[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with Literary Agents, Carly Waters, and CC Lyra.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you'd ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug, and pull up a chair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: Happy October.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is fall in publishing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That means that we are overworked, underslept, maybe overcaffinated, but definitely all sharing some bugs.
[SPEAKER_02]: CC, I think you got something on the way back from New York, didn't you?
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a cold for anyone watching on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess for anyone because you can also hear me, even if you can't see me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a cold which is very annoying.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am not a good sick person.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some people are good sick people.
[SPEAKER_03]: They know how to rest.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am not a good sick person.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am a bad sick person.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was well worth it, because I'm pretty sure I caught it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So last Thursday, Wendy Sherman Associates had a party for its 25th anniversary, and it was a room with myself and my agent colleague.
[SPEAKER_03]: So obviously Wendy, Sheri, Slora, Cali, the members of our team, like O'Neey, who's our intern, and Irene, who does our social media.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was us and the room, and like 100 editors.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was the best because it's everything you want in a party, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Just to be talking to people who buy books.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're like, hello.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm CC in case they didn't know we were already.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just talking about books all night long, and it was so much fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was magical and amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was so much fun that I barely took any pictures, which I know is that's like my metric of like, how much fun you had, what I'm not paying attention to, thinking pictures and stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sad now because I don't have
[SPEAKER_03]: pictures on my phone but we do have pictures that a photographer took so Laura's daughter is a great photographer and she was there to take pictures and it was awesome but it didn't mean that I was around a lot of people and my immune system was just like no.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, we're going to make you rest and yeah, that's my situation.
[SPEAKER_03]: How about you?
[SPEAKER_03]: How are you doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you sick too?
[SPEAKER_03]: Please tell me you're not sick too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sick.
[SPEAKER_02]: My kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're kind of the type of kids where they'll just like spike a fever for a day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they're fine the next day.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like their bodies way of being like, got to kill off some germs and then they're back to equilibrium.
[SPEAKER_02]: So not gone would.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've only had one kids home sick this fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just for like one or two days.
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're doing pretty good over here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're recording this during Frankfurt Book Fair Week and we are not at Frankfurt.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of nice because then I get to not feel overworked and overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_02]: At lunch today, I taught a class.
[SPEAKER_02]: I taught a class to the Muslim literary festival.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did a presentation on just how book deals work, book deals beginning to end.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I did it with an editor at Simon and she's her Canada, Brittany Levery, who was great and she's been around which either today, both of us have been in the business since 2009.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, we did a like a joint presentation today.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote down some notes because we obviously did the presentation together, but we always, you know, off the cuff when you're
[SPEAKER_02]: presenting, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You just kind of go on some tangent.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she said something.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very similar to what we always say, which I wanted to bring up, which is like, you know, we always say publishing is a business.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how many more times you can say it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just obviously something on our lexicon, but she said something really interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: She says publishing is a retail business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's a really interesting distinction, publishing is a retail business, because yes, we obviously talk about it as a business and it is a business, but she was even taking it further to, again, like, how the consumption of the product happens, which is like, it's a retail business, and obviously so much has done via e-commerce.
[SPEAKER_02]: But at the end of the day, we're obviously still trying to sell a lot of books in person, and it is all retail, whether it's like e-tailer or retailer.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I just thought I'd bring that up because I thought that was a really interesting distinction and provide me with some good food for thought this afternoon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's especially true because, although, I mean, maybe someone listening might be thinking to themselves, wait, hold on, publishers, they sell to bookstores and bookstores, like they're big accounts, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But I mean, eight currently, your points so much of it is direct to consumer, like on Amazon and stuff, but also like books were returnable.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, bookstores, if they don't sell to book, they'll return it to the publisher.
[SPEAKER_03]: so at the end of the day, yeah, that's a really great way to put it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to borrow that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to start saying that too because it's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're in retail.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are, we are in the retail business.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was a fun little adventure today.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been working through lots of emails, we're gonna call in projects and try to get out about probably two more books out on some of this fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have like two or three option projects to get out this fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have like a book I'm waiting to hear back about acquisitions.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have like a lot just like swimming around still a lot of fall publishing work to do, which is great, obviously, I'm just flying into the movie, Mandy Scrapes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still reading all that, typing everything for sub.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to LA in November for TV film meetings, so I organized, started to organize those.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, that's my my current week in publishing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with other things we have going on, we also have our excellent news letter that comes out every Tuesday.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to give you guys a heads up about what's coming out in tomorrow's newsletter.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: The in the newsletter you're going to get the books with hoax critiques.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have an essay with Hannah Beer, author of I Make My Own Fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like many of us, Hannah found love with writing it in early 80s, but felt that it was too precarious of a career choice, so she chose something else, and then she found herself no longer writing it at all, and her essay explores how she found her way back to the craft.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take your hand, let her guide you back, and as you read, if you are not having a good time, what are you doing it for?
[SPEAKER_02]: So check out that great essay.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have a hilarious video from Rachel Lithgau, author of The Memoir of My Year of Really Bad Dates.
[SPEAKER_02]: She focuses on the advice of the right way you know and what it means to her, which is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: She also discusses her campaign to bring back words that are no longer common in the modern vernacular.
[SPEAKER_02]: and why we need to fight back against AI, which she knows one of my passion projects.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gish Jen, author of Bad Bad Girl, joins us for our Q&A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unlike Rachel, she doesn't believe in writing what you know, which seems to have really paid off for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she shares writing it by she swears by.
[SPEAKER_02]: She also shares the one thing that she regrets about her journey thus far.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we think it's going to resonate with a lot of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It definitely did for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And reminder that this month marks our last beta reader matchup of the year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So don't miss out on the incredible opportunity to find your community.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know so many of you guys are still in touch with your beta reader matchup groups and continue to be friends, continue to kick, which is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have some fun topics today to talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are gonna talk about publishing ghosting problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna talk about what does it mean when sales are not good.
[SPEAKER_02]: At first, we're gonna hear from our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and we are back, all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are going to talk about a lot of different things today.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a good little list going.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had some good DMs kind of come into us of collecting a few here and there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had one that said, hi there, Carly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, love your advice in the podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to ask anonymously, something that other listeners might be wondering about.
[SPEAKER_02]: If an agent did author gets ghosted by their agent,
[SPEAKER_02]: after their manuscript dies on set.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the protocol for several ties with the agent and how and when should it come up and querying the next project?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do agents consider this a black mark for taking on new authors?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted to talk with a few things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to obviously talk about the sit-down that I got.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also want to talk about the term ghosting because I think that
[SPEAKER_02]: The term ghosting is used for a lot of different things like people use the term ghosting when they just mean like somebody's not getting back to them versus truly ghosting in terms of somebody like disappearing and blocking you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, that's on my mind, C.C.
[SPEAKER_02]: do you want to tackle the question first or do you want to talk about ghosting first?
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like the question.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I know it's anonymous.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to hug this person who asked this because
[SPEAKER_03]: Agents, not responding.
[SPEAKER_03]: Agents disappearing is noddle.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, with clients, obviously, we're talking about these people signed a contract, this agent signed a contract with this person.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't even wrap my head around what that means.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to the author, what I would say is try to contact someone else at the agency.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's possible it's a solo situation, some agencies are, in which case I don't think you have any recourse.
[SPEAKER_03]: Other than to write an email saying, you know, I'm terminating our contract as per
[SPEAKER_03]: I would really appreciate hearing from you, but if I don't, I will simply take that to me that you have accepted this or whatever, like something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I just think that there's a lot of talk about why it's okay to expect an answer from an agent and why it's not.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is no doubt in my mind that if you are an agent and author, your agent should respond to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: If your agent is not responding to you, that is not okay and I'm so sorry this happened to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that just sounds like a nightmare.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, and it's hard on so many levels, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because obviously, you're thinking, my agent is like, get hurt, are they ill?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there's some reason that they're incapacitated and they can't actually do their job.
[SPEAKER_02]: In which case, you should know, ideally other people at the agency, and you should have access to their email addresses so that you know, again, if something happens, you can try to do for that sort of thing, or just,
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It worries me if this is like again a sole proprietor who there's no assistant or nobody else to contact and all of a sudden did this business go under and that is when the rescue take with a sole proprietor whether it's you know the agent who's starting the business solo or you're an author working with somebody who is a one person show like if you're working with something that's one person show yeah what happens if somebody gets sick or you know isn't able to fill their duties of their contract right so yeah it's all the eggs in one basket
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, there's lots of layers to this question.
[SPEAKER_02]: So your person also said, yeah, what's the protocol?
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree with CC.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you put it in writing, you get it to them, or however many other people you can contact at the agency.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also ideally you'd get a list of who it went on sub to, like you're kind of also owed that information.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll try to talk about some of the agency.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's uncomfortable at this point, but
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can't track somebody there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But try that's some information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Try and also like send a registered letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would also send a registered letter in addition to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I feel like overkill is best of these situations.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're ever in a situation where you're like, well, can you prove to me that you, that you communicated XYZ to this person?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's my email.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's my registered letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like here's all the things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really sorry this happened to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like to the person who hopefully is listening like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whew, that's not okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because worst case scenario, say this person went and went and found a new agent and this new agent went on sub with this stuff and then the old agent came back and said, you didn't terminate with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm actually do some revenues from that manuscript that I worked on with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's worst case scenario.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying that's happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just seeing my mind goes to like worst case scenario a little bit here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it seems to be right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, do your due diligence, reager agreement, know what you have to do, go above and beyond.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry this happened to you and you have to be the person, you know, to have to do this, but yeah, definitely take care of all this on your end.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you said, how should this come up and querying the next project?
[SPEAKER_02]: The future agents are going to want to know, like, who was this project sub to, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And is this a black mark, you know, for taking, I know, no, I mean, unfortunately we know that.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, black mark on you.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not a black mark on you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Gosh, please never feel that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a black mark on you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have to explain this situation, but we're going to know that, like, again, sometimes crappy stuff happens in the business.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was your fault, but it will be very hard for an agent to sub like that project again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, if we don't know who it was sub to and we don't have the information, that's the part that's going to be hard for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is that is a true ghosting because I've got come back to my original point So people how we use the term ghosting.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an appropriate use of the term ghosting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've seen people use the term ghosting Somebody said something like an agent ghosted me on a manuscript the reading and I said how long and they had it in the person said a month and I said This person yeah, did not go
[SPEAKER_02]: do like yeah that's not ghosting yeah that's not ghosting so let's be careful about our use of the word ghosting because it is an accusation so this person is using the term ghosting correctly and obviously we're sorry that's how to do it yeah for sure oh gosh like this is too much do we want to talk about the next year yeah why don't you take this one
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so this is also one of that, Carly God.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, CC and Carly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love today's episode while I love all of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got a question in your opinion.
[SPEAKER_03]: When an editor tells their client, your book sales are not good.
[SPEAKER_03]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_03]: What sales numbers are they talking about?
[SPEAKER_03]: What is good sales for a debut author and their book was not really title?
[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't happen to me, it happened to my writer friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love how we get all these, like, my friend and the friend of a friend were asking for a friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was asking for a friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: How much of this has came for everyone versus asking for yourself?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the person said, like, when an editor tells their client, because an editor wouldn't tell their client, it would be an agent tells the client an editor would tell their author.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I could tell this was second hand information.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some editors also just go to the author.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I've seen it happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not, it's not common, but the fact that this person is a client, like, if you want to say a good point and close to author, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I don't you mean so, you know, I think there's a lot to unpack here, right, there's the unpacking of What makes quote unquote good sales, right, and so to me, it always comes back to
[SPEAKER_02]: expectations, expectations of what was the advance, how much was the print run?
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are two indicators of, you know, a book doing well, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So generally within the industry, and this is hard in genres where there's more e and digital sales versus print, but traditionally it's always been known again within the industry that once an author is halfway through earning out
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that second half of earning out the advanced generally is like the bonus that the publisher gets you know that from from taking on this project and then obviously the royalties come to the author after that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's again, very loosey goosey.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a backup on math and type calculation, you know, it's it's really useful to have keep it in mind, but it is by no means like something that will work in every case.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a formula.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's it's a backup and that can really useful like rule of thumb.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of something to think about.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing is print run, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So say your publisher prints 50,000 copies.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a huge print run right now, 50,000 units.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the orders come in from, and usually the print run is based on the orders, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So the orders come in from the stores.
[SPEAKER_02]: They print the 50,000 print units.
[SPEAKER_02]: They all go about it just a world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then say the sales are like 5,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: Within,
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know six months or something like that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like also time frame has to come into this because we also need time for these books to sell.
[SPEAKER_02]: That would be something that would be a hard number to swallow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the publisher's thinking, we just printed 50,000, I'm just picking random numbers, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, then we printed 50,000.
[SPEAKER_02]: We sold five, how are we going to sell the rest?
[SPEAKER_02]: How are we going to sell 45?
[SPEAKER_02]: That was in units, you know, ideally throughout there in the store, but so that's really, really, really hard to come back from because let's say that's hard cover and then they'll say, okay, you'll want to know why don't we do a paper back edition and then the publisher will go we can't do a paper back we can't invest in a paper back edition because we're still clawing back these other copies.
[SPEAKER_02]: And no store is going to take paper back if they haven't sold through their home cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of like the economics that has to kind of come into this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so everybody loves this idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a big deal and like a huge print run and then you get into the math and you're like, how are we actually going to move this many copies?
[SPEAKER_02]: And you start to realize, you know, how hard this is.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I think that's my two sons.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, you asked what sales numbers are they talking about?
[SPEAKER_03]: I struggled to understand what you meant by that.
[SPEAKER_03]: You, the person who's asking the question, obviously.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm pretty sure they just mean the actual sales of copies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like sales of books.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's pretty straightforward.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, units.
[SPEAKER_03]: But one of the hardest things I think for an author to grapple with in the publishing industry is that they want to know what is a good
[SPEAKER_03]: number of sales.
[SPEAKER_03]: What?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like what's a good deal?
[SPEAKER_03]: What are good sales?
[SPEAKER_03]: What's good?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like what are the expectations?
[SPEAKER_03]: Publishers typically will not tell you we expect to sell ex titles in ex months.
[SPEAKER_03]: They will give you indicators like Harley mentioned of print run and you can know like your advance and you can take a look at what's being done on the publicity front but you're not going to get a super objective answer and part of being in this business is kind of accepting that because he will be really frustrated if you expect
[SPEAKER_03]: This is 10% less than the copies we expected to sell this month.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it is not that granular, it's just not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so nice question is about the AALA.
[SPEAKER_02]: What if an agent isn't a member of the AALA?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to cut it and just let everybody know that stands for the Association of American Literary Agents.
[SPEAKER_02]: for this person says, why aren't they a member and how can writers gauge their reputation aside from the yellow and red flags that have been mentioned on the show?
[SPEAKER_02]: This question also requires a bit of context and history as well, because the current state of the AALA is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's very welcoming, very accommodating.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have tons of incredible programming where if you feel like you're paying your dues from terms of your membership fees, you're getting a lot out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I started agenting, the AALA was very exclusionary.
[SPEAKER_02]: The goal was to keep people out.
[SPEAKER_02]: The current AALA is to bring people in to, again, help educate and just really try to be democratic with the information sharing and things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Back then, it was very exclusionary.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, we're not letting you in for all of these reasons.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to jump through all of these hurdles.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there was also a clause in their canon of ethics, let's just say that said,
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't make money from anything else other than agenting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like agenting had to be your sole source of income.
[SPEAKER_02]: And credit that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I used to teach writers, I just workshops.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so because I taught writers, I just workshops.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was not eligible or because I took an honoraryum for doing a conference.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you took an honoraryum for a conference or if you taught like webinars or courses or again, you taught at university or anything like that,
[SPEAKER_02]: you weren't eligible to join the ALA.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there is a history of exclusionary practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, as I professed, I think the ALA is in a credible organization now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's changed a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so if somebody isn't currently a member of the ALA, it could just be again that they remember the times where it was more exclusionary.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just never joined it in the past and they haven't since.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or it could be that
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't meet the criteria.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there is still criteria that has to be met.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it could be one of the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you also said how can writers gauge the reputation aside from the yellow and red flags?
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that you can do is check publishers marketplace.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get a short-term subscription, usually around Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like a little promo.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's basically, I think it's like 30 bucks a month now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they up to by $5, it was $25 and it gets 30 bucks a month.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or you can just kind of go in and check the agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: out, see who they're selling to, their history of sales, the agency, they work at their history of sales and just kind of get a sense of like, what kind of business are they conducting if they're newer, you know, are they working with established agency if they have been around a long time and haven't done a lot of deals, then you're kind of like, okay, you know, just information to know that
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you're making your list of questions to ask them, some things you might want to ask about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's also writers be where, log, where you can learn about different agencies who have some predatory practices.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, do you see anything else down there?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I will.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I will say, you know, as someone who is a member of the ALA, and I know you are too curly, their resources are amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I know their agents who listen to this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I want to be clear, yes, I'm a member, but like, I don't get anything for saying this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have no incentive to say this other than it's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: The library of resources they have is the coolest thing ever.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have listened to so many great presentations.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's one called data and publishing, it's like four parts.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can not recommend joining enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a great, greater, it's so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so useful.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for writers who are thinking, like, do I want my agent to be a member of the AALA?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think you can want that, like it's great, like I remember it's awesome, but you know, before I was a member, I was also an awesome agent.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a little bit more organic than that from thinking of someone I know, she's not a member, she's, you know, considering joining and it's just working on her application.
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, she, she works at an agency where everyone else at the agency is a member.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's just newer, so she hasn't, you know, done it yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's a green flag because, you know, she's eligible, she's going to join, she just needs some time to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think, I think, you know, as was so many things in this industry, like using your critical thinking and really just doing the research and putting in those hours to get as much information as possible.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then knowing how to make an intelligent decision based on that information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like this is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Once out of the line.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also ask the agent and then listen to their answer and then see how that answers
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we had another DM about pitch contests from a literary agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: We love when our literary agent colleagues send us things to talk about and deep dive on and shoot the shit on.
[SPEAKER_02]: She wants to hear our thoughts on pitch contests and how we feel about editors and involvement.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it a way for them to bypass agents?
[SPEAKER_02]: Pitches don't reflect the quality of the material.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how useful are pitch contests?
[SPEAKER_02]: I know personally I don't really do that many of them anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you do do any pitch contests?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I don't have the like it does I've tried because I was like, yeah, you've great way to fight clients.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a great way to find clients for my brain I'm sure it's great for a lot a lot of people and that's so cool
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't work for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd much rather just look at my slush pile.
[SPEAKER_03]: I review my slush pie on myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is a good place for me to find clients because I get to actually read their material and not just listen to a, you know, two sentence hook.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it doesn't work for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't work for me at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I remember, yes, you guys know I love to talk about how old I am in publishing, but basically there used to be this wonderful, wonderful pitch blog contest called pitch wars.
[SPEAKER_02]: and so many named Brenda Drake ran it and she did such a great job and it was so much work but basically she would set everything up on the back end of like a blog where it would be every blog post would be a pitch and then
[SPEAKER_02]: They would go live at a certain time and an agent would go in the comments and comment on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was great because I knew it was like a high quality contest.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew it was like competitive to get in.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was also like pitchwords mentor.
[SPEAKER_02]: So quality writers would like mentor the mentees who would like get onto the blog.
[SPEAKER_02]: It lots of high quality agents, such as myself, would be the invited agents to then go on the blogs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: decide whether we wanted them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of it depends on the quality and early on that was just one of the original places to do that and it was really well-run and as what happens with the internet more and more of these things start popping up, some of them goods, some of them not so good, some of them well-run, many not so well-run, the quality just starts to go downhill, the algorithms change, so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were of an era and I think that era might have passed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I'd love to be surprised.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd love for somebody to tell me there's a wonderful pitch contest out there, but I think the heart of this question also is around editors who do these pitch contests.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a really tough one because I'm of two minds because I understand editors wanting to stay kind of like plugged into the more invasive literary community and that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it a good use of editors time?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so at all because they have so much to do so many other things going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have all these agent subs.
[SPEAKER_02]: So say somebody, you know, gets a like or a heart from an editor and then they still have to get an agent and then the agent has to send it to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So so this person's kind of getting at, is it a way from the bypass agents meaning could the author then just send it directly to the editor?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we all know that the big five editors aren't doing, again, don't have the time and capacity to do this, so then is it potentially presses that are smaller, who potentially, again, I don't want to get anybody into trouble or get myself into trouble, but some other presses or digital first presses or hybrid publishers that call themselves editors could get themselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gophers could just get themselves into a situation where they think this isn't accredited contest, and then all of a sudden,
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we talked about on the last show, all of a sudden this credited contest, you know, has a lot of red flags and this editor requesting it isn't who they say they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm down on pitch contests right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: But see see what do you think.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm I'm down on participating in them myself personally, not for me, like I said, I don't think it's necessarily.
[SPEAKER_03]: of problem for editors to participate, absolutely understand the rationale of this question, like, is it bypassing?
[SPEAKER_03]: As long as editors are ethical about it, editors also sometimes attend writers' conferences, and they also take pictures there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes they even read materials, and, you know, a good editor will say, once you have an agent, I am interested, but they don't try to cut the agent out.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it all depends on how the editor is,
[SPEAKER_03]: acting and I've seen a lot of editors do it wonderfully, you know, in a way that's very ethical, very inclusive, very respectful, very encouraging.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never seen a bad situation, but I'm also not on this platform just looking at the behavior.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure it happens because there's always bad actors.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would just say, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: This person also asks, like, is this worth it because they don't reflect the quality of the materials?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a hook, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like a hook can be so great.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can right now tell you 10 really great ideas for hooks for books.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no material to go with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's much harder to actually execute and write the material.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, to this person's question, I will say, no, you're right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you can't tell if something's good based on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But!
[SPEAKER_03]: different brains working different ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like some people had the kind of brain where they do want to go into a platform, look at a whole bunch of hooks, like the ones that works for them and they do want to get those submissions and then they'll analyze the material.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually really admire people who's brains work like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if it works for them, that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: They can be a perfectly ethical, perfectly reasonable way to conduct business.
[SPEAKER_03]: As long as the people do it right, I guess at the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like we switched chairs today because I'm the pessimistic one and you're the optimistic one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I don't know what happened with this freaky Friday business.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the cold meds.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling you, it's the cold meds, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but you know what, I feel a little drunk.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I feel like cold meds make me feel a little out of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Almost like I had like a tiny bit of wine.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't to be clear, everyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, we should record a shooting the shit in the evening where we have to watch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should have the shit after that.
[SPEAKER_03]: We should do that one day.
[SPEAKER_03]: It'll be so much fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like such a like, wait, I drink like two
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, we should do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But like, yeah, today, today I'm...
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm an optimist because I'm popped up on coldments.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's a lot about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's in the shed after dark.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to book mark that for another time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we'll have to take special questions or put in special topics for shooting the shed after dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: yeah okay well that's it she's not feeling well so we're gonna we're gonna cut it short today but thanks for hanging out with us guys and we will see you next time CC Lira is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates if you'd like to query CC please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wshomen.com
[SPEAKER_00]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency, but a work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS Literary Agency.