As a yet to be published and un-agented writer, you dream what it will be like when an agent says yes. Well agent supremo Carole Blake told all and her words were the stuff fantasies are spun from, but being Carole it was all very practical.

She said to remember that you are in a relationship and that revolves around communication. For her being an agent is about preparation, selling and career management. She spends a long time finding out what a kind of career her authors want and what kind of editor they need.

Time is spent on making sure it’s the best possible submission package. She edits but many agents don’t. She doesn’t like to sell a manuscript cold so she lunches almost every day with publishers and editors to find out their taste. This is a hardship she endures for her authors…

Carole’s goals are to sell, for her authors to be happy and to have a long career.

Agents should not make decisions for authors but with them. She speaks to her author at least every ten days. She wants her authors to cc or bcc her in on every email with editors – it is a ménage a trios.

She cautioned that things have changed and writers now need to be public people and know their USP (unique selling point). She doesn’t think about trends. She has to love it and luck is important and always has been.

She personally has twenty authors and has taken on only one new author in the last three years. The agency as a whole receives 12 to 30 submissions a day and takes on 6 to 8 new clients a year. It is normally an eight week wait for a reply to a submission.

She advised not to take rejections too personally or to follow what they say too closely even if it is specific to the manuscript. She said that many times agents/editors are just looking around for a way to prop up their gut feeling and none of us really know anything which is both wonderful and awful.

Written by Liz Fenwick