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Advice for writers

Discussion in 'General Support and Advice' started by Chizu, Mar 29, 2020.

  1. Chizu

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    I've been planning on trying to get a novel I've been working on published. I've self-published under pen names before, but now I have a novel I want to get traditionally published under my legal name. From what I've read, getting traditionally published is hard to do. It was hard for Stephen King, and I don't pretend to be as good as him. Worse, from what I've read, it's only gotten harder. One book on publishing I read said there are publishing offices that get so many query letters and manuscripts sent to them, they stuff them all in a backroom, and when it gets filled up, they order a bunch of pizzas and task their interns with sending out the rejection letters. Some publishing books have also advised on not addressing query letters and manuscripts with "To the editing staff" or "To whom it may concern," and instead track down individual editors and address them by name at their office. To me, that makes me uncomfortable. I hate marketing myself, I just want a professional to read what I wrote, and tell me if they want it.
    All in all, it sounds like a lottery you must work for rather than buy a cheap ticket. I'm fine with getting published with a smaller publishing company, I just want my book to have a fighting chance.
    I was planning on sending out submissions to as many editors and agents as I could find this summer, but now the coronavirus has everything shut down. I would imagine that many editors and agents’ offices are closed right now, especially since most of the big ones are in NYC and NYC is quarantined right now. I guess many of them can work from home, and if it's possible, I wouldn't mind submitting my novel electronically, since it's a big book (over a hundred thousand words). Still, I don't know if the quarantine is just going to result in more submissions piling up while the editors are at home, burying my submission deeper. I've been thinking of instead using the summer to either polish my manuscript more, or work on making one of my other novels more publish-worthy.
    Should I wait for the pandemic to be over? I heard editors and agents aren't okay with you submitting the same novel more than once, and I've invested so much of my heart and soul into this book, I don't want to risk it getting rejected because I didn't have the patience to wait for the pandemic to end.
     
  2. LostInDaydreams

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    I have no idea about publishing...but as a general rule, it’s always best to find the name of a person rather than write “to whom it may concern”. That goes for job applications, work experience requests, and everything. It shows that you’ve done your research, you’re interested and invested, and lessens the chance that your letter will be ignored. You need to stand out, so I would make the effort to find some names, and you could use this time to do that.
     
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  3. Aspen

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    I have a feeling that you have a lot of misconceptions about how publishing works, so I’d encourage you to do your research. Publishing has a huge presence on Twitter, and plenty of authors, agents and editors run informational blogs. Let me know if you want any recommendations.

    It’s true, traditional publishing is hard. Publishing is an industry that isn’t like any other. Many small publishers will accept queries from authors directly, but I’d encourage you to look at querying agents first. Many publishers will not accept submissions from authors who don’t have an agent. There’s a lot of reasons for this but, for you as an author, a good agent will represent your best interests. Their whole job is to make sure you get the best deal possible and then to make sure that you get paid.

    If you think that’s not going to be an issue when you’re not being scammed (and scams are a significant problem in publishing), there’s a popular small-press that recently fell into boiling water when it came to light that they were months behind on their payments to authors.

    Publishing is trying to figure out how to live in a coronavirus world just like the rest of us, but most of the industry is still running. Agents are still reading queries. Editors are still acquiring. Release dates—unlike movies—haven’t been delayed yet. Everyone’s just doing their work at home instead of the office and meetings over Zoom instead of in person.

    You have to submit your manuscript electronically. Some agents still accept mail queries, but it’s a rarity in this day and age. Again, do your research. Sending a mail query to an editor or agent that doesn’t accept them is a good way to get chucked in the recycle bin unread.

    Do not address queries as “To whom it may concern.” It’s impersonal and it suggests that you’re not really paying attention to who you’re submitting to. Use a formal greeting with the agent/editor's name.

    And, no, you can’t submit the same manuscript more than once unless A) The agent/editor requests you specifically to make changes and resubmit, or B) The entire book changes to be entirely unrecognizable from the original version.
     
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  4. Chizu

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    Thank you, you were more helpful than I anticipated. Recommendations would be lovely. There's still a lot I don't know and understand, mainly because I've been devoting most of my time to improving my writing, on top of my everyday life.
     
  5. Chierro

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    Hi! I'm seeing this like a month later but I figured I'd offer some insight. (And I very well may be reiterating Aspen, because she gave good input.) So...

    Publishing is still very much happening. A lot is weird with actual publication right now because of printing presses not running, so a lot of books are getting pushed by a few months but you're not at the point yet where that matters. Even if you sold your book tomorrow, it wouldn't be published until next year at the absolute earliest. But agents are still reading queries. Publishers are still buying books. Things are happening differently, but things are still happening.

    Research your agents. Sent queries far and wide but make sure you do your research, don't just send out to every single agent. There are a lot of sketchy agents out there and the more research you do, the easier it is to find. Who do they represent? What do they represent? What's their social media presence like? There are a lot of helpful sources on a certain bird app (I can't remember if I can say the name or not) that have helped me. I've slowly started following a lot of agents. And make sure you research submission guidelines. Most agencies have many agents, and some will not let you submit to multiple agents at once (I almost made that mistake the other day). One strong place you can look in ManuscriptWishlist. You can literally find agents specializing in your genre and then look through their wishlist of what they're looking to find in their inboxes.

    Another big thing to look for is pitch contests on that bird app. They are an absolute blessing. PitchWars, PitMad, DVpit (my personal favorite and specializing in giving marginalized writers a leg up), there're plenty more. There are designated days and times for your genre and you pitch your novel in a Tweet. If agents want to read more, they interact with you (it differs on the contest) and you then know specific agents who you should query. DVpit just did their most recent round and I queried three agents who liked my pitches. Currently, I have five queries out with agents and have racked up six rejections.

    With pitch contests, a major perk is some agents change their querying guidelines. Instead of just sending a query letter, they'll change it to "Give me the first 10-50 pages in addition to the query letter" or something along those lines.

    Make sure you spend time polishing your query. I've won online contests to get agents to help me with my query letter and have accepted offered help on social media. I have a dummy query ready to go (if you message me, I'd be happy to send it to you), but I have room to personalize it for an agent. And make SURE you address it to the specific agent.

    Also make sure you have a synopsis ready to go. I didn't and then I encountered agents who want one. Single-spaced, one page minimum...it's a lot harder to fill than you'd think. Some agents want one, some don't, but it's good to have one ready.

    Make sure your manuscript is polished before you query. During my last round of queries I refused to touch my manuscript again until I heard back from every agent I queried. Once I got all of those rejections, I went back and did another round of edits. Some agents are willing to take on a manuscript that needs some work. Others want a manuscript that is ready to go and be shopped around to publishers ASAP.

    Know your book. You said it's over 100,000 words so that tells me it's Adult Fantasy? If it's not, you might want to look at comparisons. For example, my YA contemporary that I'm querying right now is just under 85,000 words and that's pushing it in young adult debut territory. If your word count is too far outside of the typical range for your genre, an agent and an editor are likely going to be wary about taking it on, especially if it would be your debut (rules change after you get published).

    You typically can't query the same thing twice unless it's requested to do so or it's drastically different. For example, one of the first agents I queried gave me a rejection but it was a "This wasn't for me, but I like your voice, so keep me in my for the future?" kind of rejection. If I had drastically redone my manuscript then yeah, I would've queried her again. That's why you have to know your book is ready to go before you send it out in the world, you don't often get second chances.

    But also keep working on your writing. If you catch an agent's eye, they're going to offer you representation...and know what else you have in mind for stories. For me? I'm querying one manuscript while in the rough stages of another but I have three or four more ideas fully outlined concept wise that I would be ready to share with my (future) agent. It's also just a good idea to step away from a manuscript and come back to it later for a fresher perspective. That's what I did, I wrote a whole other manuscript before coming back and doing new edits. Because consider this, if you sell a book this year and say you want to publish a book a year. You'll have a set number of months to do edits for THIS book but then you'll have a new deadline for your next that you'll need to be aiming towards.

    Last but not least, make sure you're okay with rejection. Writing and publishing is subjective. Some agents will love something while others hate it. Some will takes weeks to respond, some will respond in a day (I just pitched an agent on Friday night and she rejected me by Saturday morning). Some will give form rejections (which sucks, and they'll be the first to admit it, but they just don't have the time), but many will take the time to give personalized rejections. And it's okay to get rejected because someone will see that spark in your writing and want to take that chance on you. Just be patient, it'll happen.

    Hope this helps :slight_smile:
     
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  6. Chizu

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    A lot changed in just a month. Once I found out I wasn't allowed to write big books like King and Rowling, I ran into a writers block that ended with a eureka solution. I cut out an entire arc in my story, along with a few unnecessary chapters, which greatly took out a huge chunk of the words. I rewrote my climax and ending. It's around 75,000 words now. Even though it's shorter, I like it a million times better, and it has a plot structure that makes it more flowing and less episodic. There's some stuff I want to add, it could bring it up to 85k, but I tend to cut out a lot in my edits (like filter words, my overuse of intensifiers, and my love affair with the word "just"). Since I just finished the new version of my rough draft, I'm going to let it rest until I return to edit it.

    It's a YA science fiction, at least, I think it should be YA. I have a lot of dark scenes that touch on touchy subjects, but I can't see why they should be unsuitable for teens.

    I've been binging literary agent blogs and vlogs. What I still can't figure out is if comp titles are absolutely necessary. I found some agents like them and some don't. I guess I have to come up with them for agents that want them, but should I bother including them for the ones who don't?
     
  7. Chierro

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    Whether or not it's YA is really dependent on your characters. How old are they? How do they act? What're their struggles? Typically 19 is like the upper age of a YA character, but there are adult books with teenage characters.

    And then what kinds of dark scenes? YA can easily have dark scenes and touchy subjects (a lot do), but are we talking explicit sex scenes, brutal murder, etc.? That's all for you to figure out and comp titles are the easiest way to do that.

    Which leads me to...
    Yeah, they're necessary.

    Like you said, it depends on the agent. If a specific agent doesn't like them, leave them out, but a lot are going to want them. Your comp titles help tell the agent, "What kinds of readers will this book attract?" So if you're writing about a boy wizard who enters a deadly magical tournament to save someone he loves you may comp it as "Harry Potter x(meets) The Hunger Games." That tells an agent, "Woah, those are two major franchises and that could be HUGE if true."

    But there are a couple things to keep in mind for comps...
    • Avoid the bigger franchises or if you do, try not to sell yourself as "The Next Harry Potter." (I know you're sci fi but bear with me!)
      • Bigger franchises can make you come off as super cocky. You might BE the next big thing, but you should tone it down a bit.
    • Your comps don't have to be literally "My manuscript is x meets y."
      • They can be more along thematic lines or take elements of one and elements of another and making something new with that combo.
    • The more recent the comp titles the better.
      • Most often I see "don't use anything more than five years old" which I think is generally good, but depends on your manuscript and the comps. This is where older, major franchises could help. Say you have Hunger Games vibes. Any YA agent is going to know Hunger Games and that will be a key to them.
      • But also just try and find recent things. It's a business and there's a market. If the market is currently saturated with space cowboys and you wrote about a space cowboy, then what makes it different? Use that saturation of comp titles to your advantage and help redefine it. What you're selling your agent is on an agent they can profit from, because agents don't really receive a strong pay day until they sell that book. If they take a chance on you, they're expecting and wanting profit.
    • Comp titles don't have to be just books!
      • You can very easily use movies or TV shows to comp. Essentially saying, "my book is this if it was a book." Obviously, your work should still be different from your comp, it shouldn't be LITERALLY that movie or TV show in book form, but it's a helpful identifier.
      • Same rules apply with being wary of major franchises. If you comp your work to, say, Stranger Things, those are huge shoes to fill. But they can be filled if you do it right.
    • Comp titles can be just one book/show/story but twisting it!
      • It doesn't have to always be "x meets y," it can be something with a twist. So, for example, you could maybe comp yours as "Star Wars but make it gay" (I don't know, I'm really shooting in the dark). That tells an agent (specifically one who focuses on LGBT stories) that "oh hey, gay Star Wars actually sounds kind of great!"
      • My current WIP I'm pitching as "Running With Lions x band camp." Running With Lions by Julian Winters is this gay YA soccer book that I adore. So I'm taking those vibes and instead of soccer, I'm setting it at a band camp.
    • This should be self explanatory, but don't trash your comp titles.
      • Never say something along the lines of, "This is Stranger Things...but if someone better wrote it." That's just...no, don't do that. Super cocky and super easy way for agent to just say, "Nah, I'm gonna pass."
    You may also find agents who ask "What groups would this book appeal to?" and/or ask you for a whole list of comp titles. That's why they're so good to have on hand and ready to use, even if some agents don't want them. Whenever you query, you should absolutely be tailoring to the agent. You want them to be personal with you, so you should be personal with them.

    Also...
    You are allowed, it's just that debuts typically aren't massive. 100,000 words works out to a 400 page novel (it's typically 250-350 words per page), which to me isn't too daunting to read. But an agent has to know you've got what it takes to help you take those risks with bigger works. Could you write the next It? Sure, but that book is over 400,000 words and if you tried pitching something like that to an agent...they'd have a meltdown. But look at King's debut, Carrie? Less than 200 pages and it kicked off his entire career and allowed him to write this crazy massive works.
     
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  8. Chizu

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    I tried not to be too explicit. I've been back and forth on what to make the main character's age. I'd prefer to make him 16, because he is adopted and that's integral to the story, but I could get away with making him 18 if I had to, since in this sci-fi world, people live forever and youth is hence considered to last into the hundreds. I left out sex, but my main character references masturbation, just references, and I found plenty of YAs that do that, and has a wet dream. The wet dream was mainly for the man v self arc of the plot, and I made it lighter than the detail Judy Blume went into in Then Again maybe I Won't, and that was a middle grade, but it was written way back in the 70s and Americans became more Puritanical in the 80s. I think it should pass. The main character at some point confesses to being sexually assaulted in his past, I mainly kept the language vague for that one. There are no murder scenes, but a death scene where the main character looks over the dead body of someone special to him, and there's lots of blood. One of the antagonists is, well, a racist, but she doesn't say any racial slurs. Then I have lots of bullying scenes that I tried to make as unsettling as possible (like poor Carrie White in the King novel). Lots of swearing, the homophobic F-word, and the R-word, all said either by antagonists, or by the main character's internal monologue to reflect his low self-esteem and self hatred.
    There definitely isn't a whole lot of books within the past 2, or even 5 years, that are a close match to my book, so the only way I can get away with it is I say something along the lines of "the theme of x and the world building of y" or something like that.
     
  9. Chierro

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    The things you describe seem to fit right into a YA wheelhouse. Admittedly, we're only really slowly coming around to more sex/masturbation-positive books, but I think it helps depict realistic male teenager characters. YA's allowed to be brutal and do a lot of things, and a lot of it revolves around the main character's age.

    This is the one thing I think could simultaneously help or harm you. On one hand, it makes your book unique and helps it stand out. On the other hand, that may cause an agent to struggle to find a market and publisher for it.

    However, if you can find books to help you with "the theme of x and the world building of y," then that'll help you. The main purpose of comps is to help sell the book. I mean if I pitched something as "The themes of Hunger Games and Harry Potter meets the world building of Game of Thrones," then that's kind of major epic fantasy I'm pitching there. Someone is going to be interested in that, but it could take a bit longer to find just the right agent to represent your work (and make sure you focus on finding the right one).
     
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  10. Chizu

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    Well, my book is sort of a utopianist novel. There's an over-saturation of dystopian novels (Hunger Games, Mazerunner, Divergent, the list goes on), but utopian novels tend to be rare, mainly because in a truly perfect society, there would be no conflict, and hence not a good plot. Naturally, I couldn't come up with a pure utopia because I'd run into the said problem, so my world has a lot of unsettling facets that wouldn't jibe with most people today, has some villains to spice things up, and the main character as an outsider has a strong internal conflict. I don't spell it out, but the main moral of the story is that as imperfect as this fictional world is, it's still a better alternative to the world we are living in now. I drew a lot of inspiration from the Scottish science fiction author Iain Banks and his Culture Series, but sadly Banks passed away and the series ended in 2012. I also base my plot around a strong platonic relationship that makes it practically a platonic romance (a Bromance?).
    I've been binging books for comp titles to use. So if you know any books in the past few years that have a utopian feel or a strong platonic relationship, I'd like to give it a read. Otherwise, I'm wondering if using anime titles are allowed.
     
    #10 Chizu, May 4, 2020
    Last edited: May 4, 2020
  11. Chierro

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    Well, it's not in the past few years but it's a classic so The Giver by Lois Lowry (and really the whole quartet). It's a utopian society that has a dark underbelly and has the main character strive to break away from this so-called utopia. And it might be worth it to just google bromance in YA novels. Will Grayson, Will Grayson is gay, but has a bromance in it. And while I haven't gotten to read them yet, the Fence graphic novels are set at an all boys school and are gay but also have bromances.

    As for using anime, that would really depend on the agent. If you are researching an agent and see that they have an interest in anime (some mention it on their manuscript wishlist or on their social media), then it might be safe to use. I mean like me, the only anime I watch is Digimon, so if I were an agent and someone pitched me some obscure anime as a comp it probably wouldn't perk me too much. More popular anime series could be a safe bet, but depends on the agent.
     
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  12. Aspen

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    Chierro's got comps almost entirely covered but I wanted to note a few things:

    There's a lot of disagreement in how comps work. Some agents say you can use anything (that includes anime). Some agents say only books published in the last 3-5 years. I'm going to tell you to do what's best to sell your book, but keep in mind the purpose of comps. They're intended to give the agent a feel for what you book is, sure, but they're also intended to show that you know the market and where your book would fit in the bookstore.

    Don't comp to blockbusters at all. No Hunger Games, no Harry Potter, no Ready Player One, no Twilight. There's too much risk for any potential reward. Agents see this so often from writers who really do think they're "the next J.K. Rowling" that they're unlikely to assume that you really did put thought into the comparison.

    I wish I could give you recs but YA sci-fi has been a "dead genre" for years and while it still exists and it's starting to come back more, I don't read very much of it. My suggestion would be to check through the genre on your library website or B&N, but also look at books where fantasy and sci-fi intersect (a la Once & Future by Cori McCarthy and Amy Rose Capetta). Yes, anime titles are allowed, although I'd highly recommend having at least one book.
     
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  13. Chierro

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    Yeah, I forgot to mention this because YA sci-fi isn't my forte either. The good news is that I've seen agents saying, "Yes, give me weird sci-fi stuff so we can work to bring it back." The bad news is that if publishers don't feel there's a market for it, they're going to be less likely to buy it.

    Some YA sci-fi titles I can think of (aka, looking through my past readings and suggestions I've gotten through social media):
    • The Chosen series by Taran Matharu
    • The Disasters by M.K. England
    • The Lorien Legacies series by Pittacus Lore
    • The Lorien Legacies Reborn series by Pittacus Lore
    • The Gone series by Michael Grant
    • The Monster series by Michael Grant
    • The Carve the Mark series by Veronica Roth
    • The Mortality Doctrine series by James Dashner
    • The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson
    • The Illuminae Files series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
    • The Aurora Cycle series by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
    • The Renegades series by Marissa Meyer
    • The Bloodright Trilogy by Emily Skrutskie
    • The Warcross series by Marie Lu
    • The Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman
      • I haven't gotten a chance to read this yet...but the synopsis makes it sounds like it may be a great comp, and I've heard great things.
    So yeah YA sci-fi is in a weird place. All of those series are ones I've read in the past couple years (and some of the books are older than when I read them) or popular books I've heard of. One thing you'll notice the more you look is that while YA sci-fi is "dying," it also really has its own little niche of authors that are keeping it going. Veronica Roth wrote the Divergent series. James Dashner wrote The Maze Runner series. If you can comp to any of those, you may find a market. (And see who represents those authors that their books intrigue you as comps.)
     
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  14. Chizu

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    I heard that too, hence why I haven't quit my day job. I'm not really deluding myself in thinking I'm going to land a six figure advance and make a bestseller. I found a few agents who are still looking for YA sci-fis that are at the top of my list, but I'm still not quite ready for the query trenches. Sometimes I find an agent that'll take a ya scifi but not other genres I like to write, like ya fantasy (another genre I heard can be hard to sell). Still, I'd like my YA to go the traditional route.
    The good news is I'm so poor I don't have the money to get scammed by a vanity press lol!
     
  15. Aspen

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    YA fantasy is only a hard sell in that everyone and their brother has a YA fantasy they want to sell. The market for them is huge but you really need to be able to stand out from the crowd. (I know, YA fantasy is my genre.) With that perspective, all genres are a tough sell, really.
     
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  16. Chizu

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    I know I joked that I don't have enough money to be scammed by a vanity press, but now I'm starting wonder/worry - if I find an agent and sign a contract accepting their offer of representation, could they scam me by entering into a deal with one, forcing me to pay money I probably don't have? Is that a common thing that happens? I'll check any agents background as much I can, and read the fine print to any contract I sign, but I am worrying something like that could happen.
     
  17. Chierro

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    Aspen might know better than me...but no that shouldn't be a thing that happens. Like if an agent tries to charge you reading fees...that's a red flag I've seen.

    If you're asking if they could scam you by entering into a deal with a vanity press though, you have some say over that (I believe?). You're in a business relationship with an agent, and while they may seem like they have the power, really you do. If you don't feel comfortable having your manuscript being submitted to a vanity press, you have the right to say no to that. Your manuscript should not be submitted to anywhere that you don't feel comfortable.
     
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  18. Aspen

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    Definitely not. Agents make money when you make money. Vanity presses operate on a business model of making money from authors, not for them, which means an agent would have nothing to gain. Vanity presses don't give advances (because you're the one paying them) and they don't sell books so there's no royalties. The only way this would possibly work was if the agent was contracted to the press and paid commission on your payment but that is absolutely not the kind of thing that would be allowed to stand. If that was happening with an agent, you would know. They would almost certainly be running their own agency by themself because no legitimate agent would ever talk to them.

    Here's a few things to give you peace of mind if you're still worried: You can talk to other clients of the agent and agency before you sign with the agent. You can read the contract before signing with the publisher. You can Google the publisher to make sure they're legitimate. But, seriously, as long as you've done your research on the agent, this isn't something you need to worry about.

    Tl;dr: It's not common. In fact, it's so rare that I'm not sure it's ever happened and, even if it did, there are a hundred ways to avoid it.
     
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  19. Chierro

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    Yes, this! This has been the source of a lot of discourse on a certain bird app lately (I still can't remember if I can say the name). An agent went off and was pissed that people were reaching out to her clients before even querying her. A good agent will encourage you to check into them and give you info of their clients to talk to. If you get offered rep, you can talk to those clients and see if it's a right fit for you.
     
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