Agenting full time: the dream (not the reality… yet)
I’m in a lovely, lovely discord chat with a bunch of new/newish agents. A lot of us are in that 0-2 year range, with the most “senior” of us in (I believe) her 4th year.
And as of the day I’m writing this, not a single one of us is agenting full time. Some of us (including yours truly) have full time office jobs. Others have cobbled together agenting with freelance work such as editing services and query critiques. Others have partners who are the full time workers for the household as they build their agenting career. Many are looking for more work to help bridge the $$ gap, and we even have a channel on the chat for “jobs” to see if we can help each other spot opportunities when needed. That said, most of us are in a place where we would love to agent full time. And we’re not there yet—but we’re willing to go through the discomfort and strain of the hustle economy to try and scrabble our way there, because we love the work.
To me, this is a fact of the agenting journey. You simply can’t support yourself with it off the bat. It’s a slow burn, long game career. I knew this going in, and I’m comfortable with it.
But 10 years ago, when I started querying agents with my first (terrible) dystopian YA, I had no idea agents didn’t all work full time.
Fully Committed?
I want to get into this topic today because I figure if 10 years ago I assumed most (if not all) agents did agenting full time, some of you may be in the same boat.
In fact, if I had gotten an offer of representation 10 years ago (which I did not, haha), and the agent had openly said they also had a day job outside of the publishing world, I would likely have considered that to be a red flag. In my (naïve) (ignorant, and I say that kindly) mindset, I wanted someone who was FULLY committed to their work—and consequently to ME as their brand new author. And obviously if they were FULLY committed that meant they were working FULL time… right?
Want to know something funny? I’ve heard directly from veteran agents (like, from their own mouths) that when they got their start in the industry, they felt the need to hide the fact that they had day jobs, because it might make them seem less credible, committed, serious. So they simply never talked about it.
And when people never talk about something, well, then (to state the obvious) no one knows. And the façade perpetuates itself into an assumed reality which then turns into an expectation, which… can someone scream “unhealthy”!?
A new era of transparency… I hope
I think we’ve gotten a lot better at being open about this. I’ve certainly never tried to hide this, and, I mean—visit my LinkedIn profile and it’s all laid out right there for anyone to see.
I’ve seen lovely posts on X from agents such as Keir Alekseii (follow her here) talk about their experience, and my heart always rejoices, because I do believe that more transparency leads to a better world.
Guys, I’m so relieved the days of agents hiding day jobs are over. First of all, living takes up enough of my energy that I don’t have it in me to add an extra layer of pretending.
And second—more importantly— all that pretending creates an illusion that, to me, contributes to things Not Being So Great—to people not actually understanding what is going on, what the economics of the agenting job are, and how realistic it is to pursue that career, etc etc.
The economics of agenting
Before I even get started on this, I’d like to point out something else that seems obvious to me now, but to 10-years-ago-Jenna was not.
You know how agents take a 15% commission?
Well, spoiler—the agent doesn’t keep that full 15%. The agency takes a portion. This varies widely—like, widely (another post for another time)—from agents who start out only getting to keep 3.75% for their first year (hi! this is predatory, btw! and I don’t use that word lightly!), to 50-50 splits (a lot of the older, “established” agencies do this), to the 2/3 - 1/3 splits (agent gets 10%, agency gets 5%) that I find is (thankfully) becoming more common.
Let me be totally clear on this point.
AGENTING IS NOT A GET RICH QUICK SCHEME.
In fact, it is more of a “stay poor” scheme haha
To make it work, you will literally work full time hours (and beyond) with zero dollars to show for it… at first
The first years of agenting, it is very hard to make not just any significant amount of money, but any money at all (more on the “why” of that later)
You read that right.
Most agents make little to no money during their first year of working.
Many agents, years and years in, still aren’t making enough to rely on agenting as their sole source of income, much less the sole source of income for a family.
I’ve gathered from my many conversations with agents over the past couple years that it takes around 7 years of agenting to reach the level where you’re earning something approximating a full time salary. And to be honest, I’ve studied deal patterns from agents on Publishers Marketplace, and even at 7 years in, I’m pretty sure that most agents don’t even reach that level.
Of course, there are the superstars who hit the ground running and haven’t stopped (cough cough Jen Azantian cough Bethany Weaver). But for most of us, building this career takes time.
Why so long to make money?
Great question. I’ll answer this in great detail, haha, with a breakdown of the progression of tasks that it takes to make a sale.
First, you process queries. Yep, it all starts with the query inbox. This can involve a huge volume of pitches and pages to get through—consider that in my first 5 days open, I received 878 queries (!!). Getting through them and getting your footing in terms of your rhythm, and making judgment calls on every single one, well… it takes TIME.
Next, you decide which author(s) you’d like to offer to represent
Time to schedule the “offer of rep” phone call! (btw I’ve never had these last under an hour—it’s intense!)
Now we wait 2-3 weeks after offering for the potential client to decide if they’ll sign with you or someone else
…only to have them sign with someone else
TEARS DESPAIR SHRIEKING
But back to the query inbox! And more offers. And more phone calls. And more waiting.
Finally someone signs with you! CHAMPAGNE! Someone loved you back! And maybe you won’t be in the agenting poorhouse forever!
Now we revise the manuscript so that it’s in its best possible shape
Revising can take months of back and forths, depending on the scope of revisions as well as you and your author’s turnaround speed
Finally, you and your author have revised the manuscript, you’ve line edited the manuscript, written the pitch, and built the submission list, and it’s time to send to editors!
And guess what… editors take months and months to read—and that’s the ones who don’t ghost you, btw (and yes, ghosting happens for all levels of agents, not just us newbies)
Most books don’t sell (sorry to destroy you with that one)
BUT then, maybe after a few months, you get an offer for one of your client’s books!
Now we give all the editors who have the project one to two weeks to read and decide if they want to offer (unless, of course, it’s a preempt—another post for another time)
We finally decide that YES, we are going with that original offer
It can take 1-2 weeks to negotiate the deal memo (the offer)
Now we wait 1-2 months for the contract to arrive
We spend 1-2 months negotiating the contract with the publishing house
Finally, the author signs!
Now the publishing house takes up to 30 days to send the first payment
Finally, the check arrives
*taps mic*
Anyone still with me?
Because that was kind of a lot.
But hey, the check arrives! Time to buy that yacht, right?
Well.
Authors are never paid the full advance amount up front. It’s always split into multiple payments, most commonly halves or thirds, but sometimes even fourths (and I’ve heard of fifths *dear Lord the horror*)
We’ve got:
Payment on signing
Payment on D&A (delivery and acceptance of the manuscript after it’s been through developmental and line edits with the editor)
Payment on publication
Payment on publication of the paperback (often a year after original publication)
No idea what that fifth payment even is, maybe I’ll google it later for kicks
Most often, the first payment (“Payment on signing”) is half of the advance, though it can also be a third. So let’s say you hit it “big” and make a $100,000 deal for 1 book. Let’s say the payment is broken into even thirds, for the sake of the example. That’s $33,000 to the author on signing.
So what about the agent (me)? First, like I mentioned earlier, the portion to the agent isn’t the full 15%. For me, I get to keep 10% (very fair compared to what else is out there, and considering all the support, mentorship and other benefits I receive in return from my agency), so when we FINALLY have signatures on the full contract, I get (drumroll please)… $3,300!
Now add up that timeline from the earlier section. I dare you. That’s how long it takes for me, in this hypothetical example, to get $3,300. (Oops, also you owe self employment tax on that $3,300, so don’t go spending it all! I set aside 40% for that and pay quarterly to both federal and state tax).
The rest of that $100,000 for both the author and me will roll in in installments over the next 1-2 years. That’s right—YEARS.
This isn’t a sob story, btw. I’m thrilled with this (figurative) six-figure deal, and the fact that the book sold and I got to be part of making an author’s dream come true! And getting one step closer to making a living as an agent! But considering how long each step of the process takes, and how the money gets divided up over years, by now it should be obvious that even if I made multiple six-figure deals in my first year of agenting (*the dream*), there’s no way I could support myself on that.
Long game mindset
I think of it like a snowball. If I can just keep bringing deals in the door, eventually those half, third, and fourth split payments will catch up, and I might have the chance at quitting the day job.
But guys… I have a lot of income to “replace” from my day job if I want to quit. It’s not just dollar-for-dollar, either. Self employment taxes are significantly higher than my employee taxes at my day job, and that has to be taken into account. If I leave my day job, I’m “losing” my employer’s 401(k) contributions. And let’s address the biggest elephant in the room: I’d be losing health insurance too (a big deal in the U.S. of A.), which my employer currently fits the bill 100% for (for not just me but my family of 5). Replacing the health insurance alone—if we want a plan as good as the one we currently have—is a bit of an astronomical number. With very rough calculations, considering higher taxes, the cost of health insurance, and the “loss” of retirement options, I’ve calculated that to be able to quit my office job, I need to be selling on the conservative side something in the range of $1,600,000 of books… PER YEAR.
*cue maniacal laughter*
Dream or delusion? You know what, don’t tell me.
In a moment of absolute delusion the other day, I made a little Excel sheet with agenting sales goals over the next 7 years, designed to ramp up to that number. I’ll show you, because these are all fake numbers anyway (except for “deals achieved” which is, in fact, 3!) so there’s no reason to keep it super secret!
(Disclaimer—the sales number could include not just ‘original sales’ of new client books, but royalties on books I’ve already sold that are doing well, foreign/translation rights/audio rights, film options, etc)
I say “delusion” because obviously, this whole thing is simply made up. I can’t control what sells and for how much. In fact, likely some of you (especially, erm, agents who’ve been at this longer than I have) are literally just laughing at this sheet. Like, rolling on the carpet because… yeah. Whooee. (Don’t worry, I’m laughing with you)
I have no idea if this will happen or feel achievable as I go along, or not. I of course reserve the right to adjust this as I move through my first few years of agenting, because we all have to play our little games to reframe success so that we don’t feel crushed (secret tip alert: I am always reframing). But guys, it’s eyes on the prize. I love this work so freaking much. I love working with creatives. I love working on books. I love the nitty gritty of tracking everything and getting into contracts, and even the satisfaction of troubleshooting difficult scenarios. And I love my authors.
Will I ever be able to sell over a million dollars worth of books in a year? And more importantly, even if I’m lucky enough to do it once, will I be able to do that over… and over… and over again?
No idea.
Literally, no clue.
But I’m sure as hell gonna try.
While I maniacally laugh… from time to time.
Thanks for sharing this Jenna. Starting in any creative field is too hard…
I loved the projection numbers for the next 6years… I keep doing that in my job and also as an author starting out. But want to add, we should also include inflation of atleast 4-5% because you never know… sorry for adding to the already not so great news…
Thanks for the transparency, Jenna. Seems like everything in publishing is a labor of love. I can see why it’s pretty elitist.