Are Literary Agents Writers’ Friends?
Why originality struggles to survive in the modern publishing industry
Are agents writers’ friends?
Yes, if you can get one. And yes, if you write a certain way. And yes, if you hold certain beliefs.
For the past three years, I’ve been aggressively trying to break into the publishing industry. I’ve been writing novels since I was ten years old, and it’s been my lifelong dream to make a name for myself as a published author. I’ve completed six novels over the past ten years of my life, and of these six, I am particularly proud of my last three, which received glowing feedback from beta readers and even moved several of them to tears.
Nevertheless, every single one of my novels remain unpublished.
I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest literary genius, but I know from both my pool of fifty beta readers and my six-thousand Substack subscribers that there is at least a decent audience for my writing. In fact, given my Internet presence, which extends to almost a hundred thousand people across Substack, YouTube and Instagram, my books would almost certainly outperform the majority of traditionally published novels, half of which sell fewer than twelve copies. From a marketing perspective, signing an author with a respectable Internet platform seems to make sense.
Not for literary agents.
Despite sinking thousands of hours into editing my novels to absurdity, connecting with literary agents at conferences, and even throwing entire paychecks at professional query package review services, I have been categorically unable to break into the traditional publishing industry. The best part is that everything I am doing seems to be in line with industry expectations: I have had over forty agents review full manuscripts of my three novels, suggesting that my pitch and opening pages are landing. I have had two agents make offers of representation, praising my writing to no end—only to mysteriously back out shortly after sending over paperwork.
There’s something fishy going on here.