Words Mean Things

This blog post is brought to you by dictation because my hand is broken, and I really do not want to type this whole thing out. It would take me an eternity.

Yay for dictation!

Today, let’s talk about the something trad pub pretends to be about:

Advocacy.

What I mean by that is, in trad pub as it stands, you have publishers and editors work at these publishing houses. If you want to be published, you need an agent. An agent is supposed to be an advocate for you. They're supposed to broker your deals and act as your shield and protector, ensuring the business relationship with a publisher is sound and works in your favor. They handle issues that arise and bite to show publishers their bark isn’t all bark.

The fact that trad pub needs agents for authors to be published is an issue in itself because it means publishers, by nature, cannot be trusted to create relationships and deals that are fair to the author.

However, words mean things, and trad pub’s definition of advocacy is not true advocacy.

Advocacy shouldn't depend on how much money you're bringing in to your agency or your publisher. It shouldn't matter what your skin color is, whether you're able-bodied or disabled, whether you're BIPOC or white. Advocacy should not hinge on privilege and background. Or your compliance and silence.

During my time in trad pub, I've come to understand that there's a disproportionate number of agents who selectively advocate for certain clients. For every marginalized author who has a “great” agent, there are others were probably saw a different side of that “great” agent.

When an industry forces authors to need a middle man such as an agent to even get into the club, and those agents fail to advocate, it becomes a big damn problem. This issue is one that BIPOC and marginalized authors know quite well. Authors are placed in vulnerable positions, navigating an industry that was not built for their success and views them more as gum on the bottom of a shoe than as professionals with valuable art.

Answering emails, communicating, and respecting a client’s wishes are the most basic things an agent should do. Agents are supposed to work for authors, but in reality, marginalized authors often face a power dynamic that undermines their ability to succeed. This imbalance is detrimental to the industry and to the authors it should support.

If your agent’s advocacy relies on your silence and compliance, let’s rethink the power dynamics here:

Your agent should work for you, not hold power over you.

If an agent cannot do their job, which includes basic ass things, they have no intention of advocating for you and are likely waiting for you to leave or mustering the nerve to let you go. Again, this is a significant problem because the industry demands we have agents and agents, by contract, say they will advocate for you and work in your best interests.

And during a time where agencies and agents are dropping clients like dirty draws in a clothes hamper, and clients are leaving their agents and marching back into the query trenches because their agent gave up on them and forgot to tell them, we need to re-examine how an agent's treatment of you as their client is built on subjective, problematic, messy factors.

Yet authors are told to "suck it up, buttercup" and "it's just business," while there’s agents out there that act like a damn wolverine in the Canadian wilderness. Their clients don't know how to approach them on even the simplest of things in fear of pissing them off.

If your agent sides with a publisher or editor over you, that is not advocacy. If they put you in uncomfortable situations and insist you need to just endure it despite your objections, they are failing you. Agents have and can prioritize maintaining their relationships with publishers and editors over advocating for their clients.

True advocacy is not about sacrificing one client for the benefit of others. If an agent jeopardizes a client’s career to preserve their business relationships, they are not advocating—they are breaking their contractual obligations.

Words mean things and trad pub doesn't know what advocacy means without equating it to a check.

A check they could get if they [checks notes] actually did their gotdamn jobs.

When agents choose to stop doing even the bare minimum for their clients, they shouldn’t be Pikachu surprised when their choices makes things catch fire. When agents actively choose to stop tending to a garden, they shouldn’t act brand new when they see crusty ass brown plants.

Nor should they be upset, angry, or offended when, based on the fact they wouldn't do their job, their client must step in to advocate for themselves.

Agents shouldn't be embarrassed that their refusal to do their job makes them “look bad." So, punishing clients, particularly marginalized authors, for actually being proactive when they had the opportunity to do so for a long ass time doesn't make them "look bad," they’re a bad agent.

It is difficult to rely solely on the words of pleased clients when many agents only give those clients the good side to see. It is difficult to process the fact whatever side of an agent you got boiled down to them weighing your worth to them.

Does every interaction make you feel like you’re valued or does it feel like you’re paying a cost?

So, once again, words mean things, but in an industry that makes money off of words, it’s easy to change a definition to maintain the status quo.