The Real Estate Metaphor

AKA The Selling of Your Manuscript House

Think of a literary agent as a real estate agent and your manuscript as a house. You are trying to find the right person who will sell your manuscript/house to a publisher/buyer.

cue the mermaid

You’ve spent a lot of time on this manuscript/house, and care a lot about it. But you have to distance yourself. Other people are going to tell you what you need to fix before they will buy it from you – this is your critique group. No matter how much you love the color purple on the bedroom walls, in order to sell your manuscript/house, you probably ought to change that.

Once you are ready to sell your manuscript/house, you need a real estate/literary agent. Be sure to find an agent that represents your kind of manuscript. If you are trying to sell a single-family dwelling, you would not work with a real estate agent that only represents multi-tenant corporate buildings. Research agents that are selling what you want to sell.

A reputable agent is going to take a cut of whatever the publisher pays you for your manuscript. Just like in real estate, that agent gets paid when you sell your house. Agents who ask for up-front fees are not the kind of agent you want to work with.

Once you an agent agrees to work with you to sell your manuscript/house, trust and follow their advice. They are the experts in their business, which is why you want to work with them. Your job is to write; their job is to sell and negotiate the contracts that conclude that sale.

If you have a question, ask your agent. You and they are partners in this adventure and partners help each other achieve the goal. If you read the acknowledgments at the beginning of a book, it is highly likely that the author mentions their gratitude to their agent.

And while the real estate metaphor holds true for a lot of literary agent aspects, there is one exception that greatly benefits the author: your agent can sell your manuscript multiple times as they make deals regarding the different rights of the property. These include, but are not limited to foreign rights, audio rights, and film rights.

Phoebe Abbott Sr.: You know this house is an unusual house, because there’s three bedrooms, and no bath. But the ocean’s right there.
- Friends, “The One at the Beach”, 3.25

Mar 30, 2010

Tags: agent  |  real estate

Categories: agents & editors & publishing