Why is it so hard to be a 'successful' new literary agent?

A personal newsletter about the challenges of early career agenting

I received the kindest gift from one of my authors when we got a deal:

I have a confession to make. Ever since I received it, I use this mug every morning. But since I lost my agenting job last week, I haven’t used it once. I kept looking at it in the cupboard and thinking, ‘I can’t have my coffee in that. I’m not the world’s best literary agent. In fact, I must’ve been one of the worst.’

I know that’s not true, not really. But even so, I’ve been thinking about the title question a lot lately - why was it so hard to be a ‘successful’ new literary agent? Partly because I’m picking at a fresh wound. Anyone who has ever been let go from a job they loved will know what I mean. Partly, it’s because I’m addicted to wondering ‘how can I turn every thing that happens to me into a teaching moment for my newsletter’! But partly, too, because it makes me think about what being an agent truly involves. How, when it comes down to it, it’s a sales job, and sales jobs are always brutal. And, also, it’s making me think about the ways in which being an agent and being an author are similar.

So, I’d like to write a little bit about exactly how difficult it is for agents early on in their careers - and why.

I’ve been pretty open about the fact that I earned a salary, which is relatively unusual among US agents. The benefits of a salary are numerous and in my situation, necessary. So I felt incredibly lucky to have found this job - I still do. I’m leaving on good terms with my former employer and I don’t regret it for one second. What a remarkable year.

However, there are positives and negatives to every arrangement. One of the downsides of receiving a salary as an agent is that your company is essentially investing in the future potential of your work … in fact, it struck me later, it reminds me of how a publisher invests in the possibility of an author’s sales with an advance. Depending on the company (or publisher), it won’t be realistic for them to continue paying you a salary (another advance) if that investment does not pay off - or doesn’t do so fast enough.

All the below, however, also applies to agents who are commission only and are trying to build a full-time career out of it - which involves (naturally) earning a decent, steady income.

So what does an agent actually have to sell to earn an average salary?

Photo by Maxim Potyomkin on Unsplash

Bearing in mind the standard commission for an agent is 15%, someone on an average US salary (just shy of $60k) would have to bring in around $400k to earn the equivalent of an average salary in commission - which, as a brand new agent with no existing clients or contracts, is always necessarily from advances alone, since you’ll have no royalties or subsidiary rights sales yet. (N.B. If you are a commission-only agent associated with an agency, the agency will be taking a cut of that 15% too. But let’s ignore that for now.)

According to this article, the average book advance overall, across all categories, was $60k between 2016 and 2021. So to bring in $400k, the agent would have to sell 6-7 ‘average’ books. Considering the median advance was $25k, you can see how this would be difficult - the majority of books are receiving lower than average advances. And when you factor in the competition and the increasing difficulty of selling books to publishers, the challenge grows greater still.

(For reference, I brought in just under 75% of my annual salary in total over one year of agenting across 5 contracts - working on it full time, exploiting my many existing contacts from my editorial past, and multiplying my chances by submitting approximately 20 projects total in different age groups and genres across two territories, US and UK. Like I said: brutal!)

But there’s another consideration. Since publishing advances are paid in stages (generally 1/3 on signature of a contract, 1/3 on delivery and acceptance of the edited manuscript and 1/3 on publication), that target $400k will be spread over several years.

And as for the possibility of royalties, since publication dates are generally scheduled a minimum of a year out, even if a book you’ve sold becomes an instant bestseller, you likely won’t see additional money from royalties until the end of the first financial quarter after publication, optimistically at least 15 months from the date of the agreement. (None of the books I managed to contract are out before May 2025!)

What other challenges are new agents up against?

Because new agents rely on new contracts, business can be incredibly up and down. I had a strong start, selling books in July, October, December and February. Then, for no reason I can fathom, things dried up on the submissions front for several months. I’m often asked ‘what’s the hardest thing about being an agent?’ For me, it’s this: you can’t make any one buy your clients’ books, however good they are! (Again, this reminds me of being a writer and how so much of publishing, at every stage, is simply out of your hands.)

Another challenge is this: you can’t make authors sign with you! As a new agent, you often lose out to more experienced agents in competitive situations - understandably, writers want a safe pair of hands. But this means you inevitably spend a fair bit of time reading books and speaking to authors you ultimately don’t represent.

Lastly, as a new agent you are in the process of building relationships with editors and publishers - you don’t yet have a reputation, meaning you have to send good stuff, establish trust, and if you end up selling a book then you need to show you’re great to work with. All of that takes time. If you can do that, you become a trusted source of submissions in the future and (I imagine) have a better chance of selling more projects.

And a bonus point here… a huge challenge is the psychological impact of all of this. The lack of control, the sense of obligation to your writers and the time spent spinning your wheels can be extremely stressful and take a lot of mental resiliance. Again, not so different from writing!

So… was it worth it?

100%! The high of finding a brilliant deal for a writer you love is incomparable - and the relationships I’ve forged with my clients and with others in the industry (my colleagues, other agents, editors, and other writers) feel ridiculously valuable, more than I could have hoped for. The response to announcing I am leaving my job has been beyond my wildest expectations - thank you to literally everyone who has commented or reached out. I adore the people I’ve been working with - and the books I’ve had the privilege of working on. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat - and I hope I get to have another crack at working in this inspiring, heartbreaking, ultimately amazing industry soon.

For the time being, I’m having a cup of tea in my World’s Best Literary Agent mug, with pride - for that author, I’ll always be the World’s Best, and who can argue with that? (Thank you, you know who you are.)

I may go quiet on this Substack for a little while - I’m not sure what I’ll write about next. But you can find me on my usual socials and I’ll be posting if (when!!!) I find something new.

Thank you all for following my journey so far! Now onto the next chapter…

Kesia