"Agent Advice" is a series of quick interviews with literary and script agents who talk with Guide to Literary Agents about their thoughts on writing, publishing, and just about anything else.

This installment features Scott Eagan, founder of Greyhaus Literary Agency near Seattle. Scott specializes in romance and women's fiction.

GLA: How did you become an agent?

SE: I had been teaching English for more than 10 years and had just moved from the K-12 system to the collegiate level. At that time I had also done some work with my own writing (I write poetry on the side). I was looking for a change of career and everything sort of fell into place at the right time. With my background in English, degrees in English Literature, Creative writing and Literacy, this seemed to be the right move.

GLA: What is the most recent thing you've sold?

SE: I have been doing a lot of work recently with both SourceBooks and with Harlequin Mills and Boon. In both cases, the work has been primarily in the historical romance market. Right now, my top two writers are Michele Young from Toronto and Bronwyn Scott from the US. Michele has come out with No Regrets and The Lady Flees Her Lord, both stories with unconventional but very real heroines. The men fall in love with them for who they are not what they look like. As for Bronwyn Scott, she has been active with the new Harlequin Historical undone line releasing Pickpocket Countess and Notorious Rake, Innocent Lady. She is also part of the new e-book line they are releasing.

GLA: Your specialties are romance and women's fiction.  What attracted you to these areas?

SE: First of all, I have to say, I just love these stories. Both romance and good women’s fiction tend to make you feel pretty good when you finish a great book. Business-wise, I chose these lines simply due to supply and demand. Although a lot of agencies represent these genres, few only focus on the genre. I believe it is important to focus on one area and do it well.

GLA: How does a writer know she's writing women's fiction, as opposed to literary fiction?

SE: I think I have a fairly good definition of women’s fiction. These are not simply stories with female characters but stories that tell us the female journey. Women’s fiction is a way for women to learn and grow and to relate to others what it is to be a woman. When I think of literary fiction, the emphasis is placed more on the telling of a good story instead of making the female journey the centerpiece.

GLA: There is a lot of romance out there.  What can set a story apart from the many bad ones?

SE: What I find separates the good from the bad is the depth I which the stories go to be unique and real. There are a lot of stories out there that are just copying a template. Sure the story is a fun read, but I just wouldn’t put it up there with the “good” stories. When I find an author that does that, I just can’t put the book down. I really hear the voice of the author coming right off the page.

GLA: Let's talk queries.  Specifically - the pitch paragraph.  What must be in there for you to be interested?

SE: The pitch is simple. I want to know not only the basics (the genre, word count and title) but I want to really know what makes this story unique and different from everything else out there. Anymore, it is not so much a matter of being a good writer, you have to have a story that makes us stand up and take notice. Along the same lines, I want an author to show me he or she understands the business and their place in the world.

GLA: When pitching a romance, should a writer have more books lined up or planned out?  I know that romance writers usually pen multiple books (and sometimes even have multiple series).  From a career standpoint, what must a writer know if they want to write romance?  On this note, if a writer came to you and said "I have one book and don't plan to write another," would you take it on if it was good?

SE: As an agent, I am looking for someone to be in it for the long haul. Unless the story is such a breakout novel (which you really don’t find very often), a writer will need to have more books ready to go. Now, does this mean the author should have the books written? Not necessarily. The author may simply have an idea of how they are going to become a “brand.”

GLA: From that career standpoint, a writer needs to have a clear picture of where they want to be in the next 5 years and even in the next 10. This needs to be a realistic picture and not the belief that she will retire immediately from all the proceeds of the book.

SE: As far as the writer with one book. The odds are, I would pass on it. Again, since I am working with the romance and women’s fiction genre, they will not make enough money off that one book to make it worth our time.

GLA: Will you be at any upcoming conferences or events where writers can meet you?

SE: I have very little things on my agenda right now. I’m tentatively heading to the Silicon Valley RWA chapter in May and will be at the RWA national conference in Washington D.C. in 2009. When it comes to conferences, I go to where I am invited.
      Another great place to meet me would be via my blog or even taking my online Marketing Your Fiction Novel Class (information on my website).

GLA: Best piece(s) of advice concerning something we haven't discussed?

SE: I would simply tell writers to do their research and don’t rush into the publishing. Be ready to make the move both with your manuscripts and mentally. Know exactly who you are sending your works to and why. The more you know, the better off you will be.

        Scott Eagan represents writers of romance and women's fiction.  See more online at his website.  In his words: "I am ACTIVELY (can I make that any louder?) looking for Hot and Steamy contemporary romances for the Mills and Boon Modern Heat Line."

Ciao!  I arrived in Italy this past week for the International Women's Fiction Festival in Matera, Italy, and it has been nonstopping walking and talking since then.  I saw Rome briefly during a long layover and got to do some basic sightseeing.
      I memorized about a hundred words and phrases in Italian and was very proud of myself.  But it was all for nothing when I stepped into my first cafe and had a Roman woman say "Prego," and shoot me a look like "God, I hope you're not an American who can't speak Italian to save your life."

Trevi Fountain in the heart of Rome (Roma!).

I then flew to Bari on the east coast of Italy, where I was picked up and driven with other presenters and attendees to the south central region of Italy - where Matera is.  The city itself is a world heritage site and old as can be.  It's famous for the communities that were carved out of caves over thousands of years.

The stone communities (Sassi) of Matera
are thousands of years old and have
been developed by each generation here.

My panels have gone well so far, and I've met with writers and heard some book and article pitches.  About half of the pitches were in Italian, and it's quite a thing to have someone explaining their book, and then have that explanation told through a translator who then has to translate your reaction. 

The Italian woman in the middle
is telling me about her romance book
and looking for advice. The woman
on the left is translating.

So far, it has been a lot of work and my sleep schedule is chaotic, but the country is amazing.  I will be posting a lot more in the coming days - interviews with agents and panel summaries. 

GLA: What's the most recent thing you've sold?

TW: I represent nonfiction in many different categories and I sell new books frequently, so it's best for authors to visit my agency's website for the latest information on our deals, our clients, and their recently published books.

GLA: It seems like if someone wanted to write about cooking or politics or history, it's all been done before.  That said, what stands out for you in a proposal?  What are you looking for immediately to draw you into a project?

TW: There are several factors that can help a book's ultimate prospects: great writing, great platform, or great information, and ideally all three.  For narrative works, the writing should be gorgeous, not just functional.  For practical works, the information should be insightful, comprehensive and preferably new.  And for any work of nonfiction, the author's platform is enormously important.

GLA: Online at your website, people can listen to your speech called "Book Proposal Bootcamp."  To summarize, what do you detail in the speech?

TW: The "Book Proposal Bootcamp" workshop, which I teach frequently at writers' conferences and elsewhere, gives an overview of the whole process from book idea to book tour, but with a central focus on the actual proposal, which is essentially a business plan for a book.  I explain all the elements of a proposal - overview, about the author, target audience, comparable titles, marketing and promotion plans, detailed table of contents, sample chapters - and try to give as much guidance (and true stories) as a 90-minute session allows.

GLA: You look for writers of nonfiction biography.  Are you looking for interesting people who want to write their own autobiography, or are you looking for good writers who can write biographies of famous people?  If it's the latter, how do writers secure the rights to write Mick Jagger's life story, for example?

TW: Memoir/autobiography is a thriving genre (I highly recommend the 826 Valencia Writing Centers' The Autobiographer's Handbook, which I represented), but the appeal of any particular work will come from the literary quality of the writing and the author's ability to make the story compelling to someone who hasn't previously heard of him or her.  We all see too many memoirs where our reaction is either "This just isn't great writing," or "Why would a stranger care about this writer's personal story?"
      For biographies, of course, the writing quality is key, as well as the fame (or infamy) of the subject and the freshness of the material or insights the author presents.  Often an "authorized" biography is more interesting (we all want to read a story where the subject gets to have his or her say, too), but there is no single way to persuade a subject to cooperate.  And nothing prevents an author from writing about a public personality, as long as they don't write anything libelous, of course.

GLA: Can you give me an example or two of where a journalist was working on a topic and made it into a book that you agented?  How did the timeline work?  Did you contact them or vice versa?

TW: Recent examples include Nena Baker, who was a reporter for the Portland Oregonian and the Arizona Republic, and whose current affairs and science book The Body Toxic just came out from Farrar, Straus & Giroux.  She and I met at a writers' conference where she first pitched me a different project, but the impact of environmental chemicals had long fascinated her and seemed an important and timely topic to me.  So she and I worked on a proposal, sold it, and although the whole project took several years, she had a wonderful working relationship with her editor, Denise Oswald, at FSG.
      Another client, Eric Janszen, an economics analyst and writer (and former tech executive), wrote the cover story of Harper's Magazine in February 2008, "The Next Bubble," about our current economic situation.  Based on that article, I contacted him and helped him develop a book proposal, and the quality of his insights and the timeliness of the topic led to a frenzied, two-day tour to meet with eight different publishers who were interested.  Adrian Zackheim at Portfolio/Penguin aggressively pre-empted the book on the eve of what was going to be a big auction, and Eric is close to finishing the manuscript now, with publication of The Post Catastrophe Economy scheduled for next spring.

GLA: What are the most common things you see writers doing wrong when composing a nonfiction book proposal?

TW: Professionalism always wins.  A book proposal, as I said earlier, is simply a business plan for a book.  Authors who don't learn all they need to know about writing a great proposal (you know, I heard there's a good "book proposal bootcamp" audio recording available somewhere on the Web...) and then carefully take advantage of what they have learned are much less likely to succeed.

GLA: Will you be at any upcoming writers' conferences where people can meet and pitch you?

TW: I attend a wide range of conferences, which varies each year, and it isn't essential to meet me face-to-face to pitch me a book.  Perhaps a third of my clients are referrals, another third I discovered and contacted myself, and another third I took on from blind submissions via my Web site.  I read every submission I receive, and I'm always looking for that query or proposal where I can say, as in that Tom Cruise/Renee Zellweger movie, "You had me from hello."

GLA: Best piece(s) of advice concerning something we haven't discussed?

TW: Write every day, get in a serious writing group for high-quality feedback, treat writing like the craft and privilege it is.

• Many agents will indeed consider representing self-published books, but they are only looking for the best of the best.
• Agents want to know sales numbers of your book, and they're looking for impressive figures.
• Fiction is tougher to sell than nonfiction, so smaller sales numbers for the former will be considered, just as larger sales numbers for the latter will be expected.
• Just as it's important that your book is selling and has a distinct market(s), selling too many books is a bad thing as well, as you may have maxed out your sales.  There would be no reason to give it a second life via traditional publishing.