Literary Agents – Who Needs Them?

When the Writers’ Week organisers asked me to come and talk on a panel of literary agents, I naturally asked what they wanted me to talk about. (I knew that jokey anecdotes about publishers, writers, and agents would be just the thing; I also knew that my delivery would fall horribly flat, even if I could remember any.)

It was suggested that I might talk about pitfalls for writers – a subject on which literary agents can wax lyrical for hours – but that seemed slightly arrogant from where I sit, and I began to think of pitfalls for agents. And from there I started to think about what agents can and can’t do, how useful we are or aren’t, and by the time I’d thought all that through, I had the bones of what I wanted to talk about.

The hugest, most gaping pit into which the unwary agent can tumble is the pit of pride, of thinking they know it all and can fix it all and make everything come good for whichever lost lamb they’ve most recently taken into the fold. Unfortunately writers conspire to foster this dubious illusion. They like to imagine that once they’ve acquired the services of a literary agent, their careers will flourish like the green bay tree, their work will find instant acceptance, in Australia and everywhere else, film rights will be sold for bulk dollars, and fame and fortune will follow automatically.

It ain’t so, of course, and it’s the agent’s job to make sure that them and their author don’t plop into this pit, cosily hand in hand. There are things agents can do for writers and things we can’t, and it’s important to sort out the cans from the can’ts.