Interview – Literary Agent Michael Kabongo
Michael Kabongo is a literary agent and aspiring power behind the throne of a world Hegemon. If you need him in either of these capacities please contact him. Writers should produce SF/F, YA, Psychology, History or Political Science; Hegemons should be smarter than a fifth grader. Visit Michael’s website http://onyxhawke.com for more info. His blog is at http://onyxhawke.livejournal.com.
On your website Onyxhawke.com, you say that you’ve “been selling things in one way or another” since you were five. What led you to selling books? Do you negotiate other rights for your clients, such as audio and film rights?
Dave Freer had not been able to find an agent that he meshed with. I had been one of his first readers, and we’d talked a lot about business off and on over several years. After several months of skirting the issue I decided to jump in and ask if Dave wanted me, and he did. Dave was my first client.After that, well there’s a cliché I’ll just leave off.
Yes, I do negotiate other rights.
Being in the publishing industry, you frequently meet, interact with and sometimes befriend well-known writers. And of course you work very closely with your own clients. Such interaction must give you a very clear recognition of how writers are people just like everyone else. Despite this, do you still have those “OMG!” moments where you meet a favorite writer and become incoherent with glee? Who still does that to you?
Yes, yes I do. Although I probably delude myself by thinking I conceal them well. The last one was when I ran into J.V. Jones and Lois Bujold (who I’d met several times before), at the same time. I don’t think I made any unmanly sounds, but most of my brain shut down and the rest was demanding that I show proper respect by averting my eyes and hugging the floor.
You’ve written/ranted fairly frequently about people who submit manuscripts to you for consideration but seem to ignore some or all of your submission requirements. What submission guideline do people most frequently ignore? What submission guideline do people most frequently attempt, but get wrong?
The subject line for the email is pretty common. A completely blank email with just an attachment is well up the list as well. Most people fail to get the whole “please check that you’re really submitting something of sufficient professional length”. Also I do boggle at the number of mainstream fiction and or romance submissions I get.
You must have rejected hundreds or thousands of manuscripts during your career. How often do you get people who take it personally, and tell you so in no uncertain terms? What would you suggest as the best reaction, or course of action, for a writer who’s just had their manuscript rejected?
I’ve had a couple people respond nastily, but I tend to ignore that, although whining tones are frequent. As for advice: an agent who does not like your work is going to be hard pressed to convince any editor why they should like it. Just drop it and move on.
Has anyone ever said or done something in a query while seeking representation that actually angered you – that didn’t just turn you off to them but went so far beyond the point of unprofessionalism that it crossed the line into outright offensive? And if so, What was it? How did you respond? Or did you not respond at all?
One or two people who knew me before I started the agency have submitted stuff and tried to do so in ways that irked me. Given that my temper is a touch vile, I tend not to let myself get started as it is tons easier than stopping. Most of the inanity of other/unknown people comes from trying to submit through my contact form or similar stuff. I just block the email addresses and move on.
In the past you’ve done what you called “Masochism Monday”, where you invited writers to send you their novels for a critique (of at least the first chapter) from an agent’s point of view. What did you find rewarding about these experiences? (We assume you found something rewarding since you did it more than once…)
I found it vastly entertaining. Yes, it gave me an excuse to burn through a huge pile of submissions, of deeply variable quality, but it forced me to critique each work and find something positive about it and state why (however vaguely), which brought my tastes closer to the front of my working mind. Hopefully, one or two people learned something useful from my advice. And I picked up a client out of it. Three wins. I hope to do another similar event this summer or early fall.
One of the responsibilities of an agent is to help their clients rework their books to make them more salable, and therefore more appealing to publishers. For this task you have to be part reader, part editor, part advertiser and part “current trends” guru. What do you try to do to find a balance between all these various perspectives?
I read what is selling and who is selling. If I know a writer is selling a lot of books to their editor in a few short months long before any real sales numbers can be in, I tend to pay attention. Doing this gives me a read on the editors, on the market and is sometimes even enjoyable. I tend to post some of the books I like to my LiveJournal every few weeks or months.
Electronic publishing has exploded in recent years, and electronic publishing rights have grown in significance. How has this altered your work as an agent? Was there ever a period where the value of electronic rights was difficult to assess? Did anyone ever try to gain the electronic rights of one of your clients for almost nothing, on the pretense that electronic publication had little to no value?
I came in when there were already major ebook outlets. I view them as an integral part of the intellectual property and expect to get something of value for them. Negotiations are just that: devalue this, hype that, moan, complain and eventually sign or walk away.
Has the recent worldwide economic downturn made selling books to publishers more difficult? Is it more or less important for an author to have an agent during such a period?
I’m not sure it’s more or less important. There are some writers who don’t have agents and seem to do ok. Tobias Buckell (a writer) did a survey of advances for writers and found that agented writers do tend to get larger advances.
I think one of the advantages of having an agent that many writers don’t think of is simply the amount of time that can be saved by having one. This is particularly true for writers who do or have a desire to write in a number of series or numerous single books instead of a single long series. Just the research time a writer might spend figuring out what editors might want a book, getting it to them, negotiating the sale and such could amount to more than the agent’s cut, if calculated at even a fairly low per hour rate for a new writer or one who hasn’t gotten to the stage of getting larger advances. Given that there is certainly a finite amount of time a writer can write in any given time period, and hence a maximum ceiling on the number of works they can produce, it makes sense from this standpoint to have someone do the sales work for you.
By comparison, I’m a reasonably able minor mechanic, but I don’t change my own oil or do my brakes unless I need too simply because with the time I could be making money – the cost of parts, and all the rest it costs more to do it myself. I can read slush or contact editors from the waiting room of the mechanic, but I can’t do it while trying to get the plug back into the oilpan.
Being an agent means sometimes dealing with the fans of your clients. What are some of the strangest and/or most inappropriate requests that fans have made towards any of your clients?
I’m not sure I’ve had anything memorable happen with fans, but that’s probably for the best. I do always get a chuckle out some of the impressions fans have of my writers. I’m not sure people really consider contacting me or any agent if the author makes themselves publicly available. I suspect that the truly odd would think of me more as a barrier than a gate to my clients.
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