Working with Agents and Editors

Lynn Shepherd has written three literary mystery novels and shares her experience with us about working with editors and agents.

If you’re anything like me you’ll have come across hundreds of ‘How to’ posts about getting an agent, and getting published, but I can’t remember many about how to manage those vital relationships once they’re in place. Because they really are vital – being a successful writer, and dare I say it a happy one, will come down in large part to how well you can make them work.

In the last ten years I’ve had two different agents and (if you include my foreign language publishers) six different editors, so while I wouldn’t call myself an expert, I have picked up some experience along the way, which I offer here, for what it’s worth.

Getting the best out of your agent: It works both ways

If you’re lucky, your agent will be the single most important influence on your writing life. A really good agent won’t just look after your financial interests and secure you a good commercial deal, they will also be an excellent critic and helpful sounding board.

My own agent has incredibly sound literary judgment, which has been an enormous help with all four books, from the idea development stage, to the first synopsis, and out the other side into the sunlit uplands of a finished draft.

A good agent will be a useful mediator, not just in terms of negotiating the nitty-gritty of the contract, but in handling some of the trickier impasses you might find yourself embroiled in thereafter. If you haven’t been published before, your agent will also be your best source of information about how the (rapidly changing) publication process works. Not just your best source, in fact, but crucially an objective one: I’ve met lots of writers, and talking to those in the same position as yourself is always useful, but always bear in mind that other people’s experiences are not always reliable, and believe me, there are some authors out there who are not above spinning a line about how great their deals/sales/royalties are.

How best to work with an agent? Suffice to say, the same basic rules that underpin all human relationships apply here. Starting with good communication. Keeping your agent in the loop is absolutely key, whether it’s how your work-in-progress is going, or what festival appearances or other promotional ideas your publishers might have in mind.

But always bear in mind that you’re not the only writer your agent is representing (hard though that can be sometimes!) so don’t bombard them with calls and emails – or expect to get answer in five minutes.

The other thing that makes for a good agent-author relationship sounds obvious, but is still worth saying: allow them to do their job. Your business is producing a good product, their business is selling it. And they’ll be much better at doing that if you don’t sit on their shoulder or second-guess them. It can be tempting to weigh in, especially if you have friends who are editors, or any experience in the industry yourself, but trust me, it really is best not to.

The editorial process: Collaboration, or confrontation?

Editors, like liquorice, come in all sorts. From the hands-off who don’t even change a comma, to the hands-on who want to change everything from the ending to the title. Counter-intuitive though it might sound, I’d choose the latter any day. An experienced and engaged editor will help you develop as a writer, even though that might entail the odd growing pain along the way.

Working with an editor is rather different from working with your agent. Your agent is (or should be) unequivocally ‘on your side’, though that doesn’t mean that they can’t be constructive critics too. Your editor, by contrast, owes their first duty to their employer, so there’s always the potential for some tension. That can be a challenge, on occasion, but the best editors will know how to balance commercial pragmatism and artistic integrity, and will do their best to find a compromise that works for everyone.

To take two real-life examples, one good, and one less so. Starting with the good one:  my American publishers wanted to change the title of my last book on the Shelleys, A Treacherous Likeness.  The reason was fascinating – apparently the word ‘treacherous’ has a much narrower connotation in the US, being confined largely to physical dangers, such as icy paths – but I was initially very reluctant to change it.

There were two reasons for that – one practical and one artistic. In practical terms it would leave me juggling two titles in the UK and US, which I know from experience can be a real headache; but more importantly, the whole theme and plot of the novel turned on the idea of ‘likeness’, whether actual or metaphorical. Various titles went back and forth, but it was my editor who finally found a compromise. A Fatal Likeness ticked the box for me, and gave the sales team a title they could get really enthusiastic about.

On the not-so-good side I have twice been steamrollered into accepting jacket designs I really didn’t like. As I often have to explain to readers, most authors have very little say about their covers, and a typical contract will only require your publisher to show you the design, and not necessarily to accept whatever views you might have about it.

But there’s showing you early in the process, when you can at least express an opinion (which a good editor will do), and there’s showing you so late in the day that you know full well that whatever you say will make not a blind bit of difference (which is clearly far less constructive as an approach).

Back to the positives. It was also my American editor I have to thank for the fact that the Maddox books have turned into a series. In my original ending for Tom-All-Alone’s (The Solitary House in the US) I had the older Maddox dying. It was a lovely diminuendo, and I was very pleased with it, but it was my editor who helped me see that the character had a lot more life left in him (literally), and since then he has appeared in A Treacherous Likeness and will next year be in Darkness Visible, which is inspired by Dracula.

It’s not all been hearts and flowers – no human relationship ever is, and there have been things my editor and I have disagreed about too – but it continues to be a hugely stimulating collaboration.

And that, in a nutshell, is what to aim for. Always try to work with, not against, your editor. Try to see the book from their point of view, and in the context of the publishing house’s other priorities. But at the end of the day, you also must be true to yourself.  It’s your book, and you need to be clear about where your red lines are.  A good editor will understand that, and respect you for it.

To sum up, it all comes down to three Rs: both of these crucial relationships will work best if everyone involved is realistic, reasonable, and respectful of the other person’s role. If nothing else, it’s good place to start.

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Lynn studied English at Oxford and then worked in the City and PR before going freelance as a copywriter in 2000. Since then she has published three literary mystery novels: the award-winning Murder at Mansfield Park, a murderous ‘reimagining’ of Austen’s masterpiece; Tom-All-Alone’s (UK)/The Solitary House (US), a Victorian mystery that recalled Dickens’ London to life; and A Treacherous Likeness (UK)/A Fatal Likeness (US), a fictionalisation of the turbulent and mysterious lives of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary, author of Frankenstein.

Tom-All-Alone’s was a 2012 crime book of the year for both the Spectator and Sunday Express, and A Treacherous Likeness was called “an absolute must” by the Daily Mail.  Find more about her on her website www.lynn-shepherd.com and follow her on twitter @Lynn_Shepherd.

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips