ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

6 years, 5 months ago - George Brian Glennon

Philip,

Legitimate film agents are not going to look at anyone that doesn't already have produced commercial work. That is just the way it works. Literary agents can be approached via their websites and have very strict submission policies.

The only way a literary agent will look at anyone's work apart from the slush pile, is if you know someone that has a trusted professional relationship with them already to bring in your work. This is 99.9% accurate. Even boutique agencies are getting 1K submissions a week.

If you're going to the London Book Fair you have a decent opportunity to speak to some people and get in their faces, but you best have a polished "Elevator speech" ready. Do your homework as to who to target, and be professional.

Legitimate Agents can smell an amateur in 20 seconds.

I would suggest getting a book called "Selling your story in 60 seconds" by Michal Hauge. It's the best book available on this topic.

6 years, 5 months ago - Marlom Tander

I wrote a thriller some years back (now also available as a screenplay :-) (don't all rush at once, well do... ) and phoned agents to see how to proceed, and get a name to send it to. (Sales 101 ALWAYS get a name). They said pretty much the same thing :-

"How far through the second novel are you, and have you got a treatment for your third?" I asked why they were asking.

"Your FIRST novel loses money. If lucky however, it gets you noticed in the trade. The SECOND novel loses less money as you are on the festival/media circuit and make more sales. If lucky, the publisher breaks even overall. Your THIRD novel is your breakthrough - bigger audience, who go back and buy your first two, and everyone is happy and in profit. As agents, we need to be selling you on the fact that you have three good books in you in order to get just one published."

I didn't have a pipeline and didn't pursue it. But the commercial argument seemed sound reasoning. When was a last time you bought a debut novel in hardback?

So my advice - if you don't already have a pipeline, knock up a couple of treatments so you can riff about your amazing books 2 and 3 for long enough for them to read your first one and discover they love you :-)

6 years, 5 months ago - Marlom Tander

The logic was for GENRE fiction. the agents also said that the rules for LITERARY novels were different - a good book could get published stand alone by an unknown author.

But I don't do LITERARY novels. I've read a few and generally hate the artifice. Except John Lancester's The Debt To Pleasure, which if all artifice but gloriously done :-)