Should my agent be a “specialist” in my subject?

Question: Should my agent be a “specialist” in my subject? In other words, if I’m a US historian, should I try to work with an agent who has a track record of selling other prominent US historians? How important is it for my agent to really “get” my work?

Terrific question.

We all want to feel heard and understood. We all get excited when someone else gets excited — even a little bit excited — about our research. After all, we’ve devoted years of our lives to our fields, so of course, it can feel thrilling to talk to someone who really “gets it”.

But when it comes to choosing a literary agent to work with, how important is it that they really understand our work? Do we really need them to demonstrate that they’ve sold similar books to ours in the past?

As always, the answer is…. It depends.

There are some real advantages to having an agent who specialises in your field. But there are also some disadvantages.

Let’s start with the advantages.

First, and perhaps most obviously, they “get” it. You don’t have to explain yourself as much.

Secondly, they’ve proved they can sell books like yours.

So far, this is pretty obvious. But there are other, less obvious, advantages. For example, they will know all the editors in New York who are amenable to books on your topic. They will know how they think. Their quirks, their preferences, their turnoffs.

They will also, probably, know what to do if you run into resistance. They will know how to tweak your proposal and send it back out if necessary.

In short, they will have an overall command of the landscape, in a way that an agent who has never handled a book like yours might not.

Now let’s consider some disadvantages.

These might not seem so obvious. But they’re worth considering.

OK, so let’s say you’re a specialist in Chinese politics, and you want to sell a book on the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party. And you excitedly sign up with an agent who has already sold another big book on Chinese politics to Simon & Schuster.

Yay! You’re feeling good. You’re in great hands. Clearly.

But wait. What happens two years from now, when your book is out, and your agent is at a cocktail party and meets an editor at the New Yorker, who says, “hey, do you know anyone who can write an essay for us about Xi Jinping?”

Uhhh….

Now your agent has an inherent conflict of interest. Does she suggest you or does she suggest her other author?

There is another disadvantage to consider. Or rather, not so much a disadvantage as an advantage to having a non-specialist agent.

An agent who doesn’t know much about your field is going to be better at giving you big-picture advice. This is true of editors as well. (And it’s even true of me)….

The basic principle is this:

When it comes to writing for trade, you want someone who doesn’t know much about your subject reading your work.

I can’t emphasise this enough. It’s literally the reason I do what I do — and why (until now) I haven’t worked with any clients in Middle East history. (Though I’m not opposed to it!)

It’s because I’m BETTER at giving feedback about your ideas and writing if I don’t know that much about your subject.

The moment I know too much, then I get sucked into interesting (but ultimately unhelpful) conversations about the CONTENT of your work. And you don’t want that from me. You have plenty of people in your field who can do that.

What you want from me (or an agent, or an editor) is someone who can focus on HOW you’re telling your story.

Don’t believe me? Look no further than your own back yard.

In academia, you are constantly surrounded by people who are subjecting every intellectual claim you make to the most minute scrutiny.

Has that helped your writing?

It might well have helped your scholarship, yes. But has it helped your writing?

This is not to say that you shouldn’t work with a specialist agent. Again, there are plenty of advantages to doing so.

But don’t be too quick to dismiss the value of a generalist.

My own agent, for example, represents only one other Iran-related author (and she signed them pretty recently). And my editor at Knopf made her name in the 1970s by discovering Ann Rice and publishing all those vampire novels.

Do you think she is an expert on Iran? No. But she was a damn good editor.

So bottom line — don’t get too hung up on whether or not your agent is a “specialist” in your field. Just find an agent with a strong overall track record who wants to represent you. And you’re on your way….

But wait! (I hear you saying). How do I do that? How do I get an agent? I’m kind of confused about this entire process.