Who is a Literary Agent?

Writing and Publishing

After an author has finished writing a book comes the tough question – How to get it published? Who will publish your manuscript and get the books into bookstores and other places? There are three ways to get this done, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. The first method is by contacting publishers directly. The second method is to go via a literary agent. The third method is to self-publish. And each method has its advantages and disadvantages. In this article we shall discuss literary agents. A literary agent is a person who is a middleman between a publisher and an author. The reason for the existence of literary agent is most top publishers do not allow writers to contact them directly. Authors have to route their manuscripts through professional literary agents.

Agents are mostly former employees of the publishing industry and will have a rich experience in what books will sell or won’t sell. They will review a manuscript in detail to see if that book is going to sell well in the market. If they feel a book has value they will accept to represent and pitch it to reputed publishers. For this job, they will get paid a fee between 10 and 20 percent of sales that they help negotiate with publishers on behalf of the writer they represent.

What Does a Literary Agent Do?

Here are some typical responsibilities for a literary agent.