Interview with Agent Kristin Nelson, part II

By Pamela

Yesterday I posted the first part of my interview with the fabulous agent Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC.

Here our talk continues about contracts and what she's looking for in submissions from writers:

Pamela
You tout yourself as ‘a nice Midwesterner who breaks free of her genteel upbringing and says what's on her mind.’ What part of your job as an agent tests your ‘niceness’ the most?

Kristin
I would say the digital rights’ grabs that we’re seeing in new boilerplates from the Big Six Publishers definitely tests my ‘niceness.’ Digital publishing transforms rapidly, therefore publishers don’t know what the future is going to bring. Big changes have happened before; it’s not unusual. It usually happens every decade. But when something major is changing, then they start doing a ‘rights grab’ where they want to hold on to everything even if they can’t do anything with it or don’t know how to exploit it. Therefore we’re seeing in the new Macmillan and Harper Collins boilerplates a lot of ‘rights-grabby’ stuff that causes agents to have to negotiate strongly in order to make sure that the contract is fair to the author. 

For example, with Harper Collins’ new boilerplate, I just finished the contract yesterday and we started negotiating on November 28, 2010. That’s why it tests my niceness! 

Pamela
Speaking of negotiating contracts, what are some things writers need to be aware of when signing an agency agreement?

I don’t have a whole lot of opportunities to see other agents’ contracts, but I think there should be very clear language on what happens if the author wants to terminate the agreement. Recently one of my current clients rang me up and asked if I could help her good friend who found herself in a very sticky situation. In this situation, the author had left her agent and two weeks later an offer came in for her book. And because there was a not clear notation in the contract regarding termination, the agency was claiming that they should still get the deal and the author didn’t want to be with that agent any longer. 

Some authors say, ‘Oh, I’d never sign an agency agreement. Why would you do that?’ And I think, Are you kidding? As an author I’d want to have very clear expectations about what my business relationship is with my agent. I wouldn’t want to just shake hands and then wait for some clause to show up in my publishing contract which might have terms that aren’t advantageous to me that might be difficult to negotiate with that agent. I’m a big believer that straightforward and clear agreements make for very calm and happy business relationships. And if that business relationship goes sour, the agreement should specify a very clean way to break.

Over time, the agent and author relationship grows definitely more personal than business so you do end up becoming friends with your clients. I’ve had some of my clients for nine years. I’ve watched their kids grow up. I’ve met their spouses. I’ve been there through a lot with them. But we have a straightforward agency agreement so that if it does have to end, well then, everything is clear.

Another thing to watch for is granting an agent the rights into perpetuity. It’s not in my contract because I feel it’s inherently unfair to the author even though it’s quite common in a lot of agency contracts. My general philosophy is, if the publishing contract is in full force, then my agency—who negotiated and represented that deal—will receive its commission while that publishing agreement is in force. But after a book goes out of print, I believe the rights should revert back to the author, without any further obligation to me. But a lot of agencies take the viewpoint that if they sell your work once, and even if they don’t do anything in the future, and later you decide to self-publish it or e-publish it, then they’re entitled to more money, even if they’re not involved. As an author, I wouldn’t sign that. And I don’t expect my clients to agree to something that I personally would not agree to.

Pamela
For someone seeking representation, what do you think is the most important thing to look for in an agent or important questions to ask?

Kristin
Backspace has a great set of questions and I strongly recommend that people have a list of ten questions to ask an agent. Probably, the two most important are: Is this agent aligned with my editorial vision of the work; and do I think I could have a good working relationship with this agent? Do they have the type of communication style that I am going to feel comfortable with? 

And it’s also good to for an author to ask themselves: Do I want a really business-like relationship—no touchy-feely handholding—or do I feel like I need a more emotional connection? Because there are definitely agents who lean more one way or the other. 

Pamela
Your 2010 stats show you attended seven conferences last year. How many writers’ conferences are on your calendar this year and what are your goals for attending? 

Kristin
I tend to do the ones in my own backyard—Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, SCBWI Rocky Mountain Chapter conferences. I like going to conferences because it provides a way to connect with writers who you’d never get to meet otherwise. It reinvigorates you for the process to see that you’re in the business of people’s dreams, even though you’re very practical and pragmatic as an agent. I have a teaching background and enjoy the education process of publishing. So I’m much more interested in giving seminars, being on a panel, speaking and doing a lot of encouragement than hearing pitches. Pitches are fine and know that’s why a lot of people attend conferences, but it’s not how you’re going to learn the most. 

Pamela
Have you ever signed someone from a conference?

I have! My author Kimberly Reid who has a young adult trilogy coming out in October—first title is My Own Worst Frenemy—pitched me at a Pikes Peak Writers Conference. I convinced her not to write what she pitched me, but to write this other idea she mentioned which I took on and sold.

I met Janice Hardy of The Shifter series at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference in Canada. She had a ten minute pitch session and after she got up, I texted my assistant and told her we’d have some sample pages coming that I wanted to see right away because it was a great concept for a book. I read it and loved it and took it on. 

Marie Lu is generating a lot of excitement and buzz right now for her November debut called Legend. I met her at the Pike’s Peak Writers’ Conference, and she pitched me and I turned her down. She found another agent who took on her manuscript but couldn’t sell it and they ended up parting ways, which sometimes happens. But she had such a great interaction with me that she wrote something else and came back to me and I took it on and sold it. 

Pamela
What are some of the biggest surprises of your career as an agent?

Kristin
I have one author who I took on for a novel that I never actually shopped—an adult literary novel that we worked on for a while and never could get quite right—and now she’s huge: Ally Carter. She decided to drop the first project because she had another idea for a book and that’s the one I sold. Another author whose novel I had trouble selling—all these editors passed on it and I only had one editor offer for it— is now a NYT bestselling series and I almost couldn’t sell the first book Simone Elkeles for Perfect Chemistry.

There are always surprises. I have had some books that have taken me over a year to sell and that’s so wonderful. Granted, I love the ones that sell within a week, but there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in being able to say, ‘Ah … we kept at it! We did it!’

Pamela
What kind of manuscript would you love to see right now? 

Kristin
To put it bluntly—and writers hate it when they hear this—we’re looking for good stories well-told. Quite frankly, it just doesn’t matter. There are some genres I won’t take on—picture books, Christian inspirational, certain things out of my realm of expertise. But writers should go to our website for a list.

Pamela
Can you fill in this sentence? I never thought I’d rep ________, but now just love the genre.

 

Kristin
When I first started the agency, I didn’t envision myself representing children’s books—young adult and upper-level middle grade—but now it’s one of my favorite things. It started when I had an author, who was writing for the adult market, write a young adult novel and that’s what motivated me to explore that part of publishing. Now that’s one of my favorite parts.   

Pamela

Thanks, Kristin, for sharing so much good information with our readers. We wish you and your authors much continued publishing success!

Interview with Agent Kristin Nelson, part I

By Pamela

When I started writing fiction years ago—even before I began networking with other writers—I turned to the Internet as my first resource—for how to write compelling characters, how to create conflict, and ultimately, how to secure an agent. One of the agent’s blogs I faithfully read was Kristin Nelson’s Pub Rants, and later I queried her with my first project. She turned me down (and she should have—I had a lot to learn yet!) but she remains a favorite agent of mine for her commitment to telling it like it is and educating writers about the industry. So, imagine how delighted I was when she said, YES! when I asked her to participate here on our blog.

Here's more information about Kristin:

Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency, LLC

Being an avid reader practically since birth, Kristin is equally happy reading a Pulitzer prize-winning literary novel for her book club or a sexy romance novel. She established Nelson Literary Agency, LLC in 2002 after the literary agent she was working for expressed dismay that Kristin wanted to represent—gasp!—genre fiction as well as literary novels. Forming NLA was absolutely the right thing to do. She currently specializes in representing commercial fiction (mainstream, women’s fiction, romance, science fiction, fantasy, young adult and middle grade) and literary fiction with a commercial bent. In general, she does not handle nonfiction projects with the exception of an occasional memoir. Clients include bestselling authors Jamie Ford, Ally Carter, Gail Carriger, Simone Elkeles, Courtney Milan, and RITA-award winners Sherry Thomas and Linnea Sinclair. When she is not busy selling books, Kristin loves playing Ultimate Frisbee (where she tends to be the oldest person on the team) and taking hikes with her husband and their dog Chutney. Member: AAR, RWA, SFWA, SCBWI. Please visit her website www.nelsonagency.com before submitting and also check out Kristin’s popular blog http://pubrants.blogspot.com.

Pamela
You’ve been blogging for over five years. How do your posts differ now from those earliest ones?

Kristin
Initially I spent a lot of time blogging about beginning writers’ mistakes—and still do occasionally if I find a topic that’s helpful for my audience—but today I tend to write from an agent’s viewpoint about how writers can protect themselves and what some of the changes in the industry are. Because, regardless of the changes in the digital publishing industry, mechanics of writing and beginning writers’ mistakes haven’t changed much in the past five years and those were covered in earlier entries.

Pamela
Publishing is all about relationships. How much do your relationships with editors and publishers play into your deciding to take on a project? Have you passed on a submission that sounded like an amazing story for which you just couldn’t think of a publisher/editor? 

Kristin
I’ve definitely looked at sample pages or a full manuscript where I don’t have a really good vision of how I could talk about it. But I know I’m going to take on an author when I can’t put down the book and can immediately think of ten editors who would love to see it and I start formalizing in my head how I’m going to talk about the novel. When I’ve read things that were good that really didn’t speak to me and I didn’t have that clear vision in my head, ultimately I passed on it. A lot of those never got representation. Some have gone on to be agented but not sold. And then quite a few have gone on to be agented and sold. And some for really good money. But if I didn’t have the vision for the book, then I was not the right person for it. I know writers hate to hear that, but because they feel like, ‘Oh, if it’s good writing and the person’s telling a good story, wouldn’t you take it on?’ But no, not necessarily.

Pamela
So, no agent-remorse when something you passed on went on to do really well, if you knew in your heart it wasn’t what you wanted to represent?

 

Kristin
I’ve only been remorseful about one project, and while reading it, I kept going back and forth and back and forth. At the time I was thinking, ‘This is kind of like a knock-off of Twilight.’ And what I should have been thinking was, ‘Oh, this is kind of like Twilight.’ The writing and the concept were really good but I decided if I was going back and forth, I should pass. Two weeks later, I was still thinking about the book and I got back in touch with that author but she had already signed with someone else. And then I knew that was going to be the one that I was going to be remorseful about. But all the others that I’ve passed on, that have gone on to sell and do well, I still review them to see if there are a lot of revisions since I’ve seen them, and I still don’t get the feeling that they were for me. Not every book in the world is going to appeal to every reader in the world. There are a lot of people who don’t like JK Rowling and I can’t imagine it, but there are.

Pamela
Several of your recent blog posts focused on query letters and writers missing the mark as to piquing your interest. Do you feel the biggest problem is good writers who over-think the query or writers who submit work that’s not yet ready?

Kristin
To me, those are two very separate things. Because there are some writers who nail the query letter and then you look at the sample pages and you realize it’s just not ready for an agent to see. They’ve just not mastered their craft—at least in the draft that I’m seeing. Not to say they won’t ever master the craft. If someone hasn’t written a good query letter, we’re just passing on it regardless of how good the pages might end up being because we’re not even getting to the stage that we’re looking at the pages.

Of about the 36,000 queries we got last year, probably more than 50 percent were so poorly written that they were rejected within seconds, so you’re not really competing with them. If you’ve learned how to write a good query, then you’re competing with the group of writers who may or may not pique our interest.

Pamela
I watched a video on your blog that was recorded at a conference you attended. And of all the research I’ve done online about how to write a query letter—that video of you and what you advised: to reread your first 30 pages and find the inciting event and let that form the cornerstone of your query, became a light bulb moment for me. It’s really the best piece of advice I’d seen. 

Kristin
I don’t disagree. And when I teach that workshop, it’s amazing how hard it is to get some people to think about what their inciting incident is—usually it’s because their inciting incident isn’t happening within the first 30 pages. It ends up being on page 100 and right there you know your manuscript’s in trouble. You have a pacing issue.

Pamela
A couple of us at What Women Write are Backspace members. For writers who are not familiar with Backspace, how would you sell them on the benefits of belonging to the group? Are there other online support systems you think are worth the investment of time and money?

Kristin
I know of three: Writers.net, Backspace and Absolute Write’s watercooler. My question to writers would be: Why aren’t you involved in one of these groups? All have wonderful, professional writers who dispense advice and offer feedback and generally make themselves available. Holy cow! Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of that? For example, on Backspace agents will often chat on the forum boards. Where else can you get that one-on-one opportunity in a virtual situation where people will address questions? Some of the most amazing posts on the forum are by experienced authors who say: These were my mistakes.

I’ll never forget on Backspace when a very popular NYT’s bestselling thriller author talked about how she got into a world of trouble for not paying her taxes on time. Ever since then, I always have a conversation with my authors who have large advances on the importance of keeping up with their taxes. How smart that she was willing to say, ‘Hey, this was a big mistake that I made.’

Pamela
We’ve followed Jamie Ford’s publishing journey—saw him speak in Dallas, featured him on the blog and will eagerly hear him again as he returns this fall for Richardson Reads One Book’s event. He stated that his query included having a portion of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet place in a short story contest. How important are pre-pubbed credits such as contests when it comes to getting your attention in a query? 

Kristin
It absolutely never hurts to have prepublication credentials, especially if you’re writing literary fiction and are in the good literary magazines. That’s going to carry a lot of weight—just like graduating from Iowa’s MFA workshop carries a lot of weight. But it’s not the end-all, be-all. I’ve definitely signed authors who didn’t have anything. Nada! And I took them on. As long as the manuscript is wonderful and strong enough, that’s most important. Having non-fiction credits, even if you’re shopping a novel, doesn’t hurt because it communicates a level of professionalism and shows you know how to meet a deadline. In the end, non-fiction pub credits won’t play a factor in promoting fiction unless you’re an NPR correspondent or if you have a pretty high level of media exposure as someone like David Sedaris.

Come back tomorrow for part two of Kristin's interview where she discusses contract negotiations and what she's currently looking for in submissions.