The advantage of a big literary agency firm is that they probably have a rolodex of thousands of established contacts in the publishing world who can easily get your book into the publishing house if the book is of any quality.
The disadvantage is that these agencies usually prefer to work with established best selling authors where they, the agency, will get the most commissions for their effort.
Conversely, the advantage of a smaller literary agency is that they will be more likely to take you on as well as to give you more personal attention.
The disadvantage is that they probably do not have nearly as many contacts.
Knowing how long the literary agency has been in the business is something that you want to know as well.
If a company has been in business for 25 years you can feel comfortable that they know what they are doing, else they would not have lasted this long.
Also, the longer a company has been in business, the more of the ins and outs that they have learned about the business.
This means that they probably have a lot more shortcuts to successfully getting a writer's book published than would a company that is only three years old.
When working with literary agents, you have to recognize that, since they work on commission, they want writers who will bring in money for them.
In other words, if your book, screenplay, or book outline does not have the potential to bring in readers, they are probably not going to be interested in you.
On the other hand, if they see the potential in your piece of work and feel that they can sell that potential to the publisher or producer, they will be very interested.
So, when you write your query letter, your job is to make sure that the agent sees your book potential in the clearest way possible.
There are a lot of good literary agents out there.
But there are some scam artists as well.
Writing is something that millions of people love to do as a hobby.
And many times a writer gets to the point where he or she feels that their book is good enough to be published.
This is usually when they start to look for an agent.
Of the many things that they should be wary of are agents that charge a fee for reading their work, ones that ask for huge upfront fees of any kind, and ones that try to sell them a bunch of services that they don't need.
The disadvantage is that these agencies usually prefer to work with established best selling authors where they, the agency, will get the most commissions for their effort.
Conversely, the advantage of a smaller literary agency is that they will be more likely to take you on as well as to give you more personal attention.
The disadvantage is that they probably do not have nearly as many contacts.
Knowing how long the literary agency has been in the business is something that you want to know as well.
If a company has been in business for 25 years you can feel comfortable that they know what they are doing, else they would not have lasted this long.
Also, the longer a company has been in business, the more of the ins and outs that they have learned about the business.
This means that they probably have a lot more shortcuts to successfully getting a writer's book published than would a company that is only three years old.
When working with literary agents, you have to recognize that, since they work on commission, they want writers who will bring in money for them.
In other words, if your book, screenplay, or book outline does not have the potential to bring in readers, they are probably not going to be interested in you.
On the other hand, if they see the potential in your piece of work and feel that they can sell that potential to the publisher or producer, they will be very interested.
So, when you write your query letter, your job is to make sure that the agent sees your book potential in the clearest way possible.
There are a lot of good literary agents out there.
But there are some scam artists as well.
Writing is something that millions of people love to do as a hobby.
And many times a writer gets to the point where he or she feels that their book is good enough to be published.
This is usually when they start to look for an agent.
Of the many things that they should be wary of are agents that charge a fee for reading their work, ones that ask for huge upfront fees of any kind, and ones that try to sell them a bunch of services that they don't need.