Interview Questions for Robert Dinsdale, A.M. Heath Literary Agency.
SFFWorld had chance to interview one of the most important types of people in the publishing industry: the agent!
Mark talked to Robert Dinsdale, agent for A. M. Heath Literary Agency. They talked about the job, the process of getting published and future prospects. Over to Robert!
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Hello Robert. Thanks for agreeing to this.
It’s a pleasure!
Let’s start with a ‘Room 101’ question. You are a literary agent. I think I’ve got an idea of what the job may involve, but would you like to start by telling us what the job actually involves you doing?
It’s a wide and varied job, but the essence of what we do is facilitating a writer’s career. That can involve reading manuscripts and deciding which writers are worth investing time and energy in, working editorially with a writer to develop their manuscripts, and then placing them with publishers by making submissions and running auctions. After successfully placing a writer’s work, we manage the contracts, negotiating terms and overseeing the process and relationship between the writer and their publisher. We’re on hand to wade into any sticky situations, to mediate any differences of editorial and artistic opinion, and to go into bat for the writer on all kinds of other situations. Naturally, we also manage the financial side of a writer’s career. The perfect literary agent should free a writer up from all of the day-to-day stresses that go with the life and allow them to concentrate solely on their writing.
So: it’s not all manic phone calls, big cheques and liquid lunches, then?
Liquid lunches are a thing of the past – unless you mean the endless cups of tea in the office kitchen – but there are still days when the phone doesn’t stop ringing…
What can you tell us of A.M. Heath, for those who don’t know already?
I work as an independent agent in association with AM Heath, which means my clients have the benefits of being on a small, select list, but still being backed by one of the oldest and most prestigious agencies around. AM Heath is approaching its centenary and, over the years, has represented authors as diverse as George Orwell, Patrick Hamilton, Hilary Mantel, Conn Iggulden and RJ Ellory. It has a rich and varied history, and has developed fantastic and long-lasting relationships with co-agents and publishers all over the world. The team there are incredibly proud of the work they do on behalf of their clients, and in helping those writers to break out to widespread commercial success. You can find more information atwww.amheath.com .
What do you like most about the job personally?
There’s nothing better than the moment you’re able to tell a writer who’s been toiling away on their project for years behind closed doors that a publisher has made an offer and that their dream of seeing that work reach a readership is about to come to fruition. The truth is, though, that those moments don’t happen every day… So the part of the job I most like is reading the work of unpublished writers – whether I can work with them in the end or not – and seeing the birth of those new ideas and stories before anybody else. It’s a pleasure to be able to go in to bat for the writers you work with, and to oversee that whole process from pitch to publication.
Is there a downside?
Publishing is in a dramatic (some might say melodramatic…) time at the moment, with the advent of e-publishing and the slow death of High Street bookselling, so sometimes a project which your instinct says would have flown off the shelves only a few years ago will now struggle to find a publisher – and that’s an incredibly frustrating moment for an agent as well as a writer. The way we approach stories and the way we can take those stories to readers is slowly transforming – and while it’s exciting to see this brave new world unfurl, it can be perplexing to see wonderful projects lost in the tempest.
Your role involves building a list of authors that are specifically science fiction and fantasy. How important is it to have knowledge of the genres you are working in? Or is it sometimes better to be from outside the genres – fresh eyes, and all that?
There are benefits in both, and some of today’s best SFF writers are represented by agents who don’t necessarily specialise in that area. For me, though, there’s nothing like working in an area for which you have a genuine love – it doesn’t feel like work at all, and that’s the same way a reader will experience it, so your reactions to a potential new work can be as close as possible to the general reader browsing in the book store. That said, being widely-read in the genre is always important for seeing what trends are developing, what’s truly original, where the gaps in the market might lie, and for getting a good feel for what the commissioning editors at the various lists are on the look-out for. At the end of the day, great storytelling will always shine through – whether that’s inside or outside your specialist field.
OK. Think we’ve now got an idea of what the job is like. Let’s go to that other common area of interest. “I’m a new writer who’s got this great idea for a novel.” What do I have to do to get you interested further?
The first step is very simple: write it. Without a manuscript to share, all a writer has is a great idea. That counts for a lot, but in the end it’s how that idea’s executed that will really grip a reader, and hence an editor and agent, so before anything else… get it written!
An important thing to remember, even at this early stage, is that there’s a difference between writing a great novel, and writing a great novel-for-publication. It’s incredibly frustrating, but I often read brilliant novels that, for one reason or another – whether it’s because they’re too niche, too ornate, too literary, too long – won’t ever find a publisher. So it’s always worth keeping an eye on what’s actively being published and thinking about how your work might fit into those distinct areas.
Once you have a completed draft, my instinct is that you should always leave it alone for a few months, come back to it with fresh eyes and start thinking about its strengths and weaknesses and how you might begin to develop the raw material in your hands. Only once you have a manuscript with which you’re 100% happy should you start approaching agents – as a rule, agents rarely look at something more than once, so it’s always in your best interests to submit it when it’s as strong as it can possibly be.
When it comes to submitting, it’s always best to have done your research and be submitting to agents who actively represent writers in your area – there’s very little to be gained from sending me a piece of chick-lit, or from sending an agent with strong interests in commercial women’s fiction a magnificent epic fantasy! A clear, crisp covering letter is always welcome, and we’re always interested in what plans a writer may have for the future as well.
I hear horror stories of slush piles and rooms full of discarded unread manuscripts. How true is that?
Agencies do receive vast numbers of submissions, but very few of them actually disappear into a black hole and never get read! Part of the agent’s role is to find new writers and take them to market – it’s our bread-and-butter – so the idea that we might have missed a gem by leaving a pile of submissions unread is a recurring nightmare. It’s true that, often, an agency can’t give detailed and personal feedback to every submission – there simply aren’t enough hours in the day – but they do all get read. Personally, I do give whatever personal feedback I can to every submission that comes my way – it’s always a great privilege to read a new writer’s work and to be included in that adventure.
Am I better these days to go down the electronic route and send an email?
It used to be the fact that electronic submissions were outlawed (!), but we’ve finally caught up with the rest of the world and, generally, agencies tend to prefer an email approach now. I’d always prefer email contact in the first instance, and actively encourage new writers to send me their work on[email protected]. I reply to every submission I get and, where possible, offer as much feedback as I can.
What are you looking for in a new writer? What would make you willing to take me on?
Very simply, the work is everything. It has to be fantastic, and it has to be clear how it could be successfully published in a tough market. That might mean it’s an original concept too hard to ignore; it might mean it’s a brilliantly-executed version of something a little more familiar; or it might mean it’s a zeitgeisty subject that simply has to be published straight away. It’s a terrible cliché, but you never know what you’re looking for until it lands!
What single piece of advice would you give a new writer?
Read.
As part of the business I guess you have to keep an eye on what is already selling. There is always that breakthrough novel that catches most people by surprise – for better or worse, in 2012, for example, it seems to be E L James’ Fifty Shades of Grey books. As part of a business, in your opinion is it better to go for what may be a major bestseller as a one-off, and damn the consequences, or build up an author over time and develop a reputation as an agent who delivers quality authors?
The two things – a one-off bestseller and a recurring writer – aren’t mutually exclusive, and both certainly have their place in the industry. That said, it’s always exciting to be working with a writer who’ll still be producing brilliant work in ten or twenty years’ time.
Sometimes the writers who do best over the long term don’t have the most incendiary starts to their careers – and, especially in the SFF world, it can take several books for a loyal readership to emerge and start to swell. So we’re not always on the hunt for runaway bestsellers from the very start – it’s much more about backing the talented, ambitious writers and helping them to steer their ships.
From the vantage point of January 2013 (as we speak) what do you see as the genre areas of most interest for the next couple of years?
There’s a definite sense among the editors I work with that Science Fiction is having something of a minor renaissance, after a decade that’s been dominated by epic fantasy. Genres previously thought to be niches inside the SFF world are actively being sought – military SF, steampunk, horror, and the more literary fantasies are all areas in which editors are looking to expand. That said, trends come and go, and there’s nothing like a series that will transcend the trends and last the ages – and editors are always on the look-out for the next big epic fantasy or space opera that will sell and sell.
Many thanks, Robert, for taking part in this discussion. All the best for 2013!
