Agent referrals - shortcut to an agent?

hello everyone alex dunn here and today i am going to be talking a bit about agent referrals what they are how they work do they matter is this like a secret to getting an agent no it's really not it's it's kind of it's a thing it's a thing that everyone talks about it can be fraught with kind of this social awkwardness and on both sides and so i'm going to talk about some of the things that go into agent referrals and what to do when you are hoping to get an agent referral or when one is offered to you and also kind of cover the author side because once you are an author with an agent there's all sorts of like awkwardness and kind of things that come along with it so i'm going to talk about it from all sides and perspectives so what is an agent referral it's when an agented author refers another author who doesn't have an agent to their agent for consideration of representation they do work a variety of ways but like at its base level that's what it means and what are some of the kind of levels of slash different types of referrals i find that they tend to fall into three camps the first switch i'll call or i call the vague or casual referral and this is when you've met an author you don't know them super well you wouldn't necessarily call them a friend maybe it's a really positive interaction at a convention or something i've definitely had these before where they're lovely and they find out that you're an author or maybe they've seen you a couple times in passing and they go hey totally query my agent and mention my name like say i referred you these are casual slash vague because they don't really know you and they've not read your material they have no idea in some cases maybe they know what you rate but they might not even know or really care what you write they're just being nice and it is a very nice thing for them to offer but these are the ones for like nine times out of ten i just find that these referrals are meaningless they're nice to have they make you feel warm and fuzzy inside getting them but essentially because you don't have a close association with the author who has offered this it won't necessarily make a difference to the agent in my experience when i got these types of referrals it just led to a faster rejection so it can help you with cue jumping although that was years ago with how stopped up query trenches are i don't know if a non-personal referral makes much of a difference so the second level is when you actually do kind of know the author you're a lot closer to them maybe you've been like damn friendly for years and like you can legit say i have a relationship with the author where they know i'm an author they know i'm a decent writer doesn't mean they've read your stuff in this category i'd say they haven't read your stuff but they could be a peer this could be a referral that comes from like you have left your agent and you were in a debut year together so like they know that you're an author and they respect you and you're friendly and they say hey query my agent and mention my name i'd say on this level i am going to talk about how to do these referrals this is the level where on the first one i wouldn't put in the subject line that you are a client referral because you barely know that person and it's something i said to you to be nice this is the level where you could put client referral in the subject line like alexa done referral if it were me and then you just kind of explain in the first part hey i'm friends with your clients such and such and i find with these it's usually more of a like hey this person's cool they're an author they seem great but i haven't read their stuff but hey take a look it's that kind of referral and then the third type of referral is the i have read this book i would die for this book this person is amazing agent i think you would love them don't sleep on this direct referral these are like the mac daddy of referrals this is when you're referring your cp your critique partner or a mentee if it's from a mentorship thing these will have a little bit more weight because you can actually although they also come with a lot of risk which i'll get to in a minute because you can actually say to your agent i have read this book i love this book you like working with me i am pretty confident you would like this book and working with this person so how meaningful are these different types of referrals so the first one isn't very meaningful at all as i already said in the sense that like it's a nice to have but it's rarely gonna move the needle in the case of every referral you're still going to have to get the agent to fall in love with your manuscript so a referral like this can work out if you have a hot hook and query and your material is great and the agent does end up liking it but it's less of a guarantee in terms of due consideration than the other two so the other two how meaningful are they so the middle kind where like you're getting like a good vouch from someone but they haven't necessarily read your material i think those are going to probably get you looked at a little faster i think very often depending on the agent and how they treat referrals and their relationship with their client those sorts of referrals will probably get you a personal rejection if it is a rejection i know that my agent usually takes care of someone like if i've referred them to like say something extra and i will say here just as like a prelude to what i'm going to talk about more in depth in a few minutes the one thing about this type where you do legitimately have a relationship and they're referring you these can get really sticky when an author asks someone for this type of referral this is probably the type of referral most commonly asked for because few authors are going to be like can you read my books so that you can give me the best kind of referral to your agent few people are that bold but this is kind of like a softball request some authors are fine with them some aren't some agents are fine with them some aren't so just know that this type while it falls firmly in the middle that it can potentially move the needle but the agent still has to fall in love with your book uh as they would in a project the this type i think comes with the most like social stickiness which i'm gonna talk about more and then the third type yeah the i would die for this book type those are often going to get someone to the front of the queue especially if an agent knows like this is someone's really close critique partner for example doesn't mean it's necessarily going to lead to an offer i've definitely seen some people go well oh that person only got signed with such and such agent because they were so-and-so's best friend but it really doesn't work like that the agents i've talked to like it's the same rules for any project they sign they have to really legitimately love it and sometimes yes they do fall in love with a referral from someone's critique partner or best friend and it does often bump people up and but the thing is i think with these it's like chicken and egg correlation is not causation of these are types of referrals i do think they work out the most often but they're the hardest to get because you have to have a pretty close editorial relationship with the author giving this type of referral and it's also like well if they're reading your stuff and they really like your stuff you probably have a lot in common as writers and storytellers and that agent likes their rating and their storytelling so yeah it is statistically a little more likely that this type can lead to an offer but like at the end of the day overall i think referrals like they're nice to haves i think some authors stress out about them more than they should i also think some authors go light or hold back from regular querying cold querying because they're like well i have these referrals i'm gonna work through these referrals and i think that can actually waste time referrals are great as i said but like at the end of the day the agent has to love your book as much as they would love any book that would come through the slush as a cold query so referrals are very hit or miss so how do referrals actually work what do you do to get a referral when you have a referral so it varies generally speaking i favor the easier versions meaning where you're not asking an author to kind of go above and beyond which is the third type i'm going to talk about this is one that i don't personally do because the easiest thing to do if an author has said to you use my name when you query it's that simple you use their name when you query as i said i personally feel when it's a super casual one so you meet an author at a con and they're really nice and they find out you're querying and they say query my agent say you met me don't put that in the subject line you personalize you do personalization in the first paragraph of the query and you can say like i met your client x at such and such convention and they suggested i query you they sing your praises or something like that then the one that's kind of the next level if you do have a closer relationship with someone like you really consider them a friend or at least a very strong like author peer acquaintance you can put that in the subject line especially sometimes the author will actually tell you how to use referral with their agent because it does vary agent to agent they might tell you put my name in the subject line then it's the same thing in the first paragraph oh i've known so and so for years you know i love everything they have to say about you they suggested i query you pretty straightforward now here's the thing we have to get into the sticky area of don't lie so it's as easy as saying you know someone right don't lie because referrals can bite you in the butt if you lie about them and some people do try to like really stretch a referral because they think that referrals really make a difference and as i said they don't really make a difference unless you actually know the client who's doing the referring which is double reason not to lie so you shouldn't say this author read my manuscript and raved about it and they think it's the next big thing and said i had to query you don't say that if it's not true because the agent will just ask their client and then they'll find out that you're a big old liar so when in doubt like i mean definitely always be honest but also just er on the side of caution as i said if it was like a pretty straightforward interaction at a convention or or someone that you know from the internet so for some examples of ones that i definitely had uh because i worked at dragoncon a couple of the authors who were regulars there when they found it i was querying said hey use my name in the query there were authors that i knew through reddit who said hey totally query my agent and mention my name these were the casual vague type of referrals where yeah just in the first paragraph i gave a little bit of honest context of knowing their client kind of without exaggerating about the depth of our relationship and here's the thing there's no need to pretend that you know an author or make up an interaction because you can always say in a personalized query hey i really love and admire your client x i follow them on twitter i like their youtube channel and i i love anytime they talk about you as their agent so i wanted to query you just be honest about the reason why you're querying and just don't invent a relationship or a referral where it doesn't exist and so the last way to do it which i said is not the way that i do it and i only found out that people did it this way when someone asked me to do it this way and it's totally fine to do it this way it's just i had never done it before and that is the direct referral where the client emails their agent and copies in the author they're referring to introduce them and or even directly forwards the person's query package to their agent with everyone copied to like directly connect everyone i just generally don't do this especially now that my agent uses query manager that doesn't really work but it can work that's definitely a way to do a referrals you should just ask your agent which is a bit unlike how does this work when you're an author which i'm going to talk more about in a minute ask them what they prefer for referrals find out what their style is which brings me to the social awkwardness part i mean the rest of this is all about like the awkward social stuff so should you ask for a referral i say no and that is not shade to anyone who's ever asked me for a referral i actually personally don't mind when people who i legitimately know don't randomly pop into my inbox and ask for referral to my agent if i don't know you that no but if i know someone and i know a lot of people i'm never mad about like someone being like hey do you mind referring me to your agent as long as they understand the type of referral that i am completely fine giving which in my case is the middle kind i am always happy to say hey i've known this person for a few years alana they seem like really cool they seem chill they work really hard on their stuff and their pitches fire i'm always happy to say that i am never going to like lie and say like i read their book if i haven't read their book like i'm just always going to be honest about it and thus as long as the person who's asking me for that type of referral also understands like they're just not guaranteed but a lot of authors do not like to be asked for a referral period honestly when an author really wants to refer someone to their agent they will offer so most of the time honestly i think you should just be chill and wait for an offer especially like if you are working with someone in a mentorship context or a critique partner context you need to let the author take the lead and i'm going to talk about some of the reasons why when i get into the author section in a minute of like all the like the sticky things that can come that you wouldn't necessarily imagine on the author agent side that can complicate the whole referral thing so most of the time yeah just don't ask because it just can create a ton of awkwardness it can bring up things that they don't feel comfortable saying to you about their relationship with their agent it can just bring up a bunch of awkwardness because maybe they're not comfortable referring you for whatever reason and it can be for a variety of reasons and then if they have to tell you no that's awkward and that will damage your relationship or if they feel pressured into saying yes to you always be like it's just i think more often than not unless you are completely sure that the person you're asking because your friends i hope is comfortable like especially like your friend might not directly offer like hey i will refer you to my agent but let's say you're friends with someone who makes it clear that they do do this all the time and so then you can feel a little more comfortable asking but yeah i i do say er on the side of caution because also a thing that comes up with this is that and i mean i'm not suggesting most of you would be asking like bold as brass i think it's awkward on both sides to ask because essentially you're making a relationship transactional on some level and it can just get very i'll how many times do i say the word awkward but it's just so true in terms of like are you only friends with me because of my agent and it can just lead to a whole bunch of things but let me let me talk about the author side so this is where i share some of the things that can be in the mix on the author side that can make this really really complicated slash uh we can talk a bit you know author to author agented author to agency's author about how you might navigate some of some of the tricky ness though i will admit i don't mind when people ask me but i'm also even if i did mine i am a huge like non-confrontational person and i would say yes anyway but um now i'm if anyone's ever asked me like i don't mind though so i did mind in the beginning so this is where you just have to be mindful of how tricky agent author relationships can be the first time you do a referral with your agent is terrifying because the thing about a referral it's the same with any job referral if you've ever been in a situation where like someone's like hey a position opened up can you refer me for a job but maybe you know that your friend is really really flaky and if you recommend them and they get hired and they show up late for work all the time that that reflects poorly on you it's the same thing with agent referrals where you're always catastrophizing a worst case scenario in this case it's usually like what if my agent just thinks i have horrible taste in books is usually the worry or like what if they feel like i'm wasting their time and generally when you're in a new relationship with an agent there's it's like when you're first dating a person where it's you're like you're tentative and you're navigating figuring out how to navigate a relationship with each other and so the first time i did a referral which was for a good friend of mine so like no one had asked me to do it um i was just scared i was scared what if she doesn't like it on both levels because then like that would hurt my friend's feelings there's all sorts of stuff that come because authors are also concerned about damaging their relationship with the person that they're referring that's a concern and i'll be honest some agents don't like referrals or they do not like any kind of referral other than that i've read this book i would die for this book type of referral and even then some agents really expect their clients to be pretty circumspect like you shouldn't be referring people to them all the time it should be once in a blue moon like kind of thing and it's gonna be different agent to agent and relationship to relationships so reasons that authors might not be comfortable with a referral why you might make it extra awkward asking for one uh maybe they're intimidated by their agent maybe they're afraid of their agent maybe they haven't sold anything yet and so they're just in like a precarious position of not feeling secure themselves in their relationship with their agent on their agents list some authors are on very crowded and competitive lists it's not nice or pretty but honestly some authors might not want to do a referral because they're worried that they might get the boot if their agent finds a book that their agent likes more than theirs i will say that that's like that's not super common i don't want you to be like wow authors are petty some of them are and i will say that reason would have never occurred to me if it hadn't happened to me this is way back in the day and i did not ask for a referral a friend of mine who knew someone asked for a referral and they said no and actually said it's because they were feeling really insecure in their career position with their agent and i represented competition they were working on something similar sometimes that happens so just be aware and the other thing that can come up is you can refer someone genuinely and excitedly and then they might get an offer from your agent and they might turn your agent down there are actually a whole bunch of things that can just awkward the day the word of the day is awkward and so as an agent and author you have to consider all of these kind of variables that go into a referral and that's why some authors are just super circumspect they're very rarely going to refer people to their agent you probably shouldn't ask them always wait for them to offer it's just the safer practice that said some of us offer more often than others uh but like i s so i was afraid in the beginning once you get over the hurdle of your first referral and you kind of release the breath you're like i survived my agent isn't mad at me and all of that it does get more comfortable um and that's why again with the levels my age and i just have an understanding we have a very good relationship we're five years in i also really know her taste and i just enjoy scouting things i i'm weird um but she also knows that i will always provide ample context i never say i've read something if i haven't read it most of the time honestly what i say is i like them as a person that's a pretty good referral for me i like them as a person and they're they're they they work hard on their writing um but yeah it's just it's gonna vary and so briefly i'm just gonna run through a few best practices slash tips uh some of these i've kind of said before but i'll say one last time but the first is don't be that person who befriends an author like tries to get into their circle be their critique partner apply to them in a mentorship program just because you're chasing that referral people do this it's pretty transparent at least to me like we know when you're doing it so just chill on that all relationships are better when they're organic relationships and you don't approach them from a transactional perspective so just that it's a very particularly insidious form of social climbing and publishing and it's it's not cool brah so the next tip is very very confusing it's kind of what i said but i'll just button it when in doubt don't ask it's just safer not to ask for a referral but if you've known someone a decent amount of time and you get a pretty good vibe off of them and you feel like probably it's not a problem ask them shoot your shot very conflicting advice but you're gonna have to feel the situation because it can't hurt to shoot your shot depending don't shoot your shot with someone you don't really know there should be some sort of relationship there and you should have a feel for kind of the author and their relationship with their agent and again do not lie about knowing an author but never be afraid to mention an author that an agent represents if you do have a tenuous connection to them not necessarily knowing them but it is totally okay i've done this before to say oh i i really admire your client love their books i watch their youtube channel or i heard them on a podcast i follow them on twitter they're so funny say things that are true and just don't invent or exaggerate a relationship totally fine just make sure it's genuine and it's real it's not a referral but it's definitely something that you can do contextually bringing up a client that an agent has and lastly just please don't stress about referrals because as i said i find personally they usually don't mean as much as people think they mean they can mean something they can be a tool but just as often as not especially since i'd say the majority of referrals fall into the first two camps their eyes either really casual slash vague where you barely know the agent and they're being nice or they're in the middle camp where they're still being nice but they haven't read your stuff so they don't like really have their w what can they say to their agent about you that would be like you have to represent this at the end of the day you got to have a good query package you got to have a good story it has to be well written and the agent has to fall in love so just don't place too much value on the whole referral thing definitely don't stress out if you don't have any referrals but i don't know someone you don't have to know someone at the end of the day i will say it a million times querying works regular querying works where you don't know anyone heck i don't even think you have to personalize your queries i know that's a slightly controversial opinion i know some people are like always personalize your queries and you can i just gave you a tip on how to do that but i don't honestly think you need to because frankly if you've got a strong hook something commercial if the timing's right and your writing is sharp you got a killer query you don't need any special tools or bells and whistles you're gonna capture the attention of the agent who is right for you querying is dating basically yes so think of referrals like blind dates almost sometimes i'd say most of the time they just don't work out and actually technically querying is probably less awkward than going on a bad blind date so that's a pro so those are my thoughts on agent referrals let me know down below in the comments any questions that you have about this or if you have done the whole referral shuffle any tips that you have and give this video a thumbs up if you like it i will make more videos about the kind of nitty gritty of industry stuff and if you're not are subscribed to the channel go ahead and do that as always guys thank you so much for watching and happy writing

Channel: Alexa Donne

Views: 4,883

Rating: 4.975831 out of 5

Keywords: alexa donne, writing advice, how to write a book, publishing advice, authortube

Id: wHsmQyRLcA0

Length: 24min 58sec (1498 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021