STATUS: I wasn’t in the office yesterday so today is catch-up.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? STRONG ENOUGH by Sheryl Crow
Our eNewsletter goes out on the 1st of every month (unless the 1st is over the weekend, then we wait for the first Monday after the month begins) but you get the picture.
And I guess I need to assume that some newsletter readers are not also blog readers because every month, I get an email asking me why we don’t rep male writers.
I imagine Stefan Bachmann, Jamie Ford, Jason Hough, and Micheal Planck would be slightly offended by this question.
What do they need to do? Don wife beaters and have a Harley in their author photos to stand out?
And that doesn’t count all the new guys we’ve just signed on but haven’t sold yet.
Enough already. We’ve got plenty of testosterone on the client roster.
Darn. That was going to be the personalization part of my query letter: You keep posting about wanting more male clients.
I’m so bewildered by the fact that people would even e-mail in claiming that. It’s a strange world.
Strange that such comments would come from men, considering the literary world is dominated by male authors and reviewers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/04/research-male-writers-dominate-books-world
And if your agency just happens to have a higher ratio of women this year, what’s it to them? Are some men’s feelings getting hurt? Good Lord…
Best,
Rashad.
I’m sure another literary agency gets the same emails from ladies instead. It all evens out.
I suppose I would be interested in where did they get the idea that your agency catered to women only.
Your FAQ’s and Submission info has a lot of great advice, query do’s and don’t but nothing about being a “women’s only” club.
Hmm…
One of those four wanted to use a pic on his bike but I talked him out of it. The leather jacket stuck, though.
It wasn’t a Harley… it was a V65 Magna. Much better (and faster!) than a Harley. 😀
ooh rah!
Men, the invisible treat.
I must admit when I first visited NLA’s site (late 2009), I thought for a moment that you only rep’d female authors. But then I saw Jamie Ford in the list and decided to cancel my gender-reassignment surgery.
Clearly you do rep male authors, but 31 females to 4 males on your client page shows a pretty clear predilection for female authors and isn’t really doing you any favors in your quest to appear non-biased.
Indeed, the question “Why don’t you rep male authors” is a silly one, since you so clearly do. However, maybe the question should be “Why don’t you rep MORE male authors?” 11% male clients is hardly average, I would think.
The question is, why don’t you rep REAL men?
🙂
I don’t think writing is a fifty-fifty proposition, and I certainly wouldn’t like to see an agency going to affirmative action percentages–i.e. we’re going to rep this many *insert type here.* Nor, quite honestly, do I see a need for it.
Write the book. Send it out. If you’re seriously worried about your gender being a factor in judgment, use your initials. My take is that agents have better things to worry about. Like whether you actually wrote a fantastic book or not.
I should think it’s more a matter of good writing that applies rather than gender. I say continue to seek out good writing.
Actually, it’s rare for female agents to rep men, given that the current ‘hot’ thing is YA, romance, or chic-lit fantasy. Few men write in these genres, and authors that don’t are rarely, if ever repped.
Just an observation