“Barbara, I think it’s an important point, but I just want to point out that other people in the industry besides writers are putting in blood, sweat, and tears. Editors are not known for being particularly well-paid, either. Same holds true, from the copy editors to the cover artists to the very dedicated people who sell books to the accounts.”

I don’t disagree. But without writers, none of those people would have jobs. Editors would have nothing to edit. Cover artists would have no covers for which to create art. People who sell books to accounts would have nothing to sell. I’m not saying they DON’T put in long hours, blood, sweat, and tears. But without writers, they wouldn’t be doing any of that.

Barbara, I think it’s an important point, but I just want to point out that other people in the industry besides writers are putting in blood, sweat, and tears. Editors are not known for being particularly well-paid, either. Same holds true, from the copy editors to the cover artists to the very dedicated people who sell books to the accounts.

Publishing receives an enormous subsidy in the form of people who love books, who are quite intelligent, and who choose to work with books when they could make scads more money writing ad copy or whatever it is that they could have done instead. Writers aren’t alone by any stretch of the imagination, and sadly, there are many segments of book publishing that would be quite pleased to make nominal profits.

And Ericka–depending on the agent, it could be that something has come up, like a health issue or a family question. If this is someone who otherwise has a reputation for timeliness, I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions yet. But yes, that’s usually a red flag–especially if you’ve gotten publisher interest & haven’t heard a response.

And Vanessa, Christina, and Miranda, I think you’re all highlighting the most important point: an agent-client relationship is a partnership. It’s an odd partnership in formation, with the agent (usually) having the upper hand. But it’s a partnership nonetheless.

One of the things I loved about that post was that it showed that he was thinking about you as a writer and as someone with something valuable to offer, even before he offered representation, instead of having an attitude that since he represents several New York Times bestselling authors, everyone should just get out of his way.

When writers treat me and my agency like some run of the mill agency, I get pissed. And anyone who doesn’t understand how busy (and generous) I am (and by extension how busy my associates are), should NOT be sending me/us queries. I don’t have time for whining, and nether do my agents.

I guess my understanding of “generous” and my definition of “whining” are out of whack.

And, yes, Tessa – I think you’re correct. Some days I think we’re nothing more than cannon fodder for the internet.

I find the whole trend of agents publicly bagging on writers’ submissions/correspondence on Twitter, blogs, and the like to be disturbing. Sure, there is something to be learned from examples of “what not to do” – but it’s one thing for authors to voluntarily submit their queries, pages, and pitches for public snarking, and another for agents to take private correspondence and post it without the author’s permission.

Doesn’t it feel like things have changed since a few years ago, when we were querying? Ah, the pre-Twitter world. Back then, I never would have worried that my directly-emailed query would end up as blog or tweet fodder. Now, it seems writers have to start from that assumption. Which is kinda sad. Posts like this would make me consider returning to paper queries, if I were querying today.