What Does a Literary Agent Do?
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If you are a writer and your dream is to be traditionally published by a major publishing house, you likely know that a major milestone in that journey is finding a literary agent. But what does a literary agent do, really? In this article, I'm going to uncover the five key responsibilities of a literary agent and explain how they help authors get their books published.
This information is based on my experience working at a top-tier literary agency based in New York City. They were behind many New York Times best sellers, and it was exciting to see how the agents did their job. I want to share that insight with you so that you can approach literary agents with a more nuanced view of their role in the publishing journey.
Before I dive in, I want to say that this is definitely not an exhaustive list of everything that book agents do for their job. There are a ton of different responsibilities a literary agent has and I cannot cover them all in a short article. These are just the main areas of interest, especially for writers and author-hopefuls.
1. Reviewing Query Letters
The first big responsibility of a literary agent is to review the query letters that writers submit to them. If you're in the querying process now, you understand from the author’s side what it looks like to submit a query letter.
From the agent’s side, they are going to go through their submissions inbox and review those queries, often with help from their assistant. Literary agents are always looking for new writers to represent and they're always excited to see what kinds of projects emerging writers are currently working on. If a project aligns with what they’re looking for, they will sign the writer on for representation.
At the agency that I worked at, the submissions inbox was always full with new queries every day, so this is an ongoing responsibility every literary agent has.
Part of reviewing the query letters from writers also involves requesting full manuscripts for the projects they are potentially interested in representing and then reading them. So a literary agent's job involves lots and lots of reading. So, one of the answers to “what does a literary agent do?” is they manage queries and manuscript requests.
2. Revising Manuscripts
The second area of a literary agent's job is helping clients revise their manuscripts. This is something you might not know if you haven't worked with a literary agent before, but a literary agent is also often going to act as a developmental editor for you. They put a lot of time and dedication into helping their clients strengthen their manuscripts before submitting them to editors at publishing houses.
So, even if you’ve already revised your manuscript a hundred times with beta readers and/or professional editors, your agent will likely have more editorial feedback for your manuscript. They will work with you to incorporate that feedback and get the manuscript in the best shape possible so that you're both set up for success when the agent reaches out to editors. It is very common for you to go through multiple rounds of revision and drafts with your agent one-on-one before editors at publishing houses even see it.
This can be valuable for a couple of reasons. First, it is going to ensure your story is in tip-top shape for the editors at publishing houses. Second, it does help you and your agent solidify your working relationship, as you are going to have a lot of back and forth during this process. This collaboration is what will establish a partnership with your agent that is going to last your entire publishing journey. Finally, a more engaging and tightly written book will likely sell better, so this revision process will only make your manuscript stronger.
3. Submitting to Editors
The third responsibility of literary agents is to submit their clients’ projects to publishing house editors for consideration. They write a pitch letter, very similar to your query letter, with an overview of what the book is about as well as a brief bio about you as the author. Then, they select a group of editors from different publishing houses (typically around ten or so) that they think would be a good match for your book. Your agent will usually already have a relationship with these editors, so they will know what the editors like and what types of books they are looking to acquire for publication.
You will be kept in the loop during this process, with your agent sitting down with you to explain who they’re sending your book to and why. So, while the agent will largely have communication with the editors, you will know exactly what’s going on.
If an editor at a publishing house is interested in publishing your book, they will propose a book deal offer. Then the agent is going to step in and negotiate the terms of that contract.
4. Selling Your Book Rights
When explaining what does a literary agent do, another big component of the job is selling their clients’ book rights and negotiating contracts on their behalf. The ultimate goal of an agent is to sell the rights to their clients’ book projects. When most people think of rights, what most often comes to mind is the US English rights, as those are the editions of the books that we read, and those are the editions of the books that the publishing houses based in the US focus on primarily.
However, there are a whole host of subsidiary rights as well as foreign rights that the agent can also sell to make you extra money and get your book out in more formats and places. Agents can sell foreign editions, where your book is translated into another language and distributed in another country, along with audio editions and large print editions.
Film rights are also a big process, as many movies are based on books. The agent has a lot of power to sell those film rights. Many times the film rights will get sold either before or at the same time that the US English book rights are being sold.
The exciting part about these different types of rights is that you can end up making quite a lot of money off them. For instance, say that you publish in 20 different countries and also sell the film rights to your book. That can lead to a great bit of profit for both you and the agent.
When a publishing house makes you a book deal offer, you and your agent will discuss if you will only sell them the US English rights or if you are open to selling more, especially if the publisher is also asking for audiobook rights and large print rights.
These details will be hashed out between the agent and the publisher, and your agent will be fighting to get you the best deal possible. As your advocate, they are going to try to retain the rights they think they can sell to another publisher for a higher amount and they're going to sell the rights to the current publisher if they make a good offer
Remember that your agent is going to be paid on commission, so you do not pay them anything upfront. However, when they sell any of the rights to your book, they are going to get a 15% commission on the sum the publisher pays for those rights. That is how they make their money, and there's not going to be any other type of payment other than that 15% commission the agent asks for.
5. Managing Client Payments
The last responsibility of a literary agent is managing their clients’ payments. When the publisher pays you, they send the funds to your agent’s literary agency. Then, your agent takes their 15% and then sends your checks. The payment will either be for an advance, which is an an advance payment against future royalties that you retain no matter how many copies your book sells, or for royalties, which is a percentage on the book sales that you earn based on what you have negotiated with the publisher.
I hope this general overview gave you better insight into what a literary agent does and what their job responsibilities entail. I hope it also gives you a little bit of clarity on how they're going to work with you and collaborate with you so that you can have a strong partnership throughout your journey to getting your book out there on the shelves.
Thanks for reading and happy writing!