Lessons from the Trenches: Agent Roundtable

Three D.C.-based agents attended the roundtable and only one dealt with fiction on any major scale.

Howard Yoon NF agent
Ellen Pepus NF agent
Deborah Grosvenor F/NF agent

The agent roundtable was rather disappointing after the rest of the day. I was hoping for some big insights, a way to hobnob, etc. But what I heard was very general stuff. Follow submission guidelines, query first, make sure you submit to the appropriate agent, we're all very busy, kind of stuff.

In other words, I'd heard it all before. This was the only panel I didn't take any notes on.

The only interesting part was a bit of a heated discussion about e-books and how authors need to defer to their agents when dealing with e-book rights. Yes, they're upset about the 25% royalty and they're trying to get it up to 50%, but otherwise, they're stuck where they are and authors should just deal with it.

Really. That's kind of how it came across.

I wish I had a list of questions that were asked versus the ones I wanted asked because I really don't feel like I got much from the roundtable.

So, if you could ask an agent something? What would you ask?