I’ve received a few emails asking me about Literary Agents, if you need them, how to get one, and how to get a good one. Let me start with the first question.

A billion years ago the novel publishing industry was much different than it is today: acquiring editors would look unsolicited manuscripts mailed to their office, hoping to find the next Great Gatsby.

Sadly, those days are long gone. Today’s editors spend their time in sales meetings, answering hundreds of emails, and promoting/defending their novels though a Byzantine corporate structure. They barely have the time to edit the books already under contact (which they usual do when they go home at night).

Complicating this is the advent of word processors and laser printers which have enabled everyone who wants to write a novel and send it to every editor on the planet to do just that. A typical editor might get dozens of unsolicited novel manuscripts a day (thousands a year!).

There is simply no way an editor has time to go through these manuscripts (what is affectionately called the “slush pile”) nor is it cost effective to hire staff to do so, because 99% of such submissions are not good enough to publish.

As a result, editors now depend on literary agents to find promising novel manuscripts. Such agents have a motivated self interest to send in only the best material. Selling blockbuster hits and award-winning prose will line their pockets and boost their reputation. An agent that does not do this soon finds their manuscripts unread and calls unanswered.

The literary agent has become such an integral part of the novel publishing business that most publishers no longer look at unsolicited/unagented material.

Next: we’ll take a look at how to find an agent.