal based on print runs and the marketing potential of your book, not just in a single region but in multiple territories, even enabling translations. This means your scope for earning royalties increases. Your agent can help smoothen out the contract with your publisher and help you make wise decisions about the genre in which your book ought to be placed.
The bottomline
Finally, you’ll find that your agent invests not only in a single book but in your future career as an emerging writer. In signing you on, they declare their faith in your literary merit and its possibilities. They guide you as you embark on your next book. They protect you from the harsh truths that accompany the process of bidding by keeping rejections at bay and sharing with you only the essentials; like who is actually interested in the book as against who abhorred it.
Given that, fundamentally, writers are and will always be fragile creatures who will never successfully evolve immunity towards criticism, not to mention the omnipresent yet vital monster that is self-doubt, having someone who believes in you, often even more than you believe in yourself, is an invaluable asset.
Rosalyn D’Mello’s non-fiction erotic memoir, A Handbook For My Lover, will shortly be published in India. She is represented by the London-based agent David Godwin.
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