{"id":1900,"date":"2023-05-16T21:32:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T01:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=1900"},"modified":"2023-05-16T21:32:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T01:32:57","slug":"writing-and-the-whisper-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/writing-and-the-whisper-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing and the Whisper Network"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Image by Sam Williams from Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last weekend, all hell broke loose over a scandal involving New Leaf Literary Agency. New Leaf abruptly axed an agent and that agent\u2019s entire client list on Friday night at around 10:30 pm. Happy weekend!<\/p>\n

If that “Friday News Dump<\/a>” approach\u00a0was meant to minimize\u00a0the impact of this news, it really<\/em> didn\u2019t work. Twitter was, as they say, atwitter. New Leaf is A Very Big Deal, representing some authorial superstars\u2014Cassandra Clare, Leigh Bardugo, and Veronica Roth, for starters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It turns out this isn\u2019t the first time New Leaf has done this. It\u2019s just the first time someone got mad enough to risk bringing it to Twitter. How come nobody ever talked about\u00a0it before?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When you enter the querying trenches as a newbie, you learn two things very quickly:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. You absolutely must do your due diligence when researching agents because a bad agent is worse than no agent at all, and;<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t you DARE say anything publicly about bad experiences you\u2019ve had with an agent, because agents, editors, and publishers talk and you just might get yourself blacklisted for being difficult.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If those two things sound a wee bit contradictory, that’s because they are<\/strong>. And it\u2019s frustrating as hell. You\u2019ll only learn certain things if you\u2019re keyed into the various whisper networks around the Internet. And that\u2019s hardly fair to those of us who are not well connected. Mostly, it protects the bad actors and predators (in every sense of that word) who lurk around publishing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All the talk about New Leaf reminds me of something from\u00a0years ago that irks me to this day.\u00a0Before I start, please know: I had a\u00a0great experience with Pitch Wars. I think I\u2019ve been abundantly clear Tidepool<\/i> would not be the book it is if it weren\u2019t for PW.\u00a0I don’t mean to shame anyone or make them feel bad.<\/p>\n

But this incident was frustrating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(Can you tell that even now, I\u2019m a bit nervous about posting this?)<\/p>\n

As the agent showcase approached and we prepared to query with our Pitch Wars books, my PW class had the same issue any writer does: How do you figure out what various agents are like to work with?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our private Facebook group came up with the idea of an agent spreadsheet. Some of us had already been agented and some of us had worked at agencies or with publishers, and this\u00a0could be a handy central resource to share experiences, positive and\u00a0negative.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So that the spreadsheet wouldn\u2019t devolve\u00a0into a gossipy snarkfest, we agreed that if you had a negative experience to share, you\u2019d put \u201cPM (private message) me for details\u201d as your entry for a given agent. That way,\u00a0the negative info wouldn\u2019t appear on the spreadsheet that was only for the use of\u00a0our private group. (Notice how I keep stressing \u201cprivate\u201d? That\u2019s about to be really funny.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been on the Internet for more than five minutes, you can probably guess what happened next: Some snitch (we never did find out who) sent the spreadsheet to the agents being discussed\u2014and to Pitch Wars\u00a0staff.\u00a0 Yes, I’m well aware\u00a0there’s no such thing as a truly private forum anywhere online. But I still thought this was\u00a0an unnecessary, shit-stirring thing to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And as a result,\u00a0we got thoroughly chewed out and shamed for having the bare-faced effrontery to\u2026try to do the due diligence everyone tells querying authors they must do? In a private forum that nobody but my PW group had access to?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026 Seriously?<\/i><\/p>\n

To this day I don\u2019t think we did anything wrong. But our agent showcase was coming up fast and nobody wanted to jeopardize our shot at this major\u00a0thing we\u2019d all been working so hard for, so the spreadsheet got deleted.\u00a0The taboo against sharing negative\u00a0information about agents and agencies is that<\/em> strong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what a curious mixed message, no? \u201cDo your due diligence, writers, because a bad agent is worse than no agent! But how dare you share information between yourselves?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

TLDR: I truly hate that it\u2019s only OK to share negative info about agents or agencies after they\u2019ve had a big public relations disaster and lots of people are angry at them. If I\u2019d had any idea New Leaf was in the habit of dropping agents and their entire lists if those authors weren\u2019t big earners, I\u2019d never have bothered to query them. But nobody talked about this until New Leaf did it enough that the bad news hit critical mass and everyone started talking at once.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s my solution to all this? I don\u2019t really have one. But I do have some recommendations.\u00a0The Bewares and Background Check forum over at Absolute Write<\/a> is still apparently the one place in the universe where people are allowed to publicly share information about agents without the entire Internet falling on their heads, so if you\u2019re researching an agent, I\u2019d check there. Note: An agent having a thread there does not<\/em>\u00a0mean they\u2019re a bad agent. It just means someone’s asked about them. People share positive things\u00a0as well as negatives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, it\u2019s worth contacting Writer Beware to see if they have any information about an agent or agency you\u2019re considering. Or if you yourself have a bad experience to share. Don\u2019t worry\u2014Victoria Strauss is no snitch. She\u2019s very good at keeping things confidential.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond that, \u00a0I just don’t know. For whatever it’s worth, the displaced New Leaf authors (and agent) have my sympathy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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