Followers?

So. It's finally happened. The boss put me on the company website and consequently, this blog I've kept so well hidden has a follower. Welcome, one and all. Or just the one, at the time of this writing. Eh. Welcome anyway. Maybe one day you can proudly say you were the first. Somehow I doubt it. It does make me feel like I've got to step up the level of discourse though.

An important note: My first cousin once removed was baptized this past Sunday, September 19th. Notably, that was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I was sorely tempted to go wearing a patch and pirate hat. As it turns out, maybe I could've gotten away with it. If nothing else, the minister's sermon was all about the confrontation between Princess Leia (disguised as a bounty hunter) and Jabba the Hutt. Complete with a Jabba laugh and imaginary thermal detonator. What that had to do with baptism I'm not sure. Definitely the highlight of the ceremony.

Well, let's get back to business, huh? For a laugh, try using Google Maps or something and just type in "literary agency" and a city near you. Even for New York a pretty small number of businesses actually come up. I've got a two part theory.

1) Most agencies start so small that one or two agents probably run them out of apartments. Over time, if they're successful enough to expand they buy the place next door, and expand outward. The result is that many agencies, even very large ones like the Writer's House in NYC (Agents to, as examples, Neil Gaiman and Stephen Hawking) looks just like any other building. The only sign is small. You wouldn't see it unless you looked. And yet, they have the entire building. I've been in it. It's a converted apartment building. And although they're big and established, they're only about forty years old. Which actually isn't very surprising, but the history of agencies is a story for another day.

2) Agencies wish to discourage authors from hunting them down to pitch books in person. I have no physical proof of this one, but it makes sense. They'll list their number on their websites, but not in phone books. They'll have a sign, but you'll never see them if you don't look. Many don't even identify it as a business. Since agencies start small, they often take the agent's name. Take, as an example, the Jean V. Naggar agency here in NY. If you were to go there, the businesss appears simply as "Naggar" on the sign by the buzzer along with a dozen other surnames.

If there are lessons to be learned from this, it's that Agencies are not large, faceless corporations but usually a small, dedicated group. Also, a little bit of time in the business probably makes you neurotic enough to fear the consequences of being anything other than a faceless corporation to authors you choose not to represent. I'm a writer myself, so I know how attached we can get to our books. And in my capacity assisting at an agency, I can safely say there have been authors I've rejected I would not want to meet in a dark alley if you know what I mean. Somehow, anonymity never felt like anything special until I lost it by being posted on the company website.