Taking Charge of the Author-Agent Relationship
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Sep 06 2018
We all know that communication is the key to a strong relationship and the author-agent relationship is no different. If you want a good solid business partnership, which you do, then you need to help establish the kind of communication you want with your agent.
One of the things I frequently hear from authors is that they are afraid to talk to their agent, they feel like they are wasting their agent’s time, or they don’t want to bother the agent. Whenever these words or thoughts creep in you need to remind yourself who and what your agent is. She’s not someone you work for or should bow down to. She is a business partner and if you want your business to flourish and thrive you need your partnership to flourish and thrive and that means you need to be as responsible for opening the lines of communication, and creating communication practices, as your agent is.
Trust me on this, any good agent worth her commission is going to want to have great communication with you as much as you want it with her.
Great communication is the key for any relationship to flourish. Wine in a can, now that’s a “novel” idea. Lol!!
I can totally understand, from the writer’s perspective, the fear that having invested so much time and effort into getting an agent, some inadvertent faux-pas could undo all that work. Like spending weeks tracking a particular butterfly only to accidentally tip the jar and let it fly away. Yes, I believe writers can be that insecure! 🙂
It’s good to hear agents tell us it’s okay, even preferable, to communicate. I love the idea of the agent as the “author-advocate,” and see that played out so well by you and others here, on social media, in conferences, etc.
Thanks for this, Jessica! 🙂