Fired by My Agent

I have made a new author biff and learned along the way that my agent is not a forgiving woman. Or I should say, my ex-agent. Here's the story:

Four years ago, after mountains of rejections and close-acceptances from agents and small publishing houses, I found an agent who'd take me. So what if her website picture had her communing with a crystal and wearing a suede fringed vest with purple leather pants? Unfortunately, she only wanted to submit to publish on demand (POD) publishers, so our relationship was short lived and ended amicably, though I imagine she was disappointed. I swung to my next agent, who submitted to the big houses and then landed me a deal with Midnight Ink, the imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide. I am forever grateful to her for this as Midnight Ink has been incredibly supportive of me on every level, from getting May Day published to publicizing it to sending plot ideas for the series. They're really truly good people.

My agent also had a contract for June Bug, which she sold to Midnight Ink a year ago. After she does that, I ask her what's up with the future of the series. She tells me that she'll never be able to sell it to any other publishing house because no one will want to take on a series started elsewhere, and that I should just plan on selling all books in the series to Midnight Ink. She encourages me to start on an unrelated book that she can shop around to other publishers based on my success at Midnight Ink.

So I started on an unrelated book that she can shop around to other publishers based on my success with Midnight Ink. And, I sold the as-yet incomplete Knee High by July manuscript to Midnight Ink myself. This is where she gets mad. Apparently, it is bad form to ever sell anything your agent doesn't get a cut on, and when she said that I should just plan on selling all the series to Midnight Ink, she meant that I should plan on writing it and she'll make the phone call to Midnight Ink for a 15% share of the royalties. I couldn't convince her that not using an agent to negotiate my Knee High contract was based entirely on her advice and that I wasn't trying to be sneaky. She terminated our professional relationship on the spot, despite my repeated and sincere apologies for not knowing the rules.

I feel bad, but it was a good learning experience, and I share it with you as a cautionary tale if you are a pre- or newly-published writer. Here's what I learned:

1. Find out the temperament of any person you hire to represent you. I recommend poking them with a stick and calling them names to see how they react. If you develop a relationship with a publisher, find out their experience with that agent.
2. Don't ever get too busy to thank the people who helped you.
3. Not all agents want what's best for you. Check out Preditors and Editors for information on who is good and who is not. You won't find anything bad about my ex-agent listed there by me as I would classify our snafu as a miscommunication issue. Some people might even perceive her "fight for every penny at any cost" attitude an asset in an agent.
4. Many agents who represent you will expect to automatically represent everything you produce. If you have different ideas, let him/her know before you enter a professional relationship. Conversely, ask him/her what their expectations are for the relationship. My agent only asked to represent the first two books in the series, but if I had asked her what her longterm plans were, we could have avoided any bad feelings.
5. Finally, if you're new to all this like I was, ask your agent a lot of questions. I was so pleased to have a "real" agent that I didn't ask as many questions as I should have at the outset.

Even though this was a good learning experience, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I pride myself with being open and fair in my dealings with people, and I wish I hadn't overlooked the courtesy "I don't need you for this" email to her. I'm guessing she would have ditched me anyways given the type of relationship she perceived we had, but at least then it wouldn't have had anything to do with my manners. Lesson learned.