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MEET The Literary Agents of Change (https://literaryagentsofchange.org): Literary Agents of Change, founded by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of the American Association of Literary Agents (AALA), was formed to help dismantle the barriers to entry into a career as a literary agent for members of historically underrepresented groups, particularly people of color, while recognizing the systems of overlapping oppressions in regard to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, class, and ability.
Literary Agents of Change offers a Fellowship Program to encourage recruitment into the profession, and a Mentorship Program focused on the retention and promotion of agents from these communities. From time to time, we also facilitate educational programming for AALA members, such as workshops on antiracism and overcoming bias, and we hope to expand these offerings in the coming years. We believe that advancing the publishing industry must include attracting and cultivating a truly diverse workforce while also enhancing fair and equitable treatment, access, and advancement within the industry.
BLH: For those new to literary agents, please share what the role of a literary agent is.
LAOC: Literary Agents are advocates for authors and illustrators. Agents guide the writing careers of their clients, counsel their business decisions, and manage the financial aspects of those choices.
While approaches to agenting vary widely, agents typically sign clients based on referrals or query submissions and then work with their clients to prepare their work for submission to editors at publishing houses. When an editor acquires the work, agents negotiate the author’s contract and advance, manage the work’s subsidiary rights, handle author payments, and advise the author throughout the publication process—and ideally—for the remainder of the author’s career.
BLH: What inspired you to start Literary Agents of Change?
LAOC: The group of agents that founded LAOC wanted to make concrete changes to the publishing industry culture and practices that constitute significant challenges and barriers to entry and retention faced by many aspiring agents, especially those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. LAOC addresses some of these issues through its Fellowship and Mentorship programs, which seek to change the way literary agencies hire, train, and compensate interns just starting their careers and to provide mentorship to rising literary agents in effort to boost retention and promotion. We believe that by supporting diversity in the workforce, we’ll be making the publishing business more resilient, and more successful economically, culturally, and artistically.
BLH: Tell us about benefits authors, booksellers and publishers can gain from working with Literary Agents of Change.
LAOC: While LAOC does not directly work with authors or booksellers, we know that cultivating diverse talent in the literary agent field will increase and improve the representation and publication opportunities for authors from historically underrepresented communities. In fact, in a recent survey, our mentees, twenty-one of them reported having done a total of 238 book deals over the past three and a half years, with 66.4% of those deals for authors from marginalized backgrounds. We hope these efforts contribute to the diversity of books available for booksellers to share with their customers, so that all readers have the opportunity to see themselves, their communities, and their cultures represented and celebrated within literature.
We have a number of publishers who support our work through corporate donations, and we regularly invite our colleagues at publishing houses to participate in continuing education panels that benefit our fellows and mentees. This is work we do together to train the next generation of publishing professionals and create more transparency in a business that is often opaque. Many publishers have their own internal DEI initiatives, but we’d like to foster more joint efforts between agents and publishers. Literary agents are often a crucial first step in an author’s path to publication, and our communal work can help broaden the kind of submissions editors receive and get more diverse books into the hands of booksellers and readers.
In 2024 we’ll also be launching a directory of BIPOC agents on our website that we hope will be useful to querying authors and in making networking connections between agents and editors.
BLH: How has workforce diversity in the publishing industry changed over the last three to five decades?
LAOC: Overall, publishing workforce demographics are becoming more diverse, but slowly. Over the past decade, more publishers have started to follow Lee & Low’s lead by reporting on the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workforce. Several organizations have been established to support diverse colleagues—namely, POC in Publishing, We Need Diverse Books, Latinx in Publishing, Diversity in Publishing, and others provide networking opportunities, mentorship, and resources to their audiences.
The Association of American Literary Agents (AALA), the trade organization that we work with on our Fellowship and Mentorship programs, started conducting a survey of its membership in 2021 to monitor the state of diversity among literary agents. The first membership survey sought to establish baseline information about membership with respect to demographics, income, and other data. Since then, and in part as a result of those findings, the AALA launched a number of initiatives intended to make membership more accessible to a broader range of agents.
The results of the 2023 survey reveal that AALA membership has indeed expanded to include agents who are more diverse, younger, and earlier in their careers. In 2021, respondents who identified as white made up 88% of survey respondents, compared to 83% in 2023. Respondents between 30 and 40 years old constitute the single largest age group in 2023, whereas the single largest age group in 2021 was between 40 and 50 years old. And in 2021, a mere 5.4% of respondents were new to agenting, defined as having fewer than 3 to 4 years of experience, compared to 22.4% in 2023.
BLH: For those interested in working with a literary agent, what’s a good rate for an agent and how can authors tell if an agent is right for them and effective (able to close good book deals)?
LAOC: While we cannot make any recommendations regarding an agent’s commission percentage, we do suggest that querying authors review the Association of American Literary Agents’ canon of ethics which all AALA member agents must adhere to. In the canon, authors can find more information about ethics surrounding reading fees and hiring agents as freelance editors. As for finding an agent that is right for them, authors should review an agent’s website, sales history, client list, and ask questions of the agent who is offering representation. Agent methods and tastes vary widely—research is key.
BLH: Are there signs that a literary agent is not ethical or might actually be running a scam?
LAOC: Literary agents act with their clients’ best financial and career interests in mind. Agents are there to provide guidance, advice, and financial management, but your vision for your career should be at the center of it all. Again, we recommend consulting the AALA Canon of Ethics.
Unfortunately, many agents have noticed an uptick in fraudulent activity—fraudsters impersonating legitimate literary agents or pretending to be agents under false names and agencies. A great resource to keep aware of the kinds of scams going around is Writer Beware.
It’s essential that authors conduct extensive research on prospective agents and the agencies they are affiliated with. In general, it’s wise to consider the following: Does the contact information on the agent’s website match the information they contacted you with? Does your project seem to align with what that agent is looking for? Are they asking you for reading fees or to send large sums of money in return for your work’s publication? Do they have colleague or client references?
BLH: Literary Agents of Change offers a mentorship program. Please give us an overview of the program.
LAOC: The year-long Mentorship program matches mentees from historically underrepresented backgrounds who are currently employed at a literary agency with two AALA agent mentors, each of whom provide at least one hour each month of mentoring. The program directors also host programming focused on networking and career development and keep in touch through periodic check-ins and a monthly newsletter. Beyond the foundational goal to increase retention and promotion, the program aims to provide mentees with an understanding of their potential to succeed as agents, a sense of clarity about their work environment, and a support system consisting of mentor agents and other mentees in their cohort. We also offer each mentee a grant of $500, which they can use to further their professional development. Feedback from mentees about the program have been very positive, with one saying, “If it wasn’t for the LAOC Mentorship Program I would not have started signing clients when I did,” and another saying, without it, “I don’t think I would have been able to see a future in this as a career. I feel like a completely different agent since I started the program.”
BLH: How long is your summer fellowship and what’s involved in the fellowship?
LAOC: The Fellowship program is a paid, ten-week long internship with a literary agency for college students from diverse backgrounds from any of our school partners, all of which are minority serving institutions. Traditionally, internships in the publishing business have been underpaid or unpaid, which makes it difficult for many to explore publishing as a viable career option. LAOC wants to combat this norm by guaranteeing a $6,000 grant for each fellow. Further, LAOC aims to reframe internships as primarily educational for Fellows by providing host agencies with curriculum guidelines, organizing supplemental programming featuring panelists from other literary agencies and various departments at publishing houses, and through regular progress check-ins with hosts and fellows. By the end of the program, we hope that student fellows will have an understanding of the publication process and jobs involved, an idea of how to build a career in publishing, the area of the industry they’d like to pursue, and a foundational network comprised of their cohort, host agencies, and publishing professionals from across the industry who volunteer their time as panelists.
BLH: Tell us about some of the ways that we can support Literary Agents of Change.
LAOC: If you’d like to support our mission, you can donate funds, resources, or time to our programs. LAOC is 100% volunteer-run and monetary donations go toward supporting our Mentees and Fellows. For more specific information about how to get involved or partner with us, please visit our website at https://literaryagentsofchange.org. You can also spread the word about the work we’re doing!
BLH: Who are some of the authors you’ve represented and is the process of representing an author different author-by-author?
LAOC: Literary Agents of Change does not represent authors or illustrators. We are primarily dedicated to enacting change in the publishing industry through its workforce. That said, many of our volunteers could tell you that style and method vary widely among literary agents and agencies. And each client and each book is unique.
BLH: What last words of encouragement or advice would you like to leave with The Book Lover’s Haven readers?
LAOC: LAOC hopes that by supporting literary agents of marginalized identities opportunities for querying authors will simultaneously become more dynamic and varied. Taste varies so widely among agents, so don’t be discouraged by a rejection. Keep searching for the right agent for you and your work!
“Write like it matters and it will.” ~
Libra Bray
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