The Search for a Literary Agent

When I first began writing my novel, I wasn’t thinking about markets. Or publishers. I definitely wasn’t thinking about agents.

Maybe I should have. That would have been the smart thing to do. On one hand, it may have taken some of the joy away from the writing process. On the other hand, it may have injected more joy into the earning process.

It’s easy to say write the story that comes from within, because that’s what readers want to read. That’s exactly what narcissists say. And as writers, we are narcissists, at least to some degree.

But have you checked out the bestsellers lists over the last few years? Scrolled Netflix? What do the authors of those stories have in common? A deeply authentic style of storytelling that pulled the market towards them like a Jedi in a centrifuge?

No. They had an agent.

Firstly, I do not have Jedi powers. I cannot pull unwilling objects (like the book market) towards me. I‘ve tested myself in a variety of environments.

In the supermarket, I attempted to summon the last pack of double choc TimTams on the top shelf, but my wife said I just looked like I was trying to hold in a liquid bowel motion.

In my single days, my Tinder profile was simply, ‘It is in me.’ Perhaps there weren’t many Star Wars fans on there, for it did not fare well. Interestingly, I have found this line works much better in the hospital emergency department.

Really, I just want someone in my corner. Someone to deal with all the niggly, annoying fine print that I’m sure eight figure book deal contracts are littered with.

I need a Jedi on my team.

According to my local writing organisation, literary agents:

• Negotiate favourable terms with a publisher and confirm them in a contract

• Handle correspondence relating to contractual matters

• Negotiate terms for the reproduction of your work in different territories and in different media such as film or television

• Manage the receipt of royalties

• Generate work opportunities for you

And the Jedi shit, obvs. Plus, ‘My agent tells me…’ is a hell of a line to drop at your next writing group/cousin’s wake/bail hearing.

Realistically? Slim-to-fuck-all. Especially in Australia. There are only 17 legit agencies, and a lot of them don’t take unsolicited submissions.

It’s one of those weird situations that seems to exist in the literary world. I need an agent to break into the industry, but I need to be connected to people in the industry to get an introduction to an agent. It’s a very small sweet spot.

Could I try overseas agents? Sure. But usually they only take on authors who have an Australian agent already, and want someone to sell their work in overseas markets.

Statistically, I have a better chance of:

• Being struck by lightening while riding a flying pig.

• Using my favourite number to win a nice Powerball jackpot when a freak robotic mishap causes the machine to draw the number 69 seven times in a row.

• Remembering my password the next time I get logged out of Netflix.

Kind of like a literary version of Princess Leia (as played by Jessica Alba during a live reading). She would have sufficient magnetic pull both aesthetically, and telekinetically. The book business is female dominated these days (about time), so I don’t want some Norman Mailer throwback who’s gonna get me cancelled before I can tell everyone my beard is not a festering holdover from the patriarchy.

One piece of feedback I got from a publisher about my novel was that it was ‘too masculine’, and may struggle to appeal to female readers, who represent the majority of the fiction market.

That’s where I need Princess Leia to come to rescue me, the literary drongo in distress. Just like in The Empire Strikes Back, when Princess Leia turns the Millenium Falcon around to rescue the stranded Luke Skywalker, who called via the force for her assistance.

So my plan is to ignore the typical practices for securing a literary agent. There will be no more submitting. No more shameless solicitation at industry events. Instead, I simply need to believe. After a vigorous battle with my manuscript, I will collapse on the floor, exhausted—and most likely soiled—and wait for Jessica Alba to fly down and beam me up.

It is in me.

A dystopian short story about a woman who wakes up to find a spaceship in her backyard, complete with humanoid looking alien who promises rescue. (But not a book deal.)

Peppered Fruit, by Brian Lageose. Brian is a writer I discovered on Medium, with a wonderful, understated humour to his writings, and a last name I dare not try and pronounce.

Peppered Fruit is his first book available in paperback (as far as I am aware), and is a collection of stories that cover his entertaining, and at times difficult, life. It even opens with a hilarious sperm meets egg story. Literally.

Peppered Fruit has a lot to say about many things, but there is an undercurrent of empathy that carries it along. Brian makes his points, but the edges are softened. Instead of being stabbed to death, you might look down at the rounded blade pressed against your stomach and smile, and think, Fuck, what was I doing? Maybe there is another way.

I could say a lot more about this book, but I’d like to include a paragraph in which Brian reflects on writing. It has stuck with me since.

Still, even though I am now somewhat long in the tooth and decidedly short on possibilities, the fever dreams we embraced, back yonder, are still with me today. I know that the stars are far, but that doesn’t mean I still can’t reach, and I briefly catch the faded lightening bugs with my jar, and I name them, remember them, and I tell their little secrets in my writing, my stories that are often absurd and surreal. And then I let the lightening bugs go, blinking their way towards another child, lying in his yard, looking up, dreaming…

You can purchase Peppered Fruit here.

I Feel Harder, by CLEWS. I’ve been following this Aussie sister-duo for years. I honestly don’t know how they haven’t blown up yet. Like me, and Brian, and a million other creatives out there, they’re still reaching for those stars, letting their lightening bugs go, and dreaming… of Jessica Alba.

All my posts are free to read, but if you would like to support my dreams of Jessica Alba becoming a professional writer, you can do so at the following rates:

$1 per month
$2 per month
$3 per month
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$5 per month (Full price! Thanks to your generosity I will use the force for good, and I can pimp out the Falcon with some new rims.)

Thanks for reading.