Literary agents wear many hats: they are editors, advocates, negotiators, deal-makers, and even, career-builders. Who wouldn’t want one in their corner?
If you’re debating whether to work with one, after my interview series with Kathleen Foxx, you won’t be sitting on the fence any more.
Introducing Kathleen Foxx
Kathleen (or just, “Kat” to her friends) is an assistant literary agent with The Rights Factory and she’s ready to spill some beans on the industry.
In Part 1, she:
- provides a behind-the-scenes look at a day in the life of a literary agent
- dishes on the best way to get an agent’s attention
- gives us her top tips for crafting great pitches and effective query letters
And don’t be fooled by her title of “assistant literary agent.” Fueled by a love of story and her passion to help clients reach their publishing goals, Kat is a force to be reckoned with.
Outside of creative work, Kat enjoys travelling, photography, creative cooking, hiking and spending summers in Ontario’s beautiful cottage country. She’s the proud mom of five kids. A romantic to her core, Kat considers herself mostly country with a bit of big city splash, and is convinced her old soul resides somewhere in old world Europe. She’s studying European Portuguese and loves a good glass of red.
Kat is building her list of exceptionally-talented authors in commercial and book club fiction as well as some select nonfiction topics. She keeps a detailed manuscript wish list and what she’s looking for in queries on her website at kathleenfoxxagent.com/mswl.
(Please note that in order to make the interview fit into a blog post format, I’ve made some minor edits to Kat’s answers and formatted them, e.g., Kat did not say things like, “make a bullet list here” or “add more white space there.” I’ve made the edits to improve the interview’s readability only.)
(And please also note that where Kat refers to editors at publishing houses, she means the publisher’s acquisition editor and/or team.)
I’m so grateful to Kat that she took the time to answer my questions.
Q: Can you tell us what a literary agent actually does?
A: Our clients always come first, so we spend time helping them prepare their manuscripts and/or proposals (if it’s a nonfiction work) for submission to editors. This means polishing the manuscript before submission—reading, feedback, revisions, reviewing revisions, more feedback, etc.
We also:
- build submissions lists, which takes quite a bit of time because we research editors who we feel will be a good fit for our client’s manuscript. Some of those editors we will have networked with already, and some not. We spend time networking and getting to know editors because it helps us build submissions lists and it keeps our names and faces out there.
- write the pitch for the manuscript.
- read books to use as comps to help us decide how to best place it in the market.
- submit pitches and manuscripts to editors; and then, while we wait to hear back from them, we work with our clients on the next project.
- have emails, phone meetings, Zooms, etc. with clients and editors.
- have staff meetings—at least we do at our agency; I can’t speak for other agencies.
- work with our in-house foreign rights and TV/film agents to try to sell those rights for our clients.
On top of that, we attend in-person and online conferences near and far, take pitches, provide critiques, etc.
We also spend loads of time reading queries. This often falls to the bottom of our list of priorities because, as I’ve mentioned, our clients must come first.
The time we spend reading and responding to queries is 100% unpaid work. And while the work we do is also unpaid UNLESS we sell a client’s manuscript, it is with the assumption that we will sell the manuscript and eventually earn our commission for it.
Most agents have a second job to supplement their income because it takes a long time to start earning a decent income from agenting alone; so, this is all done with the additional time and stress of another job.
Q: Can you give any tips to aspiring authors on how best to attract an agent’s attention with their work?
A: Be confident in your query letter or your pitch, not cocky. We see quite a few query letters from authors who come across as being very egotistical in their query letters—that if we don’t take on their amazing project, we’d be at a loss. Don’t do this.
Just be confident in how you word things, get right to the point (the plot), and show us a little of who you are outside of writing in your brief bio.
Don’t tell us how the book will make us feel. That’s for us to decide individually. The plot matters the most!
And in the pages—just make sure they’re as polished as they can be.
On the phone call, have some questions ready for us, and be prepared to answer ours. Be friendly and confident and excited. Let your passion shine!
And remember that an author-agent relationship is very much based on how well you jive together, and that’s often something intangible. It’s just how well you click in your interactions.
Q: Do you have any tips for writers and authors who are in the submissions process at the moment?
A: Work on the next project!
Many authors obsess over what they have just sent in because they think of something they wish they’d changed or look for things to change because they’re anxious and worried it’s not good enough. Please don’t do this!
If you’re still feeling like this, then you’re not ready to query. If you still think it needs revisions, then you’re not ready to query. You need to wait until you’re confident that it’s ready, then query it; and then, set it aside and wait to see what happens.
Work on your next project in the meantime.
Query in batches so you can maybe get some feedback from agents. If they make requests for pages, you know your query letter is working. If they all pass, you know it’s something in your pages. And hopefully after they’ve read some of your work, they’ll have a bit of feedback for you to help give you some sort of direction for your next round of revisions.
Q: What happens if you cannot sell a manuscript?
A: This is hard!
It’s heartbreaking for authors if their baby doesn’t sell, but it’s also heartbreaking for agents because these are stories that we believed in so strongly and were passionate about.
And financially speaking, it’s a LOT of work that will now go unpaid.
However, most of us are looking for career authors, meaning there’s always the next project to try and sell. So, when this happens, which is very common since it’s so hard to sell manuscripts to publishers these days, we work on the next project.
We take any feedback we’ve receive from editors who’ve passed on the first project, and we apply it to the next project.
Sometimes, we work on the first project and do a re-write or extensive revisions and try again in another round of submissions to different editors. But often it means moving on to the next project.
Authors should remember that agents can’t always sell their book, and it’s not because the agent isn’t doing everything they can. It’s that editors are getting more and more picky about what they choose to take on.
So, the best advice is to learn, grow, and make your next project even better and try again!
Q: What’s the most common mistake you see in a pitch? How can it be avoided?
A: Talking about anything other than your plot! That is the ONLY thing that matters in a pitch.
You have an extremely limited time to get your plot across to the agent, so focus on the uniqueness of it, the hook, the vibe/tone, and the tension. Make us curious!
And practise, practise, practise! So that you’re not wasting all your pitch time trying to explain things to the agent.
Q: How do you feel about in-person pitch sessions? (Most writers are completely terrified of them.)
A: I like them now that I’m on the other side of them!
I know it can be scary for authors. It can be nerve-racking for me, too, but I like them. It gives me a chance to interact with the author, which is something we don’t have the opportunity to do when going through the “slush pile” (cold queries). If I have questions about the plot, I can ask the author, which is again something I can’t do with a cold query.
Q: When should authors start querying agents?
A: Only when their manuscript is 100% complete and polished, i.e., it’s been beta-read, critiqued, and revised, revised, revised. It should be as perfect as you can possibly make it. And always get fresh eyes.
Q: How should authors query you and what do you want to see in the query letter?
A: Authors can check out my MSWL (manuscript wish list). And if they have something that they think I’d like, they can query me using Query Manager.
In the query letter, an agent needs to have specific details (without going into spoiler territory) to give them a good sense of the overall story arc and character arc, but not so many details that it feels verbose. Each sentence in the query letter must be direct, purposeful, story-forward, and concise.
If agents don’t have a good handle on the plot by the end of the query letter, they likely won’t go further than that. You have only about 30 seconds to impress an agent enough that they’ll want to read more. So, make the plot paragraphs as specific and plot-focused as possible, and in as few words as possible. (The entire query letter should be roughly 350 words max.)
Make sure the hook of your story is clear: what’s the big thing that will make readers sit up and give it attention? What’s the unique thing about your story that people will want to know more about?
Start with the intro paragraph (bonding line, metadata, and comps (two titles, three max)—and WHY you’re comping to those titles); then, follow with the plot paragraph(s); and then, close with a short bio paragraph.
The plot paragraph(s) should have:
- an introduction to the main character with a description of their “norm” before the inciting incident
- the inciting incident/catalyst that throws them onto their journey
- their goal(s)
- who or what they’re up against (i.e., conflict/the big dangerous thing they have to do)
- what they risk if they fail to reach their goal(s)
All of this must be woven together with voice, tension, and curiosity.
Using strong descriptors can help guide the agent into what kind of tragic event or what kind of family secret (or whatever the case may be) without giving away spoilers.
The last line of the plot paragraphs should have an infusion of tension in it, leaving the agents hanging on what could happen. What’s the worst-case scenario for the main character? Focus on stakes—what they risk losing—for the last line.
Sorry folks, but we’re wrapping up Part 1 of my interview with Kat here.
But there’s more to come! Get ready for the next installments of my interview:
- Part 2, where Kat talks about setting realistic expectations and why having an agent still matters today. She also does a deep dive on what literary agents, like her, look for in manuscripts.
- Part 3, where Kat talks about marketing, royalties and author platforms and explains why she is so passionate about her job and her clients.
Trust me, you won’t want to miss Kat’s insights in the literary agenting and publishing world.
To check out or follow Kat’s work, visit:
Authors can view Kat’s MSWL (manuscript wish list) at kathleenfoxxagent.com/mswl. And if you think she’d be a good match for you, your work and your career, please query her using Query Manager at Query Submission for Kat Foxx.
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