Writing popular fiction

in five figures. "So what?" he says. "I get it all in royalties, anyhow." But any business-minded writer knows that $10,000 in royalties, paid over four years, is less valuable than a $10,000 advance paid right now: for one thing, the rising cost of living makes those strung-out royalties five to ten percent less valuable than the same sum paid today—and for another, the writer could invest a large advance and earn dividends on it during those four years. He could increase his work-reward ratio and make it possible to spend less time at the typewriter in order to maintain his favorite lifestyle. A good agent will generate enough new income for the writer to more than compensate for his 10% commission.
    29. I s
it worthwhile to pay a reading fee to an agent to get his opinion of my book
? Once or twice, yes. If you make a practice of it, no. In a few criticisms he will have said all he
can
say about your work, will have given you all the advice you need. After that, it's up to you to apply his suggestions.
    30.
Once I obtain an agent, will he sell everything I send him to market for me
? Probably not. An agent can only sell good work, the same pieces you could have sold yourself: he has no friendships with editors that insure the sale of inferior work. An agent's value lies in the better terms he arranges for the work he
does
sell.
    31.
Will my agent personally handle my fiction, or will he merely act as a forwarding service
? Only rarely, and only when the script has great financial potential, will your agent deliver it personally to an editor. For the most part, he relies on telephone contacts, city mail service, and messenger services. In some cases, if the piece is only average, he will submit it by mail just as you would yourself, with no advance patter or socko introductory letter. But remember, when an editor receives a script from a good agent, he gives it closer attention and more consideration than he gives to anything that comes from the slush pile. He knows that an agent is handling professionals and that his reading time will be better spent with agented scripts than with un-agented freelance submissions. For this reason, several major publishing companies no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts.
    Wait! I know what your next question is before you ask it: "If the publishers stop accepting unsolicited manuscripts, and if an agent will only handle writers with several credits, how can new writers hope to break in? We can't sell without an agent, but an agent won't handle us unless we've sold!" It isn't so bad as that. The publishing houses who have ceased to accept unagented manuscripts are those who never bought from unestablished writers in the first place. They are among the most
prestigious houses that no new writer could expect to hit, at the start, with or without an agent. By the time your work is polished enough and your audience substantial enough to interest these companies in your books, you will also have obtained an agent.
    32.
Which agents are good and which are the ones to avoid
? There are no lists of worthy and unworthy agents. You must decide what you want from your agent and then choose him accordingly. The larger agencies, with long lists of famous clients, will have the experience and muscle to generate big money for you,
if
you happen to write a book that hits or skirts the best-seller lists. If you write good books that have only normal sales, a large agency will do little for you: you will be expected to make the first breakthrough, and they will exploit your talent for you when that plateau is finally reached. A smaller agency, sometimes only a single agent with no aides, will be better for the new writer, because a more personal relationship can be established. The agency that handles 600 clients, even if it employs five or six sub-agents, cannot provide the personal contact and concern that a one-man agency, with fifty or sixty select clients, can. And while a large agency can afford to carry dozens of writers who earn less than $10,000 a year, the small agency cannot. It must obtain top money for each of its clients if it is to stay solvent. Also, some agents are better for novelists than for non-fiction writers; some are clumsy with the representation of science fiction, because they handle little of it and don't understand the field; others handle chiefly suspense writers and are best at making suspense and mystery sales.
    33.
How do I discover which agent would be best for