What Makes a Great Agent

Literary agents get a lot done that a writer just can’t. If you’re debating whether to work with one, hearing how I couldn’t do this without Amy Tipton of Signature Literary Agency might help you decide.

Agents can be editors, advocates, negotiators, deal makers, and prognosticators. They can be career builders. Here’s what Amy has done for me.

Does Your Agent Listen?

Every time I produce a manuscript idea or a premise, she’s willing to listen. She’ll bat an idea back and forth, and she’ll offer a plot twist or turn that can make the story take a leap forward. The last scene for No Small Thing resulted from an email exchange.

Does Your Agent Educate?

She helps me think about novel premises in terms of the market of young adult fiction and helps me better understand what editors want. While my art will always come from my muse, it has to also match the moment. By that, I don’t mean “sell out to fads or trends.” Writing isn’t just for self, it’s for audience, and so you have to make a happy hybrid of your wants and the world’s.

Does Your Agent Believe?

Not everyone wants to read about the social justice issues I write about: sexual assault, academic corruption and athletics, racism, and bullying. That’s another key: meeting of the minds. Amy’s feminist values and her commitment to social justice align with my world view. I love seeing on Facebook what outrages her, because it’s often exactly what pisses me off, too.

She understands the issues I care about, and she believes in my characters. She lives in my same fictional world where I think Audrey, T, Kendyll, Minerva, Gabe, and Diana are totally real. She stands behind my work.

Is Your Agent Editorial?

Whether I’ve produced a partial or a whole manuscript, she’ll read it super close and deliver–often, in under a week!!!–the unvarnished truth about my prose. She praises what works and rips what doesn’t. That is key. There is no room for tender feelings in this process, even though they’ll crop up anytime anyone tells you what’s bad. I’d rather have my advocate tell me straight up than an editor who doesn’t want the book.

When my first draft of No Small Thing was so very far from what it could be, Amy delivered the news. I tease her that “Uh, no!” is her signature marginal comment, telling you to cease and desist, immediately, with that nonsense you just wrote. Wordsmiths sometimes get caught up in their dreams and prose and generate unsaleable prose.

Does Your Agent Hustle?

She subs out patiently to editors. She’s built relationships over these years, she’s cultivated them, she gets how editors think. How in the world with a day job and every spare moment devoted to writing I could ever develop that…? The answer is, I couldn’t and I can’t.

She responds quickly to emails. (In fact, I’m spoiled: I often get same-day service.) Don’t underestimate this last one–it’s certainly not the least for me. If your agent can’t make time to respond or manage her inbox, then you may have on your hands a weekly struggle with wondering what the hell your agent thinks of your work and whether she values your time. Trust me, I’ve been there, and I’ve seen other authors worry about this. In my day job, I require that staff respond regularly to emails. Otherwise, in virtual employment, how do I still know you’re working for us? You can’t go off the grid. I know how hard it is to manage multiple priorities and a cluttered inbox full of missives from a variety of stakeholders. And yet, I do it. Your agent can do it. You shouldn’t have to chase someone.

These are just some of the things that make a difference to me in the work Amy does, and it makes the long journey of writing and subbing so much easier. I’ve got a companion for the journey, rooting me on, and guiding me right.

Thank you, Amy.