I’ve alluded to it before, but let’s bring it into focus here: I’m on the road toward promotion. To me, I consider this “ground zero,” because as a full Literary Agent, I’ll be in complete creative and professional control over my list and, therefore, my business.
My largest suggestion for those approaching this position is to think intentionally of what owning a business means to you. Even if you work for an agency, the reality is that as a solo agent, you are your own business. Which means the success and failure of your business rides not only on your individual output, but your expertise in your field, and your business acumen.
I have colleagues with business degrees and others with law degrees, then a few others who, like me, come from academia or from professional writing, or some combination of all of these things. But what all of this back history has in common is some sort of expertise – everyone has some sort of specialization that brings a unique skillset to the table.
In addition to expertise, you have to think about what, well, what you’re not an expert in, and then fill in the gaps. One of the most helpful bits of advice I was given was to write out my own business plan, know my numbers, and have a trajectory. From a business stand point, this obviously makes sense, but I’d also argue that there are plenty in the field who are not thinking about these things in depth.
Approaching promotion, I knew I had to make the most of my time and figure out my own practice and my own numbers before I am “on my own.” Given that I make this shift with the intention of closing the gap between less than full-time to true full-time load, it also means closing the gap between my old career and this new one, which means know my money.
I would argue that even before the business plan, knowing your numbers is essential – how much do you need to sell in a year to survive? How about to thrive? Knowing that number will dictate how many projects you want to plan to submit in a season as well as how many clients it makes sense to take on at a time, which ultimately means knowing how often you need to open to submissions (and/or recruit clients), which is to say how much time you can allocate to editorial, and whether or not this means working with an assistant makes sense (and whether that is even viable!). This is all to say, that if you’re considering this field, and you haven’t considered these aspects of job success just yet, I’d encourage you to do so.
