Bad Agent, No Catnip!
Bad Career Advice and Questionable Misinformation for Writers, from the "World's Worst Literary Agent," Sydney T. Cat
by
Sydney T. Cat
as told to
Man-Who-Feeds-Her-Tuna
Front Matter
Copyright 2011, J. Steven York
(AKA, "Man-Who-Feeds-Her-Tuna")
Published by Tsunami Ridge Publishing at Smashwords
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Dedicated to Animal Shelters everywhere, and to everyone who has rescued, found a home for, or given a home to a stray animal. "All Writers Need Cat Supervision!"
Table of Contents
The Origin of Bad Agent Sydney
Some Bad Agent Sydney Frequently Asked Questions
Quick Bad Agent Wisdom: The Desire to Sell
Sydney Wisdom: Just a Few Things
Bad Agent Sydney FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Part the 2
Helping Writers is My Catnip by Good Agent Sydneh
Bad Agent Wisdom: Being Liked by Editors
Bad Agent Sydney’s Almost Guaranteed to Get You Pre-Published Writing School
Good Agent Sydneh’s Frequently Asked Questions
A Letter From Bad Agent Sydney: A Drop in the Water Bowl
Sydney Wisdom: I Like to Mingle
Bad Agent Wisdom: Theory of Relativity
A Short Drink of Bad Agent Wisdom
Quick Sydney Wisdom: I Love Commas
Quick Sydney Wisdom: Conference Confusion
Sydney Wisdom: Banking on Fees
Sydney Wisdom - Check my Smooth Moves (or rathers, Movies!)
Sydney Wisdom - The Gate Swings Both Ways
Quick Sydney Wisdom: It's only TUNA!
Sydney Wisdom - Conflict of Interest
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Ego Sydney Wisdom: U R Terminated!
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Lost in Translation
MOST IMPORTANT SYDNEY WISDOM: All Writers NEED cats! (Some cats need writers.)
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Submissions vs. Sales
Sydney Wisdom: Let Sydney "Improve" Your Writings!
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Part Time Agent
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Contracts
Sydney Wisdom - The Book Doctor
Quick Sydney Wisdom - The "Float"
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Proximity to the Publishing Business
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Editorial Likes
Sydney Wisdom - Where There's a Will, There's a Won't
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Trust but Verify
Sydney Wisdom - What's Yours is Mine
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Agent Licensing
Sydney Wisdom - Never Ending Story
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Uncertainty
Quick Sydney Wisdom - "For the duration of the contract"
Sydney Wisdom - The Nine Percents Solution Quick Sydney Wisdom - Foreign Rights Money
Sydney Wisdom - Hollywood Walk of Shame
Quick Sydney Wisdom - Reading Fees
Sydney Wisdom - Why Good Kitties Can Still Eat You
Sydney's Final Thought - An Agent's Function
A Note on the Reality of Bad Agent Sydney's Schemes
About People Who Feed Sydney Tuna:
More Titles From Tsunami Ridge Publishing
Bad Agent Wisdom: Originality
Sydney:
"If it isn't original, I am not interested.
"If it is original, it is different.
"If it is different, I cannot sell it.
"If I cannot sell it, I am not interested."
PURRRRRR!
The Origin of Bad Agent Sydney
(As unreliably reported by Man-who-feeds-her-tuna)
A while back, as often happens, a group of writer friends and I were sitting around a lunch table discussing (and occasionally arguing about) the writing business. And as almost always happens when writers start talking about the writing business, we started talking about agents. We compared our agents (those of us that had them) the way some people compare philandering spouses.
Oh, sure, there were some good agent stories, and some people were completely satisfied with their agents But by and large, all of us had horror stories. And once we got to the horror stories once removed, things got truly mind-boggling. The problem, most of us agreed, was that there were just no standards or oversight for agents. Most states have no laws at all governing literary agents. There's no licensing. No established training. No degree programs. No accreditation. No binding set of standards.
Pretty much anybody, anywhere can print up some cards (or get a site on the web) and call themselves a literary agent.
Anybody.
And for most of the aspiring writers, they couldn't tell a crank, a crazy, or a con-artist masquerading as an agent from the best agent in the world.
In a moment of outrage, I happened to suggest that my little calico cat, Sydney, was as well-suited to be a literary agent as many of the self-selected people out there claiming the title.
I fully expected this would make people laugh at the absurdity of the idea. A cat as an agent? Outrageous!
Which shows you how stupid I am.
What I got were a bunch of emails from people asking if Sydney was taking clients, and where people should send their queries and manuscripts. It seems that people are so eager to sign with an agent, any agent, that even a highly obese and self-centered calico short-hair with an IQ that's pretty low, even for a cat, can be successful in the agent business.
So successful, in fact, that she's hired me.
You see, readers are your audience, the real reason you should be writing books. But the reality of the business is that publishers have long been the gatekeepers between writers and readers.
Problem is, that whole gatekeeper thing was really cutting into their time, so years ago they outsourced most of that job to agents.
Meaning that the gatekeepers then had gatekeepers.
That worked for a while, but anyone who's been on Twitter, or a writer's message-board, or at a writer's conference lately knows the feeding frenzy associated with signing anybody who calls themselves an agent. Agents are just mobbed, everywhere they go, on cyberspace or in the real world.
It's really hard to be so popular, and it's really wearing on agents. Sometimes just processing all the highly-paid speaking engagements, conference appearances, tours hawking their own books, consulting and editing gigs, gifts, flowers, and offers of sexual favors is just exhausting!
It's a wonder any of them find any time at all to try market books, make deals, or take care of their clients.
In fact, a fair number of them don't much do any of those things. For a lot of them, in fact, doing actual agent stuff is not really the profitable part of their business anyway (which doesn't seem to deter people from wanting to sign with them).
Those agents who take their jobs seriously and focus on their clients and the selling of books have clearly missed the boat. I mean, why go to all that work and then wait for those notoriously show checks from publishers when you can just pick your client's pockets directly and have them thank you for it!
Anyway, that's why Sydney has hired me. Clearly she doesn't have time to deal with the lot of you, and needed an assistant to handle the mail and deposit the checks in her account. So here I am, the gatekeeper to the gatekeeper to the gatekeepers.
I'm in kind of a sweet position, when you think of it. I'm wondering if I should milk it? Why restrict myself just to Sydney, when there are so many almost-equally-unqualified "agents" out there I could be fronting for?
Of course, I'll need a new job title for it. Can't be an "agent agent," can I? Hmmm. How about "Bgent," which is naturally what comes after "Agent."
If it works out, I could start a whole franchise, "Cgents," "Dgents," "Egents," until we roll around and have to start over again at "AAgents." (Though some people I've talked to want to skip directly to "YAgents," and they seem to imply a question-mark on the end. I don't get it.)
Anyway, as promised, I've been opening Sydney's mail so she can answer some of your (to you, anyway) very important questions about agents and/or publishing. I turn it over to the very busy ("it would be an honor for you just to touch her cat-sand") Bad Agent Sydney T. Cat!
-------------------------------
Bad Agent Sydney here:
Just a minute while I gets comfortable, darlingses.
Pillow? Check.
Blankie? Check.
Warm, sunny spot. Check.
Greenie treats...?
Greenie treats?!
GREENIE TREATS!
Peon! Wheres the hells are my Greenie treats?!
So sorry, darlingses. It is so hard for Bad Agent Sydney to getses the good help these days.
Anyways, braces yourselves! Here comes first Big Book of Bad Agent Wisdom! Okay, it's mostly not new wisdom! Sydney freely admits, mosts of this stuffs is recycled from Sydney's web-site, www.BadAgent.Me, but this is all compiled, edited, and updated to provide yous only the most current bad advice about the publishing industry available! And lets me tell you, that is hard. Whats with ebooks, bookstore chains coughing up blood, indie writers becoming hits and signing with New York publishing, best-selling authors telling New York to shove off and going to indie publishings, and a zillion other things, the publishing industry is changing on a daily basis.
A daily basis!
It is exhausting for Sydney to ignore it all! Because Sydney does not work in the world where all these changes are happening! Sydney works in make-believe publishing fantasy-land where hungry, wanna-be writerses get myths about being writer from movies and the TVs! In this land, agent is still Queen! No book EVER gets sold without agent! Any book will be sold and acclaimed as wonderful and make writer rich if they does have agent! Writers then can spend years working on second book while editor and agent drop by for pep-talks over cappuccino at scenic sidewalk cafe! This is writers life as it is lived!
NOT!
But do not tell wanna-be writers this! Sydney has a scam to run here!
Actually, go ahead and tell thems anyway! They will not believe you! In facts, they probably will get mad at you for messing with their myths, and all the more eager to fall into Sydney's bad-agent web!
Is good to be me!
PURRRRRRRR!
A Tale of Two Sydneys
Sydney:
Two things happen today to get Sydney's hackles up, so Sydney is here to set some things straight about who, and what, Sydney is!
First, is yet another case of celebrity hanger-on writing "tell-all" full of lies! Peon-who-feeds-me-tuna J. Steven York writes post today on his "blog" about "where he gets the ideas for Bad Agent Sydney!" The nerve!
Nobody "gets ideas" for Sydney! This is as silly as theory that writers can "sell" books without agent intervention and improvement! Peon writes like Sydney is just a little cat and he makes up words for Sydney!
Peon is a big, fat, poopie-head!
Sydney is not just a little cat! Sydney is big-cat-agent! Writes all her own words, and half of client's words! (My book-doctor, Mr. Oz, writes the rest.)
Truth is, J. Steven York is just a big-old stupid, and Sydney writes all words for HIM! "Big Stupid Steven," is just character she makes up for him! Big funny! Has his own web site and Twitter account and everything! HA! Good joke!
Enough about that. (GO GET ME TUNA, PEON!)
Other thing upset Sydney today is again, some writer calls Sydney "he!" LISTEN WRITERS! SYDNEY IS DAINTY LITTLE GIRL KITTY! DON'T MAKE HER COME OVER AND READJUST YOUR FACE!
People is confused by Sydney's name, but Sydney is perfectly good girl name. Here story of how Sydney gets it. When Sydney came to live with lady-who-feeds-me-tuna, Christina York, she was writing books based on "Alias" TV show. She saws that, even as kitten, Sydney was kick-ass and in-charge, so she names me after kick-ass super-spy "Sydney Bristow," played by actress Jennifer Garner. Surprised you never noticed resemblance.
What?
You still no see? Try this: Imagine Jennifer Garner with half a
moustache!
PURRRRRR!
Some Bad Agent Sydney T. Cat Frequently Asked Questions
Turkey or tuna?
TUNA!
I don't have an agent yet. What advice can you give me, Sydney?
You are a LOSER. Hang a big LOSER sign around your neck LOSER.
Can't I sell a book without an agent?
No.
But I heard about...
No. It didn't happen, and nobody saw it when it happened, so No. Loser.
Do you just like being mean?
PURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Do you have an office close to New York?
I work out of my home with my People on the Oregon coast. This is next to an ocean, and New York is also close to an ocean, so the answer would be, "Yes."
What are your qualifications to be an agent?
That is a loser question, you losery loser you.
Whiska's Temptations or Greenies?
Greenies! But the other will do in a pinch.
Is there anything I can do to persuade you to become my agent?
Clean my cat-box! It won't help you, but my cat-box is dirty!
Quick Bad Agent Wisdom: The Desire to Sell
Sydney:
Dear potential client:
You clearly have very little desire to sell this book.
If you did, you'd be also be sending it to somebody who could buy the book (an editor) instead of just to someone who can't (me).
Actually, I like that in a potential client. I can use your lack of initiative to my own advantage
Sincerely, Sydney T. Cat
PURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Sydney Wisdom: Just a Few Things
Sydney:
Dear new client:
Welcome to the "Really Bad Literary Agency family! Sydney loves to discover dazzling new talent, but she has found you instead, and so will run with what she has got.
Sydney is really impressed with your first submission! Sees great best-seller potential here! Loves everything about it!
Except, of course, everything. First problem with your cozy mystery is protagonist is marathon-running senior-citizen lady. Sydney hears young-adult is very hot right now, so make lady 15. Also, running hard work and sweaty. Not cool with teens. Make her international nail-polish model. Probably just a few lines of fix. You okay with that, right?
Also, murder not so good with teens. Change crime to who stole secret new nail-polish color. Pretty much same thing right? Also, change gruff police detective to sexy werewolf with sparkle-glitter in hair, make best friend into magic angel, and change setting from Boston to Paris.
But otherwise, is perfect!
Except it isn't. Needs that special "professional polish" that can only come from experienced book-doctor, such as -- oh, don't know -- maybe Mr. Oz, professional book doctor that Sydney has certainly never met before or had any business relationship with, yet has complete confidence in and insists you use!
Mr. Oz - Professional book-shredder --er-- doctor!
Of course this will be small largish fee for his professional services, and certainly none of it will be kicked-back to Sydney's pocket. Probably.