Interview with literary agent Holly Root of Waxman Leavell Literary by Alice M. Newman
Me: How did you become an agent?
I came up the very classic, old-school pay-your-dues way. After an early stop at a Christian publisher on the editorial side, I started my road to agenting in the William Morris agent trainee programâin which, yes, you start in the mailroomâbefore moving to Trident, where I was an assistant for several agents from whom I learned a great deal, apprentice-style, and then cut my dealmaking teeth as the audio rights agent there. Seven years ago I moved to Waxman and Iâve been happily here ever since.
Me: Many of my readers are aspiring authors and are actively looking for their first agent. Can you tell them a little bit about what the author/agent relationship is like? What can they expect after they sign with an agent?
The biggest thing that seems to throw new authors is that an agent/author relationship has on times and off times. Right after youâre signed there tends to be a lot of communicationâeditorial feedback, submissions plans, updates on the submission, dealmaking details. Then once the train is on the track, that shiftsâyou wonât be hearing from your agent every day, necessarily. And thatâs normal! Thereâs an ebb and flow to the communication that eventually feels very natural, especially if the fit is goodâthe writer feels free to run up a flag if they need something, and I will pop into their inbox with an idea or suggestionâŚbut itâs not necessarily daily, which I think sometimes throws people for a loop.
Me: What are you looking for right now in fiction submissions and not getting? Are there any subjects or genres that are near and dear to your heart? And on the flip side, what are you getting too much of?
Definitely seeing too much paranormalâIâm still (still!) getting tons of books with kids with elemental powers, or a sexy angel boy, and those would be really tough sells right now. I love contemporary realistic YA but the biggest flaw I see are books where things happen to the protagonistâs best friend/sister/parents and the protagonist is just an observer rather than having an emotional arc of their own. Iâd love to see more sibling storiesâI love romance but I think thereâs also room for books about other kinds of love that are just as fierce. Iâm also a sucker for awkward first loveâI mean, none of the boys I knew as a teen were half as suave as some of the guys running around the YA shelves. I also have a soft spot for SFF, especially when I can tell the writer is passionate about the genre (I see a lot of books that are just too close to certain big titles within the genre to feel fresh to meâunderstandable, as SF tropes have now permeated so much of pop culture).
Me: What is one thing about you that a writer would be surprised to learn?
I have absolutely zero interest in writing a book myself, much to my grandfatherâs dismay. I have seen behind the curtain and know too much about how hard it is!
Me: Best piece(s) of advice you can give a writer we havenât talked about yet?
The single best piece of advice is probably that sometimes you have to ignore advice. Maybe not the âdonât write all twelve books of an epic space opera involving the torrid love between a werewolf and a dinosaurâŚfor middle gradeâ kind of advice (some things are just wrong) but I think thereâs so much out there now that you can âresearchâ your way right out of ever finishing a book, or have so many ideas of what wonât sell/wonât work that youâre shooting down your own nascent ideas before they have a chance to breathe a little. I see a lot of submissions that are technically perfect but lack that sparkâthey feel manufactured, overly careful to try to be what someone said they wanted. Donât pay so much attention to industry stuff that you contort your way out of what makes you special as a writer.
http://amymnewman.com/2013/12/30/interview-with-literary-agent-holly-root-of-waxman-leavell-literary/
