I began researching what to ask on this call as soon as I got that first full request on the manuscript. I was very excited and I wanted to be prepared. Two great resources that I referenced at the time were Alexa Donne – she has a whole video series on the call as well as Alyssa Matesic. 

This call, when an agent has read your manuscript and asks to have a call, it can be one of two things: 

1. They’re making you an offer of rep
2. Or, they may ask for a revise and resubmit.

So even though I had this call on the schedule and I was SUPER excited, I kept telling myself “it’s a revise and resubmit” because I didn’t want to get my hopes up and then be disappointed. But I knew I had to prepare either way. 

I still have my notes in my notebook of the question research I did, which questions to ask. And then notes from our actual conversation. 

I’ll break down my questions into several buckets:

1. Working together on the current manuscript – Heifer.
   1. I asked about her suggested edits. What she liked, what she thought needed to change. 
   2. This also told me about her perspective as an agent and whether she was an editorial agent or not. Some agents won’t edit your manuscript with you; they may expect you’ve done all the editing, and they expect the editor at the publishing house to do it. Some agents, like my agent, are editorial. They are looking to make the manuscript as tight as it can be so it gets an offer, hopefully a higher offer, etc. Looking back in my notes, the first call we had was almost entirely talking about her thoughts on where we could expand on Heifer. When I queried her, it was at a lean 62K words. So she saw room to expand a bit. But at the end of that first call, she made me an offer of rep. So she really had me going there, thinking it would be a revise and resubmit. 
   3. I asked about her vision for the book in terms of where she saw it in the market. I queried it as a dystopian women’s fiction. If she had said, I really see this as a love story, record scratch. Hearing her thoughts on where it would fit on an editor’s list (we were aligned, check) and when she thought we would go on submission was helpful. She gave me a realistic timeline for working through edits together. 
   4. I asked about what had happened when she had a book not get an offer. I didn’t want to think about it, but I knew from other authors that sometimes the first book doesn’t get an offer. She told me she was a pitbull or a bulldog and tenacious. And that has turned out to be true. 
   5. I asked about what information she would give me while we were on submission. She said I would get the list of editors, and I’d hear when we had an offer. My agent is an author as well, and she knows the anxiety of being on submission. 
   6. So we had a long talk about the book I queried, what her vision was for it, and what my vision was for it. And really dialed in on that manuscript. 
   7. So I had all these business questions we didn’t get to. So we had a second call
2. Business Questions
   1. How do we handle communication? She promised me that if I sent an email, she would get back to me within 3 weeks. I believe she said, “Unless I’ve been hit by a bus, I will respond in 3 weeks, even if the response is, ‘I’m swamped, I need three more weeks,’ and she has stuck to this. I usually hear back much sooner, and she’s never had to ask for more than 3 weeks. 
   2. The agency I am with is small. There are a handful of agents. This has pros and cons, so I asked about her vision for working with authors and not burning out. I will say, this has probably been confusing. When I signed with Perez Literary, Kristina signed me. She is the principal agent there. We talked about my multi-genre tendencies and future books, but also my career. Because she was training her assistant to become an agent, and because that agent now handles romance, Isabel has been my primary contact for FOMO. So I have two agents with one agency. I do want to clarify that. I get the best of both worlds. They both know me, they know my self-published titles, and they know both of the books I’ve worked on. So I asked about the business side of things. 
   3. I asked about subsidiary rights – selling translations, selling adaptation options, so she went over the co-agents they work with. 
   4. I asked about how she handles conflicts. 
   5. Knowing that the majority of US Book Publishing is based in NYC and my agent is based in London, I asked about how she maintains relationship switch NYC based editors. I know she can more easily connect with UK publishers based in London, but she was able to tell me how she regularly connects with editors in the US and elsewhere in the world. Green flag!
   6. And she asked me questions. She asked about my vision for my career. She asked about how I was balancing current books with new books. She asked about my self-published sales (after she made the offer) 

These were two good back-and-forth conversations. 

Yes, she answered my questions, and I liked her answers. No red flags, no gut reactions that gave me pause. 

This initial conversation is a chance for you to get to know this potential business partner. The conversation should be about business. But also, can you develop a rapport? Can you work together? 

Just like you want to hear their answers to questions, they want to hear yours. If they aren’t listening to your answers or your concerns or aren’t giving you time to ask questions: red flags. 

A good agent will be able to answer questions about their vision for the book, how they operate, and hot topics of the day. A good agent wants to see that you have questions, that you aren’t just signing blindly. A good agent wants a long-term business relationship.

I hope if you are watching this before you have ‘the call’ or multiple calls, that you feel empowered to ask your questions, to seek out testimonials from their current client list, to make the best decision for your book and your long-term author career. 

Best of luck!

Books I’ve worked on with my agent:

Genisse

Fake Out Make Out