Careers Conference 2007 – Literary Agent Workshop

Posted on January 21, 2008 in Uncategorized

In the literary agent workshop, Pat White gave a fascinating insight into the role of a literary agent and their place in the publishing industry today. Entering publishing as a secretary for Simon and Schuster in the late 1950’s, Pat moved into their rights department before moving to London where she remains to this day as a director of Rogers, Coleridge and White Ltd looking after the children and illustrated list.

White began the workshop by asking delegates what they thought the role of a literary agent was before giving her own definition – a gatekeeper between author and publisher who is somewhat of a solicitor and a nanny for the author, delivering both good and bad news. Therefore, excellent communication skills are key for any literary agent.

These people skills are paramount, especially when it comes to talking authors through exactly what has been offered in a deal. In doing this, it is important for any agent to establish why a publisher has offered the deal they have although in her experience she has not always found publishers forthcoming with this information.

As well as being a good communicator, White believes that an agent has to have a broad spectrum of knowledge and needs to know aspects of the industry like production and publicity. In agenting, however, people often become specialists and Pat believes that to be an agent one must develop their own sense of taste.

Backing her own tastes is one of the things White loves most about being an agent but told delegates that an agent is basically a sales person with no editorial input and this is why the author-editor relationship is vital as editors spend less and less time on books.
White was also keen to dispel the image of the literary agent as a money-grabbing mercenary, highlighting that often the highest deal offered to an author is not necessarily the right deal and other factors must be taken into account.

In this respect, she described her frustration at the trend for handing out large, unearned advances to authors as when these are not justified and sales do not meet expectations, subsequent smaller advances can greatly damage the author’s happiness and an unhappy author is an agent’s worst nightmare.

Overall, this workshop gave those in attendance an interesting glimpse of an agent’s life and increased their understanding of this oft-misunderstood role.

By Tommy Douglas