Q and A
Anyone keeping up with jenniferechols knows that she's currently answering some questions on her LJ for a friend who is teaching a class on writing and genre. She passed a few questions along to me, in order to give the class a different perspective on the industry, so I'm going to try to answer a few of them here, particularly as I think the answers might be of general interest.
Questions
To what extent--and in what ways--do agents work with writers to understand the genre they're wanting to publish in? Or do writers need to figure that out before getting an agent?
I'm afraid, for the most part, writers are on their own with this one. The truth is, if you submit a manuscript to an agent, they're going to look it over in terms of story, writing ability, hook, etc. If you claim it's a romance and it turns out to be woman's fiction, the agent won't care if it's good. But...if that agent only represents straight out romance novels, then you have a problem because they're not going to take you on. If you already have an agent, they may discuss an idea with you and offer an opinion as to whether or not it seems to work for a particular genre, but genre is really part of the writer's choice when sitting down to start to a new project.
Understanding the genre--its rules and parameters, what's been done before sucessfully (or to death)--is part of your job as a writer. It's hard to imagine a writer producing a fabulous novel in a void; you need to get out there and read other people's work and determine where your own niche might be, not to mention what your competition looks like. An agent's job is to know the market in terms of what publisher/editor/imprint might be the best fit for your completed novel, and to get your manuscript in front of those people. But understanding what makes a romance novel--or a young adult book, science fiction or fantasy novel, cozy mystery, suspense novel, etc.--that's the writer's job.
How is the market for genre fiction? Has it grown or slowed in the last several years?
Genre fiction makes up the majority of fiction sold, and numbers are growing, particularly in romance, science fiction/fantasy, and graphic novels. Many voracious readers identify themselves as a specific kind of reader by genre--they only read romance, they only read mysteries--and they buy or borrow their books in bulk. The popularity of discussing books on the internet, both through web sites specifically designed to offer book reviews, such as Bookslut, Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels, and Moorish Girl, or through more general interest personal blogs, has given new meaning to the term "word of mouth," and many of these discussions and recommendations revolve around a specific genre of books. People like knowing what they're going to get, and reading within a genre practically guarantees that they will experience certain key things by the time they close a book, whether that's a happily-ever-after ending or a satisfying, mysterious puzzle they can attempt to solve along with the novel's detective, or a trip to a different galaxy. And they tend to gravitate to other readers in the same genre to get recommendations on what to read next.
How did you become an agent? What was your college degree, what previous work experience did you have, etc?
This is a rather long, roundabout story, so bear with me. I graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in English, right into the middle of a recession. I spent about a year working in publishing in New York, as an editorial assistant at Simon and Schuster in one of their nonfiction trade imprints. After that I left the industry and worked a number of jobs in sales, briefly considered going to law school, and ended up becoming a stock broker instead.
I enjoyed some aspects of the job, but hated cold calling to drum up new clients, so I left and took a position as a marketing writer for a mutual fund company based on my previous experience in finance. The idea was to use this first writing job as a spring board to other writing positions, where I could write about something a little more entertaining than stocks, bonds, and interest rates. Unfortunately, the job paid well and they kept giving me raises and I liked my coworkers. So I stayed for the better part of six years.
Meanwhile, every night I'd go home to Connecticut, eat dinner, and fire up my laptop. I'd write from about 9 to 11 or 12, then get up at 5 the next morning to go to work in Manhattan. I joined an online writers' group in 2000-2001, where I met Deidre Knight, along with several other people around the country. We all chatted a great deal, about writing and books and our lives. When I decided to quit my job in 2002 and move to Los Angeles, no new job, no real idea what I was going to do, just because I wanted to completely change my life, these people were some of my biggest supporters and Deidre was a regular cheerleader.
Once in LA, I started working as a freelance writer, and Deidre, knowing I was in that awful client-building phase where you have very little income, hired me as a freelance reader to help her go through submissions. Then she started talking about wanting to open an LA office for The Knight Agency, because she felt it was important for the growth of the firm to have access to Hollywood in order to facilitate the sale of film rights for her clients' books. She wanted me to run the new office, but she understood that agenting wasn't something I'd ever considered and so at the very least hoped I'd help her find someone else to do it. Needless to say, after a bit of thought, I took her up on her offer and became The Knight Agency's newest literary agent.
There's no one single path to becoming a literary agent. Some people intern in publishing first, or get jobs answering phones at an agency, while others take a more meandering route. But I think regardless of a person's work experience, agents all have a few things in common: they're voracious readers, they're persistent, they pay enormous amounts of attention to detail, they can multi-task, and they're comfortable dealing with many different types of people.
Questions
To what extent--and in what ways--do agents work with writers to understand the genre they're wanting to publish in? Or do writers need to figure that out before getting an agent?
I'm afraid, for the most part, writers are on their own with this one. The truth is, if you submit a manuscript to an agent, they're going to look it over in terms of story, writing ability, hook, etc. If you claim it's a romance and it turns out to be woman's fiction, the agent won't care if it's good. But...if that agent only represents straight out romance novels, then you have a problem because they're not going to take you on. If you already have an agent, they may discuss an idea with you and offer an opinion as to whether or not it seems to work for a particular genre, but genre is really part of the writer's choice when sitting down to start to a new project.
Understanding the genre--its rules and parameters, what's been done before sucessfully (or to death)--is part of your job as a writer. It's hard to imagine a writer producing a fabulous novel in a void; you need to get out there and read other people's work and determine where your own niche might be, not to mention what your competition looks like. An agent's job is to know the market in terms of what publisher/editor/imprint might be the best fit for your completed novel, and to get your manuscript in front of those people. But understanding what makes a romance novel--or a young adult book, science fiction or fantasy novel, cozy mystery, suspense novel, etc.--that's the writer's job.
How is the market for genre fiction? Has it grown or slowed in the last several years?
Genre fiction makes up the majority of fiction sold, and numbers are growing, particularly in romance, science fiction/fantasy, and graphic novels. Many voracious readers identify themselves as a specific kind of reader by genre--they only read romance, they only read mysteries--and they buy or borrow their books in bulk. The popularity of discussing books on the internet, both through web sites specifically designed to offer book reviews, such as Bookslut, Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels, and Moorish Girl, or through more general interest personal blogs, has given new meaning to the term "word of mouth," and many of these discussions and recommendations revolve around a specific genre of books. People like knowing what they're going to get, and reading within a genre practically guarantees that they will experience certain key things by the time they close a book, whether that's a happily-ever-after ending or a satisfying, mysterious puzzle they can attempt to solve along with the novel's detective, or a trip to a different galaxy. And they tend to gravitate to other readers in the same genre to get recommendations on what to read next.
How did you become an agent? What was your college degree, what previous work experience did you have, etc?
This is a rather long, roundabout story, so bear with me. I graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in English, right into the middle of a recession. I spent about a year working in publishing in New York, as an editorial assistant at Simon and Schuster in one of their nonfiction trade imprints. After that I left the industry and worked a number of jobs in sales, briefly considered going to law school, and ended up becoming a stock broker instead.
I enjoyed some aspects of the job, but hated cold calling to drum up new clients, so I left and took a position as a marketing writer for a mutual fund company based on my previous experience in finance. The idea was to use this first writing job as a spring board to other writing positions, where I could write about something a little more entertaining than stocks, bonds, and interest rates. Unfortunately, the job paid well and they kept giving me raises and I liked my coworkers. So I stayed for the better part of six years.
Meanwhile, every night I'd go home to Connecticut, eat dinner, and fire up my laptop. I'd write from about 9 to 11 or 12, then get up at 5 the next morning to go to work in Manhattan. I joined an online writers' group in 2000-2001, where I met Deidre Knight, along with several other people around the country. We all chatted a great deal, about writing and books and our lives. When I decided to quit my job in 2002 and move to Los Angeles, no new job, no real idea what I was going to do, just because I wanted to completely change my life, these people were some of my biggest supporters and Deidre was a regular cheerleader.
Once in LA, I started working as a freelance writer, and Deidre, knowing I was in that awful client-building phase where you have very little income, hired me as a freelance reader to help her go through submissions. Then she started talking about wanting to open an LA office for The Knight Agency, because she felt it was important for the growth of the firm to have access to Hollywood in order to facilitate the sale of film rights for her clients' books. She wanted me to run the new office, but she understood that agenting wasn't something I'd ever considered and so at the very least hoped I'd help her find someone else to do it. Needless to say, after a bit of thought, I took her up on her offer and became The Knight Agency's newest literary agent.
There's no one single path to becoming a literary agent. Some people intern in publishing first, or get jobs answering phones at an agency, while others take a more meandering route. But I think regardless of a person's work experience, agents all have a few things in common: they're voracious readers, they're persistent, they pay enormous amounts of attention to detail, they can multi-task, and they're comfortable dealing with many different types of people.