What does it mean when an agent goes quiet?

Someone in a writing organisation told me recently that one thing that writers really fret about is when their agent seems to go silent. What’s going on, when this happens?

There are two very hectic periods, when royalties and book fairs happen. On the last Friday of March and September, most publishers send all the money for all their authors to the agents’ clients accounts. This isn’t safe to be distributed to authors until the royalty statements (often hundreds of pages long) are checked. Most agents like to send money to authors quickly; we know what a difference it can make, and by law we have 5 days from when the bank clears the money. It’s a scramble; and sometimes we need to deal with queries on them. On top of that, the two main book fairs (London and Frankfurt) happen two weeks later, so we’re suddenly concentrating on dozens of meetings where we’re selling translation rights.

Often there’s ‘fire-fighting’ to be done. Problems can come out of nowhere. An investor suddenly drops out of a film and the budget changes, so we need to re-negotiate the terms. Something that seemed unremarkable in a manuscript suddenly becomes contentious because of something in the news. Someone makes a mistake somewhere and we need to help repair it. A film option is exercised, so all the paperwork needs legal examination. Ours is a very labour-intensive job, and we need to be prompt and effective.

Our workload can very uneven. Six clients can deliver a new project in the same week. A historical problem comes to light and we need to examine old contracts. Two 50-page film agreements arrive in the same afternoon. Or we launch a new round of catch-up meetings with producers and publishers, which take up time and also need following up.

In the back of my mind, I always have a nagging voice reminding me of clients I haven’t been in touch with recently. Mostly, I’m having a conversation in my head with all of my clients, and sometimes I let more time go without communication than I mean to. I’m always happy to have a client get in touch, even if there’s nothing active that needs doing right then. More contact than less is usually good; don’t forget that agents are people too, and my nagging voice starts making me anxious that the client’s mad at me for some reason.

And, let’s face it, sometimes there’s a problem.  Sometimes bad news for a client piles up to the point where I need to gather my courage to share it with them, and to work out a plan as to what to do about it. Sometimes the shine goes off the relationship and I don’t want to face it. But this is far less common than the simple fact that there’s a scramble going on my end.

So if you’re worried about your agent being quiet, just get in touch.

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