How to Choose a Literary Agent

How long have you been in the business?
Our agency has been around since the early 1970’s—we’ve weathered a lot of changes in the industry. There are thousands upon thousands of literary agents, and the number continues to grow. We’ve spent the last five decades building an impressive collection of contacts that allow us to expertly navigate the market. More importantly, though, that experience means we’ve seen pretty much everything. Any hurdles we might encounter in the publishing process are ones we’ve cleared before.

How many people are on staff?
Many agents are one-person operations. For a writer, that means many areas of your career, such as the sale of foreign and film rights, royalty management, submission, and contract guidance cannot be covered adequately. There are five of us at Sobel Weber, and each of us has an area of expertise.

Which publishers do you deal with?
In our years of business, we have dealt with all major trade publishers, and have also had the privilege of developing long-standing relationships with a number of small independent publishers. Each publisher brings something different to the table, and our expertise is finding the right one for your work.

What special services do you offer?
We know firsthand how competitive the market is for agents and authors, and we feel that our extraordinary dedication to our authors sets us apart. For one thing, we edit all the manuscripts that pass through our hands, well before we submit that work to publishers. It’s not unusual for us to go through several rounds of edits, and it doesn’t matter whether it is the writer’s first project with us or their fourteenth—we want to send editors the best-possible version of your work. We strive to provide that same editorial feedback to anyone who entrusts us to read their manuscript, client or not.

All of our editing is done in-house. That’s important—editors at publishing houses come and go quickly, and the writer needs to have a reliable sounding board. Some agents outsource editing and reading to freelancers, many of whom charge a fee. We do not.

What are the services that a good agency should provide?
Aside from the initial editing process as mentioned above, we make the submissions to the most likely editors, negotiate the contracts, collect the monies, and send you the proper tax form at the end of the year. These are all basic services that any agent should perform. In addition to these, we send every client a copy of every rejection letter we receive. We think it is important that the writer get as much feedback as possible.

How long do you stay with a manuscript before giving up?
We’ve found that this is a very important question to ask—a number of times, we’ve been approached by writers with books on which another agent has given up after making 3, 6 or 12 submissions. If we love a book (and we only take on books we love), we have sometimes made more than 30 submissions. We’ve sold books after 25 rejections—in such a subjective and competitive industry, it’s not uncommon for projects to go through a few rounds of submission and revision before finding the right home.

Should I sign a contract with an agent?
We do not ask any writer to sign a contract with us. Our philosophy is that if you are not satisfied with our representation, you can leave at any time. Conversely, if we do not think your next book is publishable, we will turn it down. It’s the writer’s career that is our concern.

How aggressive are you in foreign and film sales?
We work with a number of Hollywood agents on a non-exclusive basis and split our commission with these agencies. Many of the projects based on our books have gone on to achieve awards and accolades, like “L.A. Confidential” and “Million Dollar Baby”.

As for foreign sales, we’ve found that some prove even more successful than the original domestic sale. To reach this market, our agents attend major international publishing conventions, where they meet with editors and co-agents from many countries. We have a team of co-agents that represent our books in a number of international territories. In addition, we regularly meet with visiting foreign editors in New York, and are in frequent communication with our network of foreign agents, scouts, and editors.

Whom do you represent?
Many of the writers we represent have come to us as a result of our query letters after reading a story or article in one of literary magazines we subscribe to. Richard Russo, for example, was first spotted in Mid-America Review (circulation: 500 copies). We have a wide range of interests in fiction, including: Pulitzer Prize-winners Viet Thanh Nguyen and Richard Russo; Stuart Neville; international best-seller Peter Swanson; and best-selling fantasy writer Robert Jordan, and every year we launch several talented first novelists and short story writers. Our interests in non-fiction are equally wide-ranging.

What is your commission, and do you charge any additional fees?
Our agency commission is the standard 15% on all domestic sales. On foreign sales it is 15%, in addition to the commission of the foreign co-agent. This is still well below what publishers charge writers on foreign sales when they control world rights. We do not charge a reading fee or ask for reimbursement of expenses, as some agents do.

Is there anything else that is special about Sobel Weber?
We are very much a hands-on agency. Because our employees have held a number of jobs in publishing (among them publicity, promotion, editing, sub rights, marketing, and sales), we have a pretty good idea of how publishers think. Some of us are also former booksellers, so we come into every project with a complex understanding of the market. We have input on everything from the book jacket art to the catalog copy, and are often part of the marketing and publicity process. A publisher’s job is to advocate for a book, but an agent’s job is to advocate for the author. Our job does not end with the contract signing.

We think our greatest strength is problem solving. There are too many opportunities for things to go wrong on the road to publication. Every writer, these days, needs a good problem solver in his or her corner.

Are you a member of any agency group or listed anywhere?
We have chosen to stay independent, and we prefer to pursue writers whose talent has attracted us, rather than be inundated with unsolicited material. This has enabled us to stay small and strong.

How available are you to clients?
A number of writers who have approached us have complained about their inability to make contact with their agent or agency. We are available to writers by phone and e-mail every day. Your correspondence with an agent and how he or she responds to your questions will not only tell you a good deal about the agency, but will also offer a good idea of the kind of chemistry you will have with that agent.