Elizabeth Bennet: If I could love a man, who would love me enough to marry me for a mere fifty pounds a year…I should be very well pleased. But such a man could hardly be sensible and I could never love a man who was out of his wits.

Jane Bennet: Oh, Lizzy. A marriage…where either partner cannot love or respect the other, that cannot be agreeable… to either party.

Elizabeth Bennet: Mm, as we have daily proof. But beggars you know, cannot be choosers.

Unpublished writers often feel like beggars, so they jump on the first offer of representation they get. How does it change the course of a writer’s career to sign with an agent that is unsuited to his personality and at cross-purposes with his goals?

In the eight years since I’ve been studying the whole question of how to go about writing and publishing a novel, I’ve had friends and acquaintances who have sold books before they were ready and have killed their careers before they ever got off the ground. They have taken the first agent and the first contract, and they have promised more books than they have time to write well. I don’t blame them. I’d have done the same thing if anyone would have made an offer on my first novel. Yikes! By the grace of God that didn’t happen.

Elizabeth Bennet: One of us at least will have to marry very well. And since you’re five times as pretty as the rest of us, and have the sweetest disposition, I fear the task will fall on you.

Jane Bennet: But, Lizzy…I would wish…I should so much like…to marry for love.

Elizabeth Bennet: And so you shall. Only take care you fall in love with a man of good fortune.

Jane Bennet: Well, I shall try. To please you. And you?

Elizabeth Bennet: I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony. So…I shall end an old maid, and teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill.

I’ve finished reading all the agent and editor interviews in Poets & Writers, and I’ve come away with several new determinations. One of those is that I am determined that only the deepest love will induce me into matrimony.

With an agent or an editor.

It was quite the experience to read all of the interviews straight through. Especially the round table discussions. The agents complained about the editors not getting back to them and they sounded just like writers complaining about agents requesting fulls and then sitting on them for eight months or a year. The editors complained about agents nagging them and they sounded just like agents complaining about writers calling and nagging and shoving manuscripts under the bathroom stalls.

I was tickled by that. It’s so easy to see other people’s sin, but we are so blind to our own.

I wonder why the agents are offended when editors don’t respond to them, though. Why should editors be obligated to answer agents? There seems to be a shift that occurs between the “author to agent” and the “agent to editor” part of the game. Whereas I am working in a buyers’ market, the agents—the best ones, anyway—are working in a sellers’ market. An unpublished author has no clout. Agents have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of writers to choose from. But editors don’t have that many reputable agents sending proposals. If they ignore an agent who is sending good stuff out, they will regret it, because the agent will quit sending them manuscripts, apparently.

I find the whole thing very interesting. These particular agents and editors—the ones interviewed in Poets & Writers—are not ones I’ll ever work with, if I’m ever fortunate enough to be published. They are putting out adult literary works, not YA genre fiction. But much of what they said still applies to the commercial YA publishing scene.

For instance: Agents are the new editors and editors are the new publicity people. Of course editors still edit, they assure us, but more than one agent said an editor who was a cheerleader was really important. And more and more agents are editing their clients before they send out their novels.

What does that mean to me at this stage in the game? Right now I’m looking for an agent. If I happen to get any offers, I will be choosing not necessarily the highest-powered but the one who has the editing sensibilities I trust. If the agent is the new editor, then I have to put myself into the hands of an agent who gets my writing and can help me make it better. Yes, he needs to be able to sell, too. He needs to have a good reputation with editors. He needs to be a man of integrity. But he most immediately needs to be able to edit well. To my mind, a new agent who edits well is better than a powerful agent who doesn’t get your work or doesn’t bother to read your work. Because I believe that a beautifully executed novel will catch an editor’s eye eventually and has a chance of drawing in an audience, whereas a sloppy novel sold too quickly will ruin a writer’s career before it gets started.

But what if Mr. Darcy doesn’t step forward? What if the only agent on the horizon is Mr. Collins? I won’t be cowed by the suggestion that considering my position I may not receive any offers better than his. I have no intention of marrying Mr. Collins. I’d rather end an old maid and teach my sister’s children to embroider cushions.

Because here’s the deal: I don’t live in Jane Austen’s England. I don’t have to marry or starve (or publish or perish). I write because I love to write. Yes, I want to share my work with others. I am communicating when I write, not journaling. I want others to hear me and talk back to me. But I’d rather merely share my novels with friends and family than be stuck with Mr. Collins.

You Might Also Like