Comments on: Finding a Literary Agent Australian-Style

By: Stephanie Gunn » Blog Archive » Some links for the morning

Stephanie Gunn » Blog Archive » Some links for the morning — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:26:54 +0000

[...] Finding an agent, Australia-style. [...]

By: Lynne Green

Lynne Green — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:32:01 +0000

This article is a gem.

By: Glenda Larke

Glenda Larke — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:04:22 +0000

I’m an Australian writer living in Malaysia with an agent in Torquay Devon…

Jeff is right. Anything is possible.

I sell my O/S and translation rights separately. I did have one very bad experience once with a big publisher holding certain O/S rights – never again. You are much better off if you can sell separately, but it is becoming harder and harder to do that for new writers in these poor economic times…

I had an agent first, and I actually believe that without her, I would not be published today.

By: pattyjansen

pattyjansen — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:47:45 +0000

I was told by a widely published Aussie writer, that what Jeff says is largey correct. In Oz, agents don’t seem to be overly interested in you until you get that nibble of interest from a major publisher. To me, it seems that the big publishers take material from the competitions you mentioned, plus it’s not really that hard to send your stuff in to a major Oz publisher, even if their website says they don’t accept unsolicited MSs. Attend a con, ask anyone from a major publishing house: Can I send my MS? If they say yes (which they often do), it’s no longer an unsolicited MS. Presto!
Don’t forget small press either, where you don’t need an agent.

I tend to look at it this way: the agent services YOU, the writer, therefore, I will not get an agent until I need one, i.e. I’m going to have to deal with contracts & crap I’m not interested in. Meanwhile, SFF writers are quite lucky in that there are ways in which writers can get their work under the noses of publishers.

By: angelaslatter

angelaslatter — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:37:09 +0000

All your points are correct. One of the problems of (a) having such a dearth of agents and (b) not thinking outside the land of Oz, is that writers seem to sign with the first person who offers them something, be it agent or publisher.

That’s a symptom of worrying that no one else will ‘ask you out’ and not being aware of the business end of things.

If you sign with an Aussie agent, you should be sure that they also have O/S contacts – some of the bigger agencies have links or sub-agents in the US or UK, which can help get you further afield.

I, personally, am in favour of thinking globally rather than just about Australia – you want to make a living, you need bigger marketplace.

Wait, did I answer a question or pull up a soapbox? It’s so hard to tell nowadays.

By: JeffVanderMeer

JeffVanderMeer — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:07:26 +0000

Here’s a question. Do you need as an Australian writer to get an agent who is in Australia? Seems like with the internet and whatnot, you can submit to anyone anywhere in the world.

I also, for some reason, see more instances of Australian genre writers locking themselves into being with one editor/publisher prior to publication, with no agent involved in that decision-making process, than anywhere else in the English-speaking world. If you don’t get an agent ahead of submitting a novel, the *first* little nibble of interest from an editor at a major publisher should be the point at which a writer *immediately* takes that info to an agent and says, “hey, interested in representing me” and get advice re the editor-writer relationship, etc., before pursuing anything with the editor in question.