After hearing multiple friends talk about the benefits of having a literary agent when negotiating book contracts and even reading about it in Stephen King’s On Writing, I had long said that I would never negotiate a contract on my own. But after receiving enough agent rejection letters to paper my dining room walls, when a small publisher asked me to write a book for them, I decided I could do it myself. Three book contracts later, and more stories from friends, and I am ready to start the process of finding an agent to negotiate my next contract.
Although I didn’t do anything horrific like sign away all of my rights, I have recently realized that I probably could have had a better contract if an agent had been in my corner. My source of information for negotiating the advance and royalties was simply a copy of Writer’s Market, and according to the entry for my publisher and two of their close competitors, they were offering me a deal that was similar to what was listed.
This led me to think that it would be a waste of time to ask for more money in either the advance or the royalties. I was also worried about becoming an adversary with the publisher. Since I would be working with them over the next few months, I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. And of course, there was the tiny little voice in the back of my head saying, “What if they just walk away when you ask for more?”
An agent could have helped with all three of those problems. Because they are negotiating deals regularly, they have a general idea of how much a book is worth. They may also have a history with the publisher and know what they have been willing to pay in the past. An agent knows when to keep pushing and when to pull back, and they don’t have a paranoid voice in their head telling them that the publisher is going to walk away from a book that they want to publish simply because the agent is trying to negotiate. It is, after all, their job to negotiate! And when the agent is the one negotiating, you don’t have to worry about your relationship with the publisher.
Although some authors have been able to successfully negotiate great contracts for themselves, and they feel comfortable doing that, I’ve decided that it really is not my forte, and I’d prefer to have a professional representing me for my next contract.