#Agentfail

There's been a lot said and written in the last couple of weeks about #Agentfail and, as an extension, #Queryfail. But I want to direct my comments today on Agentfail.

I don't want to sound like a whiny-baby full of sour grapes. But I must be clear: I don't have an agent, although I have been looking for one for more than a year. That stretches over the completion of two novels.

There's more than enough room on both sides of the relationship for improvement. But since I'm not on the agent side, I am only going to address the concerns from the author side.

Some agents suck. The vast majority do not but some suck big time. Without naming names, the first agent I encountered was a dick-head. I sent an e-mail query because his guidelines matched up perfectly with what I had written. And he promised a reply in four to eight weeks.

I got a rejection in under 15 minute.

But in fairness (as I was to learn about agents), I did get a reply. And that is the No. 1 gripe authors who are querying agents have about agents. It's their "no-response-means-no" statements.

I loath that. I really do. I have sent out scores of queries and with roughly two-thirds I got no response. How unfair and uncivil.

(I was just reading the comments of a very good, popular and well-respected agent who said the "no-response-means-no" response is "rude and unprofessional, and a short-sighted business strategy." I'm going to write her to say I agree. But I will also mention I queried her last July 14 for "Death at the Jungle-bunny Journal" and I never got a response. Or more accurately,I got a "no-response-means-no" response.)

Agents can get hundreds of queries a week. That is truly a lot. So I know they are busy. But so am I. I took the time to write. As a human being I think I deserve at least the courtesy of a form letter reply, particularly since many agents apparently find a lot of time to Twitter.

My beautiful wife reminds me often that you can tell a person's priorities by the time they spend on something. If an agent spends a lot of time on Twitter complaining about authors -- some of which being undoubtedly legitimate -- and less time responding to queries, what does that say about what they think of authors. Not much, I venture. And if an agent doesn't care for authors, why be in the business?

It doesn't take much to set up a reply function on a computer to send a form letter reply. A reply would take less time than a Twitter. If agents did that, however, it would mean my record-setting 14-minute rejection would be broken, probably by as much as 10 minutes. I accept that. But at least it will be a reply.

I hate it when an agent says not to take a rejection personally. Excuse my language but that is bullshit. Writing, just like all art forms, is personal. And putting it out there is personal, whether to an agent, an editor, a publisher, a reviewer or the public. Art is nothing if not personal.

But I like something the late John Updike apparently said about writing and writers in a 2002 interview in the Writer's Digest.

"Don't be thin-skinned or easily discouraged because it's an odds-long proportion: all the arts are. Many are called, few are chosen, but it might be you," he said.

I hate it when agents contradict what their guidelines say. And I hate it when I'm on an agent's website and they talk about how busy they are. I personally don't give a damned how busy an agent is. I expect them to be busy. It's their job to be busy. They don't get paid unless they are busy.

But I am busy, too. It's just not an excuse to be uncivil, unprofessional and rude, which is truly the bottomline when it comes to both agents AND authors. Be professional.

Whenever I find an agent, I hope to have such a strong relationship with them that I would feel comfortable sending them an invitation to my youngest daughter's wedding, which, given that she is only 15, won't be for years. (She doesn't plan on getting married until she is 25.) But from beginning to end, the basis of the relationship will be professional. We may become friends but
we will always have a business partnership. I plan to treat them with respect and I expect the same in return.

So there you have it -- my take on #agentfail.

Now to get back to finding an agent . . .

Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.