In "Goodbye to All That," her 1967 essay about the years she spent in New York City as a young writer, Joan Didion recalls trying to coax a world-weary friend into attending a party by promising him "new faces." Her friend "laughed literally until he choked" before explaining that "the last time he had gone to a party where he'd been promised ‘new faces,' there had been fifteen people in the room, and he had already slept with five of the women and owed money to all but two of the men."

Several decades later, the details may be different—casual sex? what's that?—but the literary world is every bit as small as it was in Didion's heyday. The agents who congregated at the offices of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses [3] for this conversation (and who were chosen, it should be noted, by the editors of this magazine) are not new faces—to one another or to me. During our talk, one of them said that she hopes to "grow old together" with her clients. The same might be said of us publishing people, who, unlike Didion's friend and especially in these tough times, are likely to view our shared history as a comfort rather than a curse. Some particulars:

MARIA MASSIE worked as an agent for twelve years before joining Lippincott Massie McQuilkin as a partner in 2004. A few years ago Maria broke hearts all over town (mine included) when she sold Nigerian priest Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them to Little, Brown for an ungodly advance. Her other clients include Peter Ho Davies and Tom Perrotta.

JIM RUTMAN, an agent at Sterling Lord Literistic for the past ten years, is mild mannered until he steps onto a basketball court—we play on a publishing team called the Jackals—at which point he turns into a ferociously competitive shooting guard who sometimes scores half our points. His clients include Charles Bock, J. Robert Lennon, and Peter Rock.

ANNA STEIN worked at three other agencies before joining the Irene Skolnick Literary Agency in 2006. Once, after a writers conference in New Orleans, Anna took me and my wife to a second-line celebration (imagine a loud, roving bacchanal) in the Ninth Ward. We made our plane, but barely. Her clients include Chloe Aridjis, Yoko Ogawa, and Anya Ulinich.

PETER STEINBERG spent twelve years at other agencies before founding the Steinberg Agency in 2007. Peter is a kind of throwback to the golden age of publishing, when men did things like hold doors open for women and send handwritten thank-you notes—not to embarrass him or anything. His clients include Alicia Erian, Keith Donohue, and John Matteson.

Let us inside your heads a little and talk about what you're looking at and thinking about when you're evaluating a piece of fiction.
STEIN: It's really hard to talk about why a piece of writing is good, and moving—even if it's funny—and what makes us keep thinking about something after we've read it. And it's incredibly subjective. That's why it's hard for agents who represent fiction, especially literary fiction, to find it. It's so rare. We can all talk about the things we don't like. When I see clichés, for example, on the first page or in the first chapter of a book, that kind of kills it for me immediately. The romance and the chemistry is just over. That's just one example of the negative side of that question, and I'm sure you guys have a million others. If I knew how to describe in language what makes me fall in love with something, then I would be a writer. All I can say is that if I read the first few pages of a novel and think, "Jesus Christ! Who the fuck is this person? Why are they letting me read this?" then that person is onto something. And we don't have that feeling very often. But when we do see it, it's so exciting.

MASSIE: Anna's right. It's like you have this moment of clarity and you recognize something that you're so absorbed with. I read a lot of things that are beautifully written where I say to myself, "Oh, this is good," but I'm not bowled over or sucked right in. It's so subjective. I can read something and pass on it and I hear, two days later, that there was a bidding war and it sold for a ton of money, but it just wasn't the thing that I was going to fall in love with.

STEINBERG: And you're okay with that.

MASSIE: You have to be okay with it because it's so subjective. I'm not necessarily going to see what somebody else sees, or read a book the way somebody else reads it. That's one thing that writers who are looking for an agent should always remember: All agents are different. Everyone has different tastes. What I like to read might be different than Anna or Peter or Jim. That's a great thing about what we do—there's so much to choose from. And what you fall in love with is a very personal choice.

RUTMAN: And the reactions are necessarily self-contained. It's impossible to articulate what you hope to find as an agent. How could you explain to somebody what moves you? Because hopefully you're capable of being moved by things that you didn't anticipate being moved by. So you sit down with something, and all the preamble is basically pointless until the moment that you actually start searching around and rummaging for your feelings and response. It might happen on word four, or it might happen on sentence seven, but if it hasn't happened by page two, will it happen on page two hundred and fifty? I wish it did. But I don't know that it does.

Are there any specific things that can make you fall in love with a piece of writing?
STEIN: I would say that being able to make me think, especially in dialogue, "Oh, shit. This person has got me. This person has just seen into what we all feel every day but don't say. This person has looked into our souls, especially the worst sides of us, and sort of ripped them open and put them on the page." Psychology, to me, is one of the most exciting things to see work well in fiction—when it comes alive on the page and is totally devastating.

STEINBERG: When you read something and think, "I can't believe they just said what I've thought in my deepest thoughts but never articulated," that is always an eye-opener for me. And it's also about reading something that doesn't seem familiar. Writers should realize that agents have a ton of material to read, and when things seem familiar, it's an easy reason to pass. If it's something that's new, it really makes a huge difference. And I'm not talking about something being so wildly creative that it's ridiculous—not a talking plant falling in love with a turtle or something like that. I'm talking about, in a real sense, something that is genuinely new and also deeply felt. That's what we're all looking for. But at the same time, I do get things and think, "How is this like something else that has sold well?" It's a difficult balance. You have to have one foot in literature and one foot in what's going on in the marketplace.

RUTMAN: Writers probably shouldn't trouble themselves too much over that consideration. If they're aiming to hit some spot that's been working—trying to write toward the books that have made an impression—that just seems like a pretty pointless chase. You know, "I hear that circus animals are wildly appealing and I've had some thoughts about circus animals...." That doesn't seem like a very good way to go about it.

STEINBERG: A writer was just asking me about that and I said it's the agent's job to spin a book for the marketplace—to talk about it being a little like this book and a little like that book or whatever. Writers should put those kinds of thoughts out of their heads and just write.

RUTMAN: I don't know who to blame for trends. If a run of books comes 
out that are all set in a particular 
country—which happens all the time—to whom do we attribute that? To writers who are looking at things and saying, "Hmmm, I notice that fourteen years ago India was interesting to people. I think that's where I'm going to set my book"? You can't blame writers for asking what subjects are interesting these days, even when we're talking about fiction, and I wish I had a useful answer for them, but I just don't think it works that way.

STEINBERG: I would basically go with your passion. The subject matter can be very wide ranging, but if you go with your passion, even if it doesn't work, at least it's heartfelt.

STEIN: On some level, what else are you going to do? Are you going to write a novel because it's "commercially viable"? I mean, I guess people do that. But we're not going to represent them.

Because you hate money?
STEIN: We. Hate. Money. [Laughter.]

But seriously, I sometimes think that people in the business read in different ways than normal readers. Are there things that you're looking at—contextual things, like who the author is—beyond what's on the page?
STEINBERG: Those things very much take the backseat for me. It really is just what's on the page. All of that other stuff comes later. Maybe once I get a third of the way through a novel and I'm loving it, then I will look back and see who the author is and all that stuff. I think it's important to stress that the synopsis and the cover letter and all of those things are not really important. It's the work, the work, the work. You have to focus on the work. I think sometimes writers get lost in getting the cover letter and the synopsis and those kinds of professional things right because they're afraid of focusing on the work.

STEIN: I don't even read synopses. Do you guys?

STEINBERG: I skip right over them. I go to the first page.

STEIN: I hate synopses. They're terrible.

RUTMAN: It's hard to write a synopsis well. And when we're talking about literary fiction, it will probably not make or break an agent's interest going into page one. You're not like, "Oh, there's going to be an unexpected plot twist two-thirds of the way through. I'm going to hang in there long enough to find out how that goes."

STEIN: I'm still surprised when I call an editor to pitch a book and he says, "So what's the novel about?" I'm like, "You actually want me to tell you what happens in the plot? Are you serious? I mean, we can do that if you want." But that's not really the point. I don't want anyone to tell me the plot of a novel. It's so boring.

But are there any other things you're looking at beyond what's on the page? Things that maybe you can sense after years of experience.
MASSIE: Sometimes it's when you're reading a manuscript and you can see that the person is a really talented writer with a beautiful voice but the story is not quite there. But you see the potential. Sometimes you sign those people on because you think, "Okay, maybe this isn't going to be the big book, or maybe it won't even sell, but this person has a quality—they have the writing, they have the voice—and the potential is there. This writer is going to go far. And maybe the next book will be the one." I've taken people on under those circumstances.

RUTMAN: I mean, reading "professionally," if that's what we do, is a compromised process because you are reading a book with an eye toward asking somebody for money. You are reading in a different way than you are when that's not a consideration. So I think it's filtered into the experience from the beginning. You are reading to be moved, hopefully, if that's the kind of novel you work on, but at the same time it probably would be disingenuous to suggest that you're not taking in some superficial considerations. They are all distantly secondary to the work itself. Because if an agent is reading with an eye toward various recent trends that have worked, he's probably not going to succeed all that well either. The same thing is true of the reverse. Any categorical dismissal of some kind of novel feels bogus because there's got to be a counterexample for every single example. So if somebody comes along and has this long list of accolades and prizes, it doesn't damage your regard for them. And if somebody comes to you on novel fourteen, with twelve of them having done exceptionally well, and the last one maybe less well, you think about that, too. You're thinking about how difficult it could be given certain practical considerations. But it's still all pretty far receded from the work itself.

STEIN: There is the question, now more than ever, of whether or not a book is publishable. By publishable I don't mean, "Is there a great plot and is the writing amazing etcetera?" I mean that if we were in your shoes, as a publisher, how would we publish the book? What kind of jacket would we give it? How would we position it? I mean, we're talking about literary fiction? You can't publish literary fiction today. How do you do that? [Laughter.]

RUTMAN: Legally, you can, but...

STEIN: So, given that it's basically impossible, it's our responsibility as the first guard to begin to think about, "Is it possible?" And if we're so bowled over and we're so in love that we think somebody should publish it, how would we do it? This is something I really struggle with because I'm not very creative. I don't have the mind for it. I admire publishers all the more today because the ideas they come up with just amaze me. And I'm not trying to flatter them, at all, because I love to talk trash. But it really does amaze me. I'm thinking about a book right now, for example, that I want to sell. I think the author is fantastic and well positioned and that the novel is perfect—there's nothing wrong with it. But in a way it would be a funny book to publish. In a way, I don't exactly see how it fits and how it could break out. So I see the problem there, which maybe we didn't have five years ago as agents. And I see it becoming more and more of a problem as the market contracts. So I'm reading a little differently because of that. I might not be altering my habits about what I take on, but maybe I am.

STEINBERG: I think you're sort of unconsciously changing and adapting to the marketplace. I find myself doing that. I think when an agent says, "I was following my gut instinct," what that really means is accumulated wisdom and taking a lot of different variables into account. You spend your day reading Publishers Weekly and Publishers Lunch and you take these things into consideration. You're having lunch with editors who are saying, "Such-and-such is so hard" and you're processing all of this information. And when you open a manuscript, you're reading it with that eye. It's hard for us to say exactly how we're looking at material but I think we are taking a lot of different things into account.

Is the economy affecting how you're reading?
MASSIE: It's starting to.

STEINBERG: I would say yes too. It feels like things are tough.

MASSIE: Right before Black Wednesday I had a novel out that I was really excited about. I was getting great reads from a bunch of people who were all calling to say, "This is great. This is wonderful." And one by one they slowly disappeared on me, except for one editor, who actually ended up being the perfect editor. But I did see everything diminish. I had an idea of what the novel was going to sell for and it didn't quite get there. It was actually shocking, because it's a wonderful novel and the responses were amazing and I really did see people pull back. Her first novel had done okay but not great and all people could say was, "Her numbers are just not good enough." Her numbers were not bad for a literary novel. So that was my first moment of a little bit of fear. I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm conscious that the economy is affecting my thinking, but I'm sure I will at some point.

RUTMAN: Especially with fiction, you're largely at the mercy of what comes in. Certainly you solicit your share, but when you're relying on the kindness of your acquaintances, or referrals, wherever they happen to come from, you can only adjust so much. But it's certainly nice to glimpse something behind the page whenever you can, whatever it may be. If a novel happens to have a nice, portable summation—if it's pitchable—that doesn't upset me.

MASSIE: If there's a hook.

STEIN: Or when the author has a platform.

MASSIE: When they've been published in the New Yorker or something.

RUTMAN: When you're reading something, one of the things you're trying to glimpse is whether you can imagine more than a few people warming up to it. But things that work in various ways...I mean, not to be indirectly nepotistic here, but on what planet should 2666 have worked commercially?

STEIN: I wasn't going to bring it up.

RUTMAN: That's why I did.

STEIN: Well, let's start with The Savage Detectives. I mean, why should anybody have finished that book, let alone have it be successful? [Laughter.] Now I'm going to say something nice about the publisher, but it really was a beautiful piece of publishing.

RUTMAN: It was exquisite. How did that work? Why did that work? I want somebody to explain it to me. Gut instincts are referred to retrospectively when they have worked—people don't really make much reference to their gut instincts when they're looking back regretfully. It's not like, "Ugh, my gut instincts. Son of a bitch." Gut instincts are wrong just as much as they're right. But there is such a thing as publishing something well, and resourcefully.

STEIN: And I find that inspiring—the fact that Lorin Stein is my brother aside—because we are in the position now where we're selling books for lowly five figures that we might have sold for six figures very recently. And I don't want to alter what I take on because of that.

RUTMAN: Do you think you would know how to alter it?

STEIN: I don't think I would.

RUTMAN: If I could see clearly enough and far enough to think, "If I just adjust my taste this much, I think I'll be a very successful person," I would think about trying it. [Laughter.] I just don't presume to know how that would work.

STEIN: But here's how I might alter. I might say, "Look, I can't take on an Icelandic writer right now." Or, "I can't afford to invest my time in editing the sample translation of this Icelandic writer right now. It's just not the time for that. Maybe when things are sunnier."

STEINBERG: I feel like I can adjust when there are natural inclinations a certain way. For instance, I was reading that young adult books are selling better than adult books. I have kids and I'm starting to read what they're reading, and I thought, "Oh, I'm sort of interested in this. Maybe I should do a little more young adult." So that's something that I've consciously done in terms of categories. I think I'll still look for the same type of material within the young adult category, but I'm definitely thinking about the category a little bit more because of the marketplace.

Where are you finding writers, aside from referrals? Are you reading literary magazines? Are you reading blogs?
MASSIE: No blogs.

RUTMAN: Not for fiction.

STEIN: Hell no.

RUTMAN: Referrals are about 75 percent of how I find writers.

MASSIE: A lot of my clients teach in MFA programs, so I get referrals from them. I get referrals from editors. I get referrals from other agents.

RUTMAN: There's a big range of where referrals come from.

STEIN: But every now and then there will be something in the slush—and I bet this is true for you guys, too—that's not just well written but is also well researched and shows that the person knows your list and is really appropriate for your list and also has published well.

MASSIE: And sometimes when I read a short story that I like I'll send an e-mail. "Are you represented?" Once in a blue moon someone's not represented.

RUTMAN: There are too many of us.

MASSIE: There are a lot of us.

STEIN: There are way too many of us.

STEINBERG: A lot of times, when people are in literary magazines, it's too late.

MASSIE: Exactly. Agents are submitting those short stories.

RUTMAN: And MFA students are going about things in an entirely different way.

STEINBERG: They're savvy.

MASSIE: They're so savvy.

STEIN: That's what they pay for.

MASSIE: I was amazed by going to MFA programs and talking to students. The first thing they want to know is, "Okay, what do I need for my query letter? What do I need for this thing or that thing?" It wasn't questions about the work. Their questions were really about the business side.

Do you think that's healthy?
MASSIE: No. I don't.

RUTMAN: Ultimately, no. If that is more of a priority than the work, it can't be all good. I mean, it's fine that they have a sort of professional track and that they're exposed to whatever realities they are ultimately going to encounter. But when they take a sort of sporting interest in it...

STEINBERG: It's a good way to eliminate potential people, for me at least. When they ask me, "What's the query letter consist of?" I usually think, "Well, that's probably not a potential client."

RUTMAN: It's true.

What do you wish beginning writers would do better?
MASSIE: Take chances. Don't worry about writing a perfect novel. Sometimes it's nice to have something that's a little bit raw and has a little bit of an edge to it. Something that's just perfect all the way through is sometimes a little boring.

STEIN: I wish they would get their friends, who may be writers or may not be writers, to read their work and tell them, "Don't say anything nice to me. I don't want to hear anything nice. I want to hear everything not nice that you have to say."

STEINBERG: And be smart about picking those people. Find your two or three friends who hate everything.

STEIN: Exactly. And have those people—those hateful friends—give you feedback before you even think about sending out your work.

STEINBERG: I would also say, once you think the work is done, work on it for another year.

STEIN: And never trust your spouse if your spouse says it's good. Your spouse has no idea. Neither do your mother or your father.

RUTMAN: Check your eagerness to share. A lot of professors may even encourage you, as a way to hasten the process along. You know, "I think it's time for the world to tell you what they think of this." It may well not be time for the world to pass judgment just yet. Hold on until you are absolutely certain that it's ready for broad, indiscriminate exposure. Don't hurry that.

STEIN: And this is a cliché for us but it seems worth saying that most writers' first novels aren't really their first novels. If you have to scrap your first novel, you'll live. Your first novel probably won't be the first novel you publish. Maybe your second one will be. But you'll live. And you'll be a better writer because of it.

What are some of the common mistakes you see in the submission process?
STEINBERG: Don't say, "If you don't like this novel, I have many other I could show you." Don't say, "This will make a great movie, too." Don't do that fake thing where you pretend you know all about the stuff I've agented. It's funny because I think that's a piece of advice that writers always gets—research the agent and talk about the other work they've sold. But it always comes off as very false to me unless you've really read something I've sold. And I don't want you to waste your time reading something of mine just to write a query letter.

STEIN: I would say to go the other way around. Write to agents whose books you're actually in love with.

STEINBERG: But what if those agents pass and you still want an agent?

STEIN: Then you should read more books. [Laughter.]

What else?
STEINBERG: Don't talk about a character sweating on the first page or two.

RUTMAN: Sweating?

STEINBERG: Yeah. It happens all the time. The writer's like, "He was sweating profusely...." It's supposed to denote tension, I think.

RUTMAN: Also don't write the phrase "sweating profusely."

STEINBERG: I have a joke in my office where if a character is sweating in the first two pages, I go, "Sweating!" [Laughter.] Also, people are always "clutching" steering wheels in the first few pages.

STEIN: That's the cliché thing.

STEINBERG: And don't wake up from a dream on the first page. No dreams on the first page.

STEIN: It's best to avoid dreams if possible.

But this is all craft stuff. Let's go back to the submission process.
STEIN: Don't write "Because of your interest in international fiction..." or whatever you think the agent's interest is. That means you've been trolling some Web site, and that freaks me out. Don't let me see that you've been trolling some Web site that says I like a certain kind of genre. If you know who I am, you should know who I am because you've done some kind of research that has to do with the specific books I represent. That should only be because you've fallen in love with one or two of those books. And that's pretty unlikely because those books haven't sold very many copies. So you probably shouldn't be writing to me to begin with. [Laughter.]

RUTMAN: "Just avoid me altogether. I haven't helped any of these people, really, and I'm not going to help you."

STEIN: Exactly. There shouldn't really be anybody writing to me at all.

STEINBERG: That's off the record, right? Can I say "Off the record" on your behalf?

STEIN: What can I say? I'm funny.

STEINBERG: And of course with the e-mail submissions, don't cc a hundred agents and say, "Dear Agent...."

STEIN: I got an e-mail query addressed to "Elizabeth" today.

MASSIE: I get those. Those are an instant delete.

STEIN: They are.

RUTMAN: Don't try to write eye-catching cover letters. It just isn't really going to enhance my anticipation going into the manuscript.

On the flip side of that, what do you want them to do? I think it can seem really hard to get an agent's attention when you live in a small town somewhere and you don't know anybody.
STEINBERG: Well, know somebody. [Laughter.] I'm serious. We're in the age of e-mail and the Internet. If you e-mail twenty of your friends and say, "Do you know anyone in publishing?" someone has to know somebody. Or somebody who knows somebody. You know what I mean? Find how you know somebody.

STEIN: But you know what? I've actually taken on several clients who didn't know anybody in publishing. I'll give you an example: Anya Ulinich, who's done pretty well for somebody who didn't know anybody. She did some research and asked herself, "Okay, I'm Russian, and my novel has something to do with Russia, so who represents Russian novels?" She did some research and targeted those agents and wrote a query letter that was just really straightforward. It was like, "Here's my deal. Here's why I'm writing to you." It was completely unpretentious and completely straightforward and well written, and because of all that and because there was nothing in it that made me think, "Oh, she's read some book that tells you how to write query letters"—it was just very natural—I asked to see pages. I don't think you have to know somebody.

STEINBERG: But it is one way of getting an agent's attention. I have a lot of clients who didn't know anyone either. But it is a good way to do it. Because when I get a query from a friend of a friend, it definitely goes in a different pile. I would also say to follow what the agent's Web site says. If it says, "Send the first twenty-five pages," do that. And don't send the thirty-third chapter of your novel. Send the first chapter.

MASSIE: And don't try too hard. Sometimes I get these queries that describe the book as a cross between this best-seller and that best-seller and ten different other things. I always find that really distracting and unhelpful.

STEIN: And don't compare the book only to movies.

RUTMAN: I feel like people have generally read something that tells them how to write, at the very least, an unobjectionable cover letter. I like it when they are fairly matter-of-fact. To me that suggests, whether it's well placed or not, a certain confidence that you're going to appreciate the pages rather than the letter. I don't have any sort of pointed advice about what people ought to do in a cover letter. It just doesn't matter that much. It's going to get read.

By your assistant. Just to play devil's advocate.
RUTMAN: Some of it, yes. But she has excellent taste. And if you're working with someone whose taste you really value and trust, they bring you the things you probably would have plucked out yourself.

MASSIE: And she's looking for certain things. Has the writer been published before? What are their credits?

RUTMAN: I think if anybody reads a certain number of cover letters they start to sense what is nice to have in a cover letter. But people generally seem to know. And if you've already published things, it suggests that you've been willing to subject yourself to some of the cruelties of the process and that you realize it's probably part of the deal.

STEIN: That's the thing. It's possible to get published in some good literary magazines without an agent. Very possible. In fact, in some places it's easier. And if you're writing fiction, and especially if you have the misfortune of being a short story writer, then you should spend a lot of time and energy getting published in those places before you start looking for an agent. Because it'll make everybody's job so much easier.

Does anybody have a success story about finding a writer in a literary magazine?
STEINBERG: I read a great short story in the Southern Review a few years ago and called the writer and eventually sold the novel-in-stories to Ann Patty at Harcourt, who's great and who unfortunately is no longer at Harcourt. It was called The Circus in Winter by Cathy Day. It's funny because I originally looked at the story because I liked the author's last name. I don't know if that means I'm superficial, but at the time I was interested in writers whose last names were words, and her last name was Day, so—

RUTMAN: This was a phase you went through?

STEINBERG: It was! I also went through a phase of looking for names with alliteration.

STEIN: Note to readers.

STEINBERG: For example, I represent a guy named Brad Barkley.

STEIN: What's your phase right now? What are you into?

STEINBERG: Now I'm in the supporting-my-three-children phase.

How's that going?
STEINBERG: It's going okay. [Laughter.]

How do you guys feel about short stories?
STEIN: If they're awesome, they're awesome. Even if we can't sell them, they're still awesome.

MASSIE: I'm with Anna. I love short stories.

And can you sell them?
MASSIE: On occasion. It's hard. It always helps if there's a novel coming. But if you've got a great short story collection, it will stand out. I represent a writer who was referred to me by an editor at a literary magazine. I read it and it blew me away. I sold it, it was published, it got great reviews, but it did not sell very many copies. But then the writer, Robin Romm, went on to write an amazing memoir that was just reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. She's a fantastic writer and you never know where a short story writer is going to go or what stories they have left to tell. So, you know, she wasn't making a lot of money in the beginning, but she's going to have an amazing career.

STEIN: And here's another thing. A short story writer might end up just being a short story writer, which might be our nightmare, but what if he ends up being one of those—

MASSIE: Alice Munro or somebody.

RUTMAN: We don't really have much choice but to represent talent in whatever form it happens to come. And if it happens to come first in short story collection form, that does not make things easier, practically speaking, but it's not in itself a reason not to do it. The climate hardly encourages it, and it's not fun to call an editor and say, "What I have for you now—brace yourself—is a collection of short stories." I mean, that's like a meta-joke, I suppose, at this point. But you shouldn't just abandon it. You know it's going to be hard so you ask yourself, "How fired up am I about trying this?" With a story collection, that question is a good test of how intrinsically great you find it.

STEIN: It had better be super-duper-duper-duper good.

RUTMAN: Right. One of my colleagues gave me a collection not that long ago. It was sort of short, and the author had not really tried to publish any of them, and I took it home, sort of unhappily, and I ended up being like, "Oh. Okay. So this is a person who can do this." If you feel that way as an agent, what are you going to do, say no? It just doesn't really feel like a smart option.

STEIN: But novels are beginning to feel that way too. I mean, really—it's like the novel is the new short story.

RUTMAN: The short story is the new poem...

STEIN: Yeah, the short story is the new poem, novels are the new short story.... It's hard out there.

RUTMAN: If you're talking to a certain audience, say an MFA audience, you hear the sentiment of, "Ugh, if only I could get past the short story collection and get on to the novel, easy street can't be far behind."

STEIN: There is no easy street.

RUTMAN: Exactly. It doesn't exist. But there is this unhelpful assumption that you just need to get to a novel, at which point your publishing fortunes will brighten.

STEINBERG: There are probably only a hundred people in the United States who make a living off novel writing.

STEIN: Did you make that number up?

STEINBERG: Yeah, I just made it up.

STEIN: I think that's a really great point and that number sounds about right to me.

STEINBERG: I think all of my clients have day jobs. Writing is just not going to be a way to stop doing what you're doing for a living, probably. And I wouldn't advise it. I have clients who sometimes sell their books for a decent amount of money and are like, "Ooh, should I quit my job?" And I panic and say, "No!" It also affects your work because you start writing for the marketplace too much.

STEIN: And the money is never what the money looks like.

STEINBERG: Exactly. The money has to be gravy and not a base salary.

MASSIE: And you never know what the second book will do, versus the first one, and what the advance for the next book is going to look like.

You are all deep inside this world, but so many writers aren't. If you were a beginning writer who lived out in Wisconsin or somewhere and didn't know anybody and you were looking for an agent, how would you do it?
STEINBERG: I would not worry about looking for an agent. I would work on my writing for a long time. And then when I was finally ready, I would ask everyone I know what they thought I should do.

MASSIE: I agree with that. I would concentrate on getting published in well-regarded literary magazines and, chances are, agents will come to you.

RUTMAN: I wouldn't relish the prospect of looking for an agent if I had not come through a program, where a professor can often steer you in some helpful direction. I guess you'd start at the bookstore.

MASSIE: You pick up your favorite books and look at the acknowledgments and see who represented them and write those people a letter.

STEIN: I'm with Peter. I wouldn't worry so much about finding an agent. The thing is, there aren't that many great writers. Right? And there seem to be a lot of people trying to write novels and find agents. If you're looking for an agent, it means you want to sell your book. But if there are only a hundred people making money as writers—and I think that number sounds about right—and you're trying to sell your book to make money, then that doesn't really make sense. It's like playing the lottery. If I thought I'd written something brilliant, I would hope that, like Peter said, I would be continuing to work on my writing.

RUTMAN: But don't you think most people who are working on their writing feel kind of persuaded that they are brilliant and have something really unique and wonderful to say?

STEIN: I also think they feel this pressure to get published. With all the MFA programs, and with all the writing conferences and programs that they pay money for, there's this encouragement to get published.

RUTMAN: Sure. It's the stated goal.

STEIN: Right. That's the goal. But for 99 percent of people writing fiction, that shouldn't necessarily be the goal. Maybe writing should be the thing they work on for many years and then maybe they should think about getting published.

RUTMAN: I think being published has come to feel, for reasons I can't explain, too achievable. To take a step back, I think the idea of writing a book has come to seem too achievable. I don't know what to attribute that to. It may be the fact that famous people have access to people who can write a tolerable book for them, which might create the impression that most of us should be thinking about writing a book. I think it used to feel rightfully daunting to write a book. People should be daunted by the prospect of writing a book—and more than they may be at the moment. I'm not saying that writing can't be a hobby. But professionalizing it? That's a whole other step, and you then expose yourself to a whole other set of challenges and disappointments that you have to take into consideration. But at some point I feel like there was some kind of fundamental shift that made writing a book—and finishing it and publishing it—seem like not that big a deal. Or not a big enough deal.

STEINBERG: One thing we should convey is how rare it is that a great piece of fiction crosses our desks from someone new.

ALL: Yes.

STEINBERG: It happens maybe, what, once a year? Twice a year? That's it. It's so rare. So for people in Wisconsin who might be reading this and trying to figure out how to get published, they should keep that in mind. That's why stressing the work is so important—because it's so rare that something extraordinary crosses our desks. I like to think that all of our instincts are good enough, and we're well trained enough, and we've done this long enough, to recognize it when it arrives. But that aspect of it can't be stressed enough, which is why I say to work on it for a long time. You also only get one shot with an agent. There are no do-overs. When we get letters that say, "I know you passed on this six months ago but I've rewritten it," it's difficult to look at it again. You really do only get one shot.

Do you guys feel competitive with other agents?
RUTMAN: I'm not sure I feel that competitive. I'm definitely envious of other agents. [Laughter.] But that's not the same thing.

STEIN: I know Jim's not competitive because we were competing for a client once and both of us are so uncompetitive that he was like, "No, no, Anna's so great," and I was like, "No, no, Jim's so great."

Who won?
STEIN: Jim.

RUTMAN: Competitive just feels like the wrong word. I can apply competitiveness to all kinds of other arenas but I have trouble, for some reason, doing it here. Because even competing for a client feels...I mean, maybe if I was a huge rock star I would just sit back and point at my shelf and say, "That's why you should be represented by me." When that's not really an option it becomes a charm expedition. You're trying to persuade somebody that you care enough, or that you see enough in what they've done, to suggest to them that you would be the right person for the job.

Tell me a little about how you view your jobs. How do you think about your obligations and responsibilities to your clients?
RUTMAN: The responsibilities are so amorphous and encompassing that it's hard to sum up. I've never done it very successfully. I guess the boundaries are fairly few. You're trying to find books that you believe in and feel like you'd be doing the author and yourself a favor by involving yourself with, and then you're advising them about its readiness to be exposed to these calculating strangers, and then you choose the strangers you're going to share it with, and then, if you're lucky enough to have options among those strangers, you're telling them which one is best. And then the book gets published and the landscape changes to a whole new level of abstraction about what constitutes a good publication experience and what doesn't. And how many people wind up being published without feeling aggrieved or getting less than what they could have from the experience? A lot of people are disappointed by it. It's a pretty boundary-less relationship. It extends into all kinds of areas that are personal, that involve editorial work, that involve.... The editorial part's nice because at least it's a place to stop. It's also, for my money, the most interesting part of the process. You're talking about something that, presumably, has moved you enough to want to think and discuss.

STEIN: It sounds so cheesy to say, and everyone will agree with it, but the job is about finding books that you feel should exist in the world, and should for a long time. I mean, this summer I read Anna Karenina, and it made it impossible for me to even think about taking on a book for months. It's really important for us to read published books that we don't represent while we're reading our own clients' books. It's important for us to stay current, but also to read classics. And it reminded me of why I really do what I do. It's because I want the books I represent to be important, and for a long time. I don't want to sell a book just to sell a book. I want each one to matter. I mean, that's a little heavy, and none of your books is ever going to be Anna Karenina—Anna Karenina is Anna Karenina, let's not touch it—but that's the idea.

RUTMAN: That's why the job is interesting. There is always the chance, no matter how remote, that that could happen. It won't necessarily be Anna Karenina, but you can find something that you didn't expect, and you can glimpse stuff in it that you couldn't anticipate, and the writer can change the way you think about something. That is, in a job, a pretty interesting thing, even if it remains largely in the realm of possibility. It's still a nice possibility to encounter on a daily basis. I mean, that's better than most jobs I've been able to conceive of as possibilities for myself.

MASSIE: It's terrific. It means that you learn something every day. You pick something up and you don't know what world it's going to take you to or what it will teach you, and that's an incredible thing. I think that's one of the wonderful things about what we do. If you find something that you're blown away by, you actually can help get it to a larger audience. It's amazing when people will say to you, "I read that book you represented. God, that was amazing. It really affected me." That's a great feeling.

How about your responsibilities?
MASSIE: I sometimes feel like a cross between a mother, a shrink, an accountant, a lawyer.... You wear so many different hats on a daily basis. You're juggling so many things, and the clients are so different. They all have different personalities and one person needs handholding or reassurance after every rejection letter and others just want to hear from you when there's news. It's different with everybody. I haven't ever seen myself as doing one thing. I mean, with one client you're going over royalty statements and with another you're hearing about her marriage or some trauma she's going through. It's a pretty intimate relationship.

STEINBERG: It's a friendship.

MASSIE: It's a relationship. You have your ups and downs, and the good and the bad, and it's the mark of a really great relationship with an author that you can weather the storms and get through the good publications and the bad publications, the good reviews and the bad reviews.

RUTMAN: We're like disappointment brokers.

STEIN: That's why trust is so important.

MASSIE: Trust is key.

STEIN: That's why, from the very beginning of the relationship, the more up-front you are, the better. The way you approach an agent says so much about your personality and your character. So if you're very straightforward in your query letter and cover letter, that shows us something. And if we're going to have a long-term and trusting relationship, that's important. Let's say you have several agents interested in you. Let's say you go with one agent and you don't tell the other agents, or you're somehow a little dishonest about the process. Things might not work out with that agent—that agent might move to Wisconsin for some reason and decide to leave publishing—and you're going to have to face those other agents. It's just really important to have integrity and to be honest and to be gracious from the very beginning.

STEINBERG: I think we've all done this long enough that we can sort of suss out when someone's being false or fake or dishonest. So you really shouldn't even try.

RUTMAN: Because if you start to get the sense, early enough in the process, that someone seems like trouble, those suspicions are rarely misleading or without some kind of foundation. One time I was in the rare position of dealing with a writer who was wildly and indisputably talented but came with some warning signs. Actually they weren't warning signs so much as actual warnings from people who knew the writer and said, "I'll be up-front with you. This writer is remarkable in the most important ways and a challenge in a great many other ways."

STEIN: "Totally insane" is what they probably said.

RUTMAN: Yeah, that's what they meant. So what do you do? Is it a measure of how heroic an agent you are if you take them on? Is it a good idea? I'm not so sure that it is.

STEIN: I tried that once. I took on somebody who was insanely talented but also insane. And I tried to be heroic. I tried my very, very best. And it ended, not only in tears, but in legal fees. I made a New Year's resolution: No more. No more crazy ones, ever again.

STEINBERG: It's not worth it. Life's too short.

MASSIE: There are also the clients who are blamers. They're always looking for somebody to blame. They're like, "That person didn't do this" or "You didn't do that."

STEIN: Those are agent-jumpers.

MASSIE: Exactly.

STEINBERG: That's another reason why writers should make sure it's the right match. You don't want to switch agents unless you have to. If you have to tell an agent, "Oh, I've had two agents and it hasn't worked out," the new agent will perceive that as a warning sign. Unless it's legitimate. Sometimes things don't work out or the personalities just aren't right.

STEIN: But in general, everybody wants the relationship to work. I mean, we're all pretty young and we're not naïve, but we are a little bit romantic or otherwise we wouldn't be in this industry—obviously there's no money in it. We go into the relationship thinking, "We want to grow old together." It's a real relationship. It's like a marriage. We want to grow old together. So if it doesn't work out it's usually for pretty serious reasons.

STEINBERG: My clients and I talk about growing old together. We sort of joke about it. "When we're old we'll do this or that."

MASSIE: Right. It always worries me when you're talking to a writer about representing them and they ask, "So, do you work on a book-by-book basis?" I'm like, "No. I do not work on a book-by-book basis." I'm not interested in working on a book-by-book basis. For me it's a long-term relationship.

STEINBERG: That's one of the reasons why you take on short story writers. You see the relationship in a long-term way—you're trying to see the forty-year arc. And when you work with storytelling so much, one thing you learn is that there's a story arc to the client-agent relationship, too. You have an arc of a story in the way that your relationship develops.

What are the hardest decisions you have to make as an agent?
STEINBERG: A lot of times it's books that you know you could sell for a lot of money but you still say no.

STEIN: Or you take the preempt because you know it's the right house, or you take the lower offer because you know it's the right house. And you hope that you're right.

MASSIE: Another hard one is telling an author that his newest book is not there, or not the one, or you're not happy with it, or you just don't see it or know what to do with it. That's a really hard conversation to have, especially with someone you've worked with for a long time. For me, at least, that's the hardest conversation I ever have.

STEIN: Firing a client.

STEINBERG: Or not being able to sell her work. That's one of the hardest things about the business. You take things on because you inherently love them. That's why you do it. You think you'll sell them, and you think everyone will be happy, and then you come to that end of the road where you've done your second round of submissions and wracked your brain for the last three unlikely suspects and they all pass. That's a very difficult conversation.

STEIN: And that's the novel that haunts you for years. That's the novel you think is, in some ways, the best novel you've ever taken on.

But that's not a decision you have to make.
RUTMAN: We're just eager to get to the "What are the worst features of the job?" question. Can we skip right to that? [Laughter.] Seriously, though, deciding what to take on is probably the hardest decision. I find myself sitting on fences a lot more often than I would like. Sometimes I feel like I just run out of critical faculties. My discernment just isn't guiding me very authoritatively and I can't decide whether I ought to be working with a book or not. Because you see its virtues, or your hesitations kind of nullify each other enough to make it hard to decide.

When you guys find yourselves in that situation, how do you decide?
STEIN: If it's something brand new—if the author is not a client—sometimes it's about the writer. If I have an editorial conversation with the writer, and I'm sort of feeling out the situation, that will sometimes do it for me. Because if they're with me, and I feel like we'll have a good editorial relationship—we need to have a good editorial relationship, probably for a long time, before we send out the book—that will become clear. If we have those initial conversations, and I feel like we won't work well together, for any number of reasons, then the decision becomes much easier.

MASSIE: If I'm on the fence for too long it's not a good sign. My feeling is that usually, when I love something, I'm jumping all over it. So if I'm on the fence it's probably not good for the writer and it's not good for me. If I can't imagine myself getting on the phone and calling ten editors and saying, "I love this. You should read this right now," then it's probably not right for me. It also wouldn't be fair to the author for me to take it on.

RUTMAN: You're right. It's not fair to the author. But I also have the misfortune of having my enthusiasms located on some difficult-to-access frequency. Sometimes I'm just not sure what I think, and I'll react differently to a book on different days. I've certainly had the experience where I return to a manuscript and think, "I was wavering about this? This is obviously exceptional and I should take it on." And, less happily, the reverse. It's nice to have access, or confident access, to your feelings.

STEINBERG: It's also nice to know when you're not ready to make a decision. "I'll wait till tomorrow because I'm in a bad mood or tired or whatever it is." And I also use the phone call as a sort of determining factor. But, like Maria, I'm not really on the fence that often. I think that's a good thing.

MASSIE: I just know from experience that if I take something on that I've been on the fence about, it won't necessarily take priority. If I take on something with guns blazing, and I totally love it, that's at the top of my list all the time. If I've been on the fence about something and I decide to take it on thinking, "Okay, I'm on the good side of the fence now," I've been there and I can sense that it won't take priority and I'm not going to give it as much as I should. It's just not fair to the author. It's not fair to me, either, because I have only so many hours in the day.

STEINBERG: I think editors can sense it too.

MASSIE: Editors totally know. They absolutely know.

STEINBERG: Just as we're good at sensing things, they're good at knowing when the agent isn't enthusiastic enough.

STEIN: And you will see all the doubts you had about the book in the rejection letters. You can often gauge your true reaction to a book by the rejections. If it's something where you're really guns blazing—if you really love it—when you see the rejection letters you think, "You. Are. Out. Of. Your. Mind. You're out of your mind!" And that's how you should feel all the time.

MASSIE: Exactly. You see the rejections and you think, "No. I don't agree at all. You don't know what you're talking about!"

RUTMAN: When you strenuously disagree with a rejection, that's a really reliable gauge. Because a fair number of times I think, "Oh, well, yeah. I half anticipated that and I suppose I can see your point." When you sharply disagree, you were right to take it on.

STEINBERG: I think it's also the art of the agent to anticipate the rejections from the editors and try to fix the material before you get the rejections. One thing that I'm cursed with is that when I read the material I sort of see the rejections go across my eyes. I can see how people will reject it, and you work on the material in light of that. Invariably, whenever I don't listen to my own instincts and fix that thing that was nagging at the back of my mind, I will get a rejection that says the very thing that I should have fixed. It's like, "Damn. Listen to your instincts." That's a big part of the job these days, especially because editors are looking to pass. They have a billion things on their desks and they think, "Oh, I figured it out. This is how I'm going to pass on this book." You can't give them that. You can't let them find their entry point to pass.

STEIN: Which is why we'll have that extra paragraph in our pitch letters in a year that will basically say, "This is how you can publish this book. I've already thought it through and this is how you can publish it."

STEINBERG: It'll be like a marketing section for fiction, just like nonfiction proposals.

MASSIE: Exactly. That's got to be the next thing, right?

STEINBERG: That's depressing.

Tell me a little about how you spend your days.
STEIN: The morning is all e-mail.

MASSIE: E-mail, phone, contracts.

RUTMAN: Not reading.

MASSIE: I never read in the office.

STEIN: Manuscripts are for travel. Trains. Planes.

MASSIE: Thank God for the Sony Reader.

STEIN: I can't get mine to work. I can't get it to charge.

Sony's not going to be happy to hear that.
STEIN: Sony can send me some swag to make it up to me. [Laughter.]

MASSIE: I don't know about you guys, but I feel like I sit in front of my computer doing e-mail all day.

RUTMAN: Sometimes I feel like a typist.

MASSIE: You're just dealing with whatever's in front of you. Answering questions. Sending things out.

RUTMAN: How many stray issues are floating in front of you at any given moment? How many small but unignorable questions are hovering at any given moment?

STEIN: By the afternoon I can start returning phone calls and dealing with shit on my desk, whereas the morning is just an e-mail suck.

STEINBERG: It's reactive.

STEIN: Exactly. It's e-mail suck reactive. But sometime after lunch you can start—and when I say "after lunch" I don't necessarily mean going to lunch, because we don't necessarily go to lunch anymore—but in the afternoon you can start to look at the contracts and return the phone calls and whatever else. Unless you're submitting a book, in which case it takes up the whole day.

What about after the afternoon?
STEIN: Drinks.

MASSIE: Home to the kids.

RUTMAN: Roundtables, mostly. [Laughter.]

STEIN: If I'm not going out, I work until nine. Not that I do that often, but that's what I do. And I'm not reading manuscripts. It's more of the same stuff.

So when do you read?
STEINBERG: If I have to read, I don't go into the office. I've tried that before and thought, "Okay, I'll do some work and then I'll read for a few hours." But it just doesn't work. You get sucked into your e-mail and the other issues of the day. Sometimes in the morning, when my brain feels fresh and I can really concentrate, I'll go straight to Starbucks or somewhere that's not my office and read or work on some material. I try to read late at night but I always fall asleep. My wife finds me on the couch with the manuscript pages fallen off onto the floor.

STEIN: I won't take a manuscript into my bedroom.

MASSIE: I don't either.

STEIN: Only books.

MASSIE: Me too. I have to read at least ten pages of a book that I have nothing to do with.

STEIN: For me it's twenty-five. Not that I actually make it to twenty-five, but I try to set that as my goal. I say twenty-five so that I make it to maybe eight.

MASSIE: I have to do that to clean my head. I try to read for at least an hour after my kids go to bed every night.

STEINBERG: I love to read on airplanes. I get so excited. I'm like, "I'm going to read this whole thing!" That's a great feeling.

STEIN: As long as there aren't really good movies on the plane.

STEINBERG: I have a rule that I won't buy the headphones.

STEIN: I don't have a TV at home, so I get very excited when I'm in front of one. [Laughter.]

STEINBERG: I also have a rule that if I'm on a train or something, I'm not allowed to buy the newspaper. Because I have to do work. But I'm allowed to look at other people's newspapers.

You mentioned before that editors are looking for excuses to pass on projects. I'm curious what else you see as changing about your jobs. Or what's getting harder?
STEINBERG: One thing that's changing is that everyone is reading on Kindles or Sony Readers. I've made an adjustment in my head and when I envision an editor reading the material, they're sitting somewhere and reading on the Kindle or the Sony Reader. I don't know how that affects what I submit yet, but it's certainly something I'm thinking about.

STEIN: With nonfiction I think about trends all the time because it follows trends in a much more obvious way than fiction does. With fiction, none of us follows trends—we fall in love. We also fall in love with nonfiction, but there's a measure of practicality that goes with it, which also has to do with our own interests. I'm particularly interested in politics but I haven't wanted to take on a political nonfiction book in several years. And I don't envision wanting to anytime soon. Well, aside from Cory Booker. Do you hear me, Cory Booker?

What about Jon Favreau? Wouldn't he be the biggest get right now?
MASSIE: Everyone must want him. Or Reggie Love.

STEIN: But if I'm interested in something and I need to help shape it—because often nonfiction will come in as an idea rather than a real proposal—I definitely try to think about whether there's a market for it considering where we are now, and where we are in our times. That's not something that's different from ten years ago or five years ago. But I think that considering the shrinking market will become all the more important. There just isn't room for books that are kind of interesting to some people anymore.

MASSIE: I think about the lack of book reviews. All of these places are getting rid of their book review sections. I think about that in terms of "How is a book going to get out there? How are people going to find out about it? What can I do and what should the author be doing beyond what the publisher is doing?" When you think about how overworked publicists are and how small publicity departments are and how many books they're working on, it will sometimes keep you up at night, especially if one of your clients has a book coming out. I think, "Oh, God. What should we be doing? What should we be thinking about? How do we get the word out?" Because there's no such thing as a review-driven book anymore.

So what should writers be doing? What are your authors teaching you about that?
MASSIE: To think outside the box. To think about other ways of getting the word out. It used to be that you'd have a meeting with the publicist, or a phone call, and there would be almost a checklist you'd go down. "We're going to send it to the newspapers and the magazines and this, this, this, and this." That doesn't exist anymore. It's a whole new world. There are so many other distractions out there. You really have to think, "Well, how do people find out about books? Where do they hear about them?"

And what are you learning about that from experiencing it on a daily basis?
MASSIE: I think a lot of it is word of mouth. It seems like there's a critical mass that a book has to achieve in order to work. You have to get all the big reviews, and if you don't, how do you get that critical mass? Is it the independent booksellers hand-selling a book? Is it having great placement in the front of Barnes & Noble? I mean, I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out what you have to do.

STEIN: I do think, with literary fiction, it's about getting it in the hands of the bloggers, who we don't read. When I say that I'm joking, but I'm also not joking. I should say the bloggers who a whole new generation of readers are reading. And the social networking. Everyone should have a Facebook page. Part of it is personality. Some authors are incredibly magnetic and funny, and that's not something you can tell your author to be. You can't tell your author, "When you do your readings, make the audience fall in love with you."

RUTMAN: "Be more charismatic." [Laughter.]

STEIN: That's something that just happens, and that sells books. There are certain authors who are very funny at their readings and draw crowds, who maybe at a different time wouldn't have sold as well as they do now. But they're just the right thing for the blogging atmosphere and just the right thing for buzz. There's something underground about them because they give almost stand-up comedy routines when they read. I think it's going to be different for every author in a way that it wasn't before, and that's why we have to think about how to publish each book individually in a way that we didn't have to before.

What else are they teaching you?
STEINBERG: I have a client named Keith Donohue who wrote a book called The Stolen Child, and Amazon optioned it for film. I think it might have been the only time they ever did that. So they had a vested interest in making the book work. And they made it work.

But that sounds like an exception to me.
STEINBERG: That's my point. We have to do exceptions. With fiction, these days, you have to work under the exception rule because fiction does not have a platform. Publicists are stumped. That's why I think nonfiction has come to the fore a little more. Publicists are sort of like, "Well, no, we don't know what to do. We're not really sure." They used to be able to rely on reviews and now even that's gone. One thing I ask myself, even though I said that writers shouldn't put "I think this could be a great movie" in their query letter, is, "Could this novel become a movie?" I used to work at the agency that represented Chuck Palahniuk, and before the movie version of Fight Club came out, that hardcover had sold about five thousand copies. And after the movie came out I think the tie-in edition sold something like a hundred thousand copies in the first few months. So that's something I think about. I'm like, "Wow, I need to re-create that for my clients." If a book is made into a movie, no matter how small, it helps the writer forever.

STEIN: This is kind of an abstract thing to say, and I don't know exactly what I mean because it hasn't happened yet, but I think the agent's relationship with publishers has to change a little bit. I think that it has to become a little bit less adversarial and a little bit more open and cooperative. Which means that the publisher has to do their part so we don't have to be adversarial. But there can be a way for everybody.... Look, we're all in a sinking ship. So all fucking hands on deck. I think there's a little bit of editors not wanting to tell agents what's really going on and agents feeling like they have to sort of choose their shots with regard to when they call editors and ask for numbers, ask what's going on with publicity, ask about the marketing plan, all of that stuff. And we shouldn't have to do that. We're partners in this thing, and we're all trying to do the same thing. We shouldn't have to feel that way, and the editors shouldn't have to feel like they have to keep secrets. I mean, if there's a secret, or if there's something to feel ashamed about, we should figure out what to do about it.

RUTMAN: Preemptive sharing is really great. When editors keep you overly appraised—there's no such thing, really—and just give you information without having to be asked, it is deeply appreciated. I find that when a book works, it's almost always in that situation. You feel like all of the parts of the house are working in tandem and the editor is inclined to update you because they're pleased with the way everything is coming together. If you have to excavate the information—

STEINBERG: It feels like pulling teeth.

RUTMAN: Or there's just nothing planned.

STEIN: But Jim, let's say you do have to excavate. Or the editor is in a position where they feel like maybe something at the publishing house has fallen short. In that situation it's best that the editor is up-front with the agent so that they, with the author—because it's the author's job too—can all save the day as much as possible. It's just got to be all fucking hands on deck. You can't be all hands on deck if everybody doesn't know what's going on.

MASSIE: There's no transparency. You ask, "What's in the budget? What's in the marketing plan?" You're constantly asking and you think, "Why can't you just know what's in the budget for this book? Why can't you know what's being allocated for this book?" They're like, "We'll see, we'll see, we'll see." No.

RUTMAN: I think there's an assumption that you will find it lacking, and will want—

MASSIE: But it's so much better to know. It allows you to manage expectations. It allows you to think about what else you can do. It's so frustrating to constantly.... Managing an author, especially a first-time author, is difficult enough. Just trying to find out what you have to work with is so frustrating.

STEIN: They aren't used to this new wave of reasonable agents. [Laughter.]

STEINBERG: It's also this frustrating catch-22 where they don't throw money at a book until it does well.

MASSIE: Which means it's not going to do well. That kills me.

STEINBERG: That is incredibly frustrating to agents because a book isn't going to do well unless you're actively doing something for it. You can't just wait and see if it does well and then try to make it do even better.

I hope you know that that's frustrating to editors, too. We aren't the ones making those budgeting decisions.
STEIN: That's my point. If nobody else at the house is doing anything for a book, the editor and the agent and the author, every now and then, can have a flash of brilliance and come up with something that might work.

STEINBERG: It's hard. Sometimes you get to that conversation and you're like, "Let's think of those out-of-the-box things that no one usually does, and let's do them," and there's sort of silence on the phone.

MASSIE: Total silence. They're like, "Um..."

STEINBERG: You can hear the crickets. They're like, "Well, anyway, I've gotta go..."

MASSIE: "I'll think about that and get back to you!"

STEINBERG: "I'm going to brainstorm tonight and I'll get back to you tomorrow."

But what are the out-of-the-box things that are working?
MASSIE: I think it depends on the book. But I also think about, "Does John Grisham really need a full-page ad in the New York Times every time he has a new book. Really? Does he? Is he not going to sell those books?"

STEINBERG: His agent would say yes.

MASSIE: Fine. But do the authors who are so well established really need the biggest piece of the marketing budget? Their audience is there. They know when their books are coming out. They're there and waiting. Why not use that money for establishing an author?

STEIN: Think about when a really big band goes on tour. They always have a couple of opening bands, and those opening bands get exposure. So why isn't Grisham giving some exposure to a young writer or two? Why isn't he doing the same thing? Why isn't he going on tour and saying, "This is my opening act and I'm supporting them"?

MASSIE: That's a great idea.

STEINBERG: I think somebody like Stephen King has thought of that and is doing it in Entertainment Weekly.

MASSIE: Stephen King definitely does that.

STEIN: Absolutely.

RUTMAN: A book campaign gets interesting when it starts to look like another industry's campaign. I was lucky enough to work on a book where we did really cool tour posters, for example. And one day the author suggested, "Hey, it would be really nice if you guys would print up some guitar picks. I would throw them out to people at readings." The publicist said, "That's a great idea. Let's print up some guitar picks." That doesn't take a huge effort, and I don't know that it made the difference for the book, but swag is always appreciated. I'm not saying that that's a uniformly good approach, but thinking about a book as a potentially cool object—something you could covet in a way that you might covet some other cultural product—is, I suppose, the way it's going. Publishers probably don't need to be encouraged to treat books more like products, but at the same time, something basic is changing, isn't it? I mean, if book review outlets are as fleeting as they are.

STEINBERG: I think we're in an in-between time period. Reviews are going away but there's nothing there to take their place. It will be the Internet in some form, but nobody knows how, exactly.

STEIN: If those short-form book reviews that are just like, "This is the book, here is the plot, thumb up, thumb down, or thumb in-between," are the ones going away, so be it. If what's left behind are the book reviews that actually say something about books, great. Let's do something exciting with what used to be the space for those, frankly, boring synopses of books.

STEINBERG: I think we can also take a lesson from something I saw in a bookstore in Salt Lake City once. I was there for a writers conference. I went into the YA section and all of these teenage girls were talking about books as if they were cool. I was like, "That's what we have to do. We have to make books cool again." How do we do that? I don't know.

RUTMAN: Was there a time when books were cool? I guess there was.

STEINBERG: I don't know. But the vibe in that YA section? Those girls were all like, "Oooh, what did you read?" They were trying to one-up each other with what they'd read. It was amazing.

RUTMAN: Kids talk about books differently than adults do, and that's why a handful of YA books are such spectacular successes. There's this unself-conscious discussion and inclination to share. I don't know how we appropriate that and make it a possibility for adults. When we're considering a manuscript, one of the things that we're trying to glimpse is whether or not it might be adopted by book clubs. How often do you get something that you feel could become the subject of conversation among people who, you know, maybe their first inclination is not to evaluate the merits of a book. And the books that tend to get that far probably don't do it because of an especially successful campaign. The frustrating possibility we're always forced to consider is that it's not really within anyone's control, even if a publisher makes a really concerted effort. Part of our job, and certainly part of our responsibility, is to see that the publisher carries out its duty as fully and faithfully as possible. But they certainly do that and books still fail to reach more than a few souls. I don't know what makes people like books. There's a basic mystery.

STEIN: But I just saw Revolutionary Road this weekend and walked out of the movie and could hear everyone saying, "Have you read the book? Have you read the book?" I thought, "Thank God. Thank God people are saying that." And that book is on the best-seller list now.

I find that amazing. It's one of the bleakest books of all time and it's been on the best-seller list for fifteen weeks.
STEIN: It's totally bleak, and it's brilliant, and it's so much better than the movie, not because the actors didn't give it their best shot but because Sam Mendes was a terrible director.

STEIN: But that's the thing. People want to read that book. That's exciting. It's cool and it's hot and it's depressing all at the same time. And maybe after they read Revolutionary Road they'll want to read another depressing novel. It's cool to read depressing novels.

RUTMAN: There's little that I find cooler.

You guys work on commission. How does that affect the decisions you make when it comes to selling a book where maybe you have multiple offers?
STEINBERG: It's always a combination of the money and the right place. What that combination is varies, but you have to take both into account. I've taken less money a lot of times to have the right publisher—probably not a lot less money—but a little less money to be published in the right place.

MASSIE: The right place for a little less money, over time, could be more money. It can't just be about the money. There are so many different factors.

STEINBERG: An advance is an advance against royalties, and royalties are an aspect of it.

MASSIE: Right. And if you don't earn out that advance, your next one may not be as big.

STEIN: And to clarify, when we say "the right place" we mean the place we think will be just as enthusiastic, or even grow more enthusiastic, from the moment they buy the book until it's published, and make it a best-seller if possible. And the place where the book won't disappear if, you know, Alan Greenspan or Hillary Clinton or Obama happens to pop up on their list.

STEINBERG: Stability is also important these days. I was selling a book recently and there were a few publishers that I'd heard weren't doing so well. I definitely took that into account. Because it can take a year or two for a book to be published after you sell it. Will that place be around in two years? Will the editor be around? Stability is so important to writers, which is why this time period is even tougher than you may think.

RUTMAN: What we do is really hard, readers. We just need you to know that.

STEIN: We have to think a lot. [Laughter.]

You're joking but my wife is an agent and I know that it is really hard. Especially when you're less established than some people. How do you compete with people who are more established?
STEIN: I thought you were going to ask, "How do you pay your rent?" [Laughter.]

STEINBERG: If you want to talk about what's at the forefront of our minds....

But seriously, how do you compete with people who are more established?
STEIN: I don't. I don't think that I compete with people who are more established. I think they throw me a bone every now and then, if they're too busy. People who are really established? If they want a writer? I don't think I'm going to compete with somebody who's been in the business for twenty-five years. I think that's unreasonable. Why would I compete with somebody who's been in the business for twenty-five years? Unless it's a perfect match, for some reason. I just can't see a competitive situation unless, for example, a writer is recommended to an agent who's been in the business for a long time and some younger agents and there's very good chemistry and a good match. I think that experience in this industry is really invaluable, and I respect experience a lot. So if I were in the shoes of a writer who was choosing between good chemistry with somebody with a lot of experience and good chemistry with somebody who was young, I would probably go with the person with a lot of experience.

RUTMAN: The only thing at your disposal in that situation—if you're at an experience and success quotient disadvantage—is the quality of the attention that you can offer the writer.

STEIN: That's true.

RUTMAN: And that's what you're presenting to them. It's like, "Look, I will talk to you more often."

MASSIE: "And I won't pass you off to my assistant."

RUTMAN: And we're probably going to be more engaged in things that they want to be engaged in. You know, talking about what's wrong with the material in a closer way than somebody else. What else can you really offer? And that's something.

STEIN: "I'll edit your book."

RUTMAN: All you can really do is try to work up superior chemistry to the chemistry you think they may be working up with somebody who just doesn't have the time or inclination for them in the way that you might. I also don't like to know—I don't need or want to know—who I'm competing with.

MASSIE: I don't either. I never want to know.

And they should never tell you, either.
MASSIE: Some people do, though.

But they shouldn't.
MASSIE: You're right.

RUTMAN: They shouldn't. You want to say, "Really? Oh, she's really good. She likes this? Congratulations!"

STEIN: But how do you guys feel about this. If there's an agent who you really respect—who's been in the industry for a long time and who you may even think of as a mentor—and if you were a writer, wouldn't you go with somebody like that, even if you knew they were busy, over you? Or would you go with you?

RUTMAN: I'm supposed to be me in this scenario?

STEIN: You would give them more attention and more of your time, and that person might have them dealing with their assistant more often, but that person is a mentor to you for a reason. They have so much experience and knowledge that you couldn't even begin to have.

STEINBERG: In my experience it's so rare that you compete with other agents. I don't really think about it too often. It's not like being an editor, where one agent submits to twelve editors and you know you're competing with other editors. As an agent, usually it's a single submission, just to you, because you know the person somehow. Or you get to the material so much faster than everyone else because you're immediately drawn to it off the slush pile and you know that other agents aren't involved. In my experience it's very rare.

RUTMAN: You don't find that with referrals? Where maybe some thoughtful referree has given the writer three or four names?

MASSIE: Of course. I always assume that.

STEIN: I assume that too.

RUTMAN: And then you think, "Oh, crap. This is really good. Agent so-and-so is probably going to see this too." And then they do.

So what do you do? That's what I want to know.
MASSIE: You fight as hard as you can and you argue why you're the best person for that project and that author and you hope that they agree.

RUTMAN: Or why Anna is, depending on the situation. [Laughter.]

STEIN: Exactly. I try not to get clients as much as possible. Can you tell?

STEINBERG: Speed is a great help in those situations. You can be like, "I'm going to read this tonight and call you tomorrow."

MASSIE: That is so hard, though. I have two small children so I just can't do speed.

STEIN: I don't like to tell writers that they need to make a decision right away if the book is still out with other agents. I think it's important for them to have a choice, in the same way that we want a choice between editors. We like to be able, if we can, to shop an offer. We like to be able to make a decision between editors. I think authors are entitled to that decision between agents, too.

RUTMAN: You also don't want them to go with you if they have doubts in their mind. Because that will affect the relationship down the line. There have been instances when I've been like, "Oh, go with the other person," because I could just tell that they wanted to. That's fine. Sometimes the other agent is a friend and I'm happy for them. Until it hits the best-seller list. [Laughter.]

Talk to me about what editors do that makes you the most frustrated.
STEINBERG: The bandwagon mentality. When I submit a book to them and they call and say, "What's going on?" They're not supposed to say, "What's going on?" They're supposed to either say "I hate this" or "I love this" or "It's okay" or whatever. It's their job to tell me what's going on at that point. I've done the work, I've submitted to you, and you're supposed to tell me what's going on. If you're calling me and saying "What's going on?" then you're just wondering what you might miss out on because other editors might be interested and you're not going with your passion.

RUTMAN: Or perhaps don't call and ask what's going on without having some intention of your own to offer.

STEINBERG: That's very frustrating.

MASSIE: Or flip-floppers. Someone who disappears on you. Somebody who sends you an e-mail like, "Don't do anything without me. I'm loving this and getting other reads," and you never hear from them again. You're like, "What happened?"

STEIN: And we all know what happened.

MASSIE: But call and tell me. We need closure. The author's like, "What did they say? What's going on?"

STEIN: Show your confidence in your taste. And if you lose in the house...

MASSIE: Just say so. It's so much easier. And then you trust that editor. They loved it and for whatever reason the other readers didn't. But be transparent about it. It's so much easier to know what they're thinking than to wonder.

STEIN: And you'll go back to them because you understand their taste.

MASSIE: Yes. And if they don't tell you, you won't go back to them. There are editors who I won't go back to. And I'm sure all of you have your list of those editors.

RUTMAN: Explaining yourself is really helpful. I want to know on what grounds you are saying no, or on what grounds you couldn't get something through. It's all useful because it rounds out your sense of who you're offering a book to.

MASSIE: And it's so important to an author to hear about how people are responding to their work. When people don't get back to you, or they disappear, it's so frustrating because you're the person stuck in the middle trying to manage your author's fears and hopes and expectations. If it's a no, it's a no. It's easy.

STEINBERG: I also don't like when the editor has his assistant write the pass letter. I'm not submitting to the assistant—I'm submitting to you. I didn't have my assistant work up this submission for you. Because you can tell when the assistant's doing the form rejection. Agents should not get form rejections. You just don't do that.

STEIN: It's also frustrating when editors disappear after they've acquired a book. If, for some reason, things aren't going as well in-house as they'd like, they sometimes hide. Or if they're just really busy. Look, everybody's busy. Just say, "I'm busy." The disappearing act is just unattractive behavior.

Do you resent how collaborative the acquisitions process has become?
STEINBERG: I try to submit to places that aren't like that. I go out of my way to try to find the few remaining places where people can make decisions because they want to.

RUTMAN: Is that a matter of place or editor selection? Finding an editor whose opinion doesn't need—

STEINBERG: I guess it's the person.

STEIN: But I also see it—buying by committee—as something that has become pretty necessary. If an editor is really passionate, and everybody else isn't so passionate, it's going to be pretty hard to publish that book. I see it as something that's more and more necessary these days. If you sell a book to an editor who doesn't need all of that back-up, it's kind of tricky. Let's say you end up with sales and marketing people who just aren't that psyched about it. That's not so great for the book. I don't have so much of a problem with the committee as I do with the taste that the committee is coming up with. Which has just been really mediocre over the past few years.

RUTMAN: Good distinction.

STEIN: I don't think that the individuals have bad taste. I think it's just been a taste of fear over the past few years, and I hope that the committees will somehow—and this is just hope—become more courageous over the next few years. That somehow, with the market contracting, instead of thinking, "We need to be more mediocre," they will be thinking, "If we're actually going to be publishing literary fiction, it has to be really fucking good." And that means that some people in the house will kind of hate a book, but see what's amazing about it, and other people in the house will really, really love it. There wouldn't have to be consensus within the committee for the committee to get behind it. It would be a little different kind of committee, if that makes sense.

RUTMAN: And I guess this applies more to nonfiction than fiction, but please acknowledge comp titles as the limited and specious resource that they are, at least as the basis for making your decision.

But in the publisher's defense, it seems like sometimes that's how the accounts are making their decisions. At least to some extent.
RUTMAN: True. But I feel like a house has to have enough consequence, built in, to persuade a buyer. It's not like the house can't anticipate the reluctance that the buyer may ultimately express, and there's got to be a way to overwhelm that reluctance with the fact that they give a shit.

STEIN: But I think that also comes back to us, and to what we advise our authors to do in our nonfiction proposals now. The comp titles shouldn't necessarily be limited to the subject they're writing about. We have to broaden the spectrum to the kinds of books that could possibly work. We have to think about the moment when the sales reps have to face those guys. We have to think, "Jesus, what kind of comp titles could possibly relate to this in a way that could work?" I mean, it's so boring to have to think about that. But we can't rely on them to do that job for us anymore, unfortunately. That's another way that our jobs have changed.

RUTMAN: The anticipation of just about every possible objection. I mean, there are always a lot of possible objections. The list is long. And you try to speak to them as much as possible, even in the introductory conversation. I think we all appreciate how many rounds of approval the editor is responsible for securing, and that they have to create some kind of consensus with a really disparate group of tastes and responsibilities. When you think about all of those different barriers, it's kind of a wonder that as many books get bought as they do. How do you get this much approval from that many people this often? So it's kind of amazing when you hear how many books a certain group within Random House or something is going to publish. You guys are going to publish twelve hundred books this year? This one group found enough to agree on twelve hundred times?

Do you guys think the industry is healthy? Just give me a yes or no around the table.
STEINBERG: No.

MASSIE: No.

RUTMAN: I don't think so.

STEIN: No.

RUTMAN: But I do wonder if there's ever been a point when you could get four people to say yes.

STEIN: But here's the silver lining: It's unhealthy enough that it's an exciting time. It's broken enough that publishers and agents and everyone has to change. Everyone has to rethink what they're doing. So we have a group responsibility, and an opportunity, in a way that the industry has probably never seen before.

RUTMAN: Part of me craves that. If we're near a precipice, we might as well actually be on it. Let's get to the moment when some basic model really gives way to whatever other model that really smart people are going to help conceive of. Is this what Jason Epstein's been talking about for a long time? Maybe. Is the big company going to acknowledge, "Is this business for us, ultimately? We tried this. We kind of gave it a look. Eh, it's okay. Synergy's overrated. It's a stupid word. We're going to abandon that." Is it going to become a business for the fewer? Is it going to return to the financial interest of a select few wealthy people who are prepared to collect a really modest profit, if any? And does that make for more interesting publishing? Possibly. Maybe.

STEINBERG: Or will it go the other way, like you were saying before? Will we start making concert posters and guitar picks for publicity and using other industries' models to promote books? It could go that way and become more like the movie business.

RUTMAN: And those industries are claiming a state of serious unhealthiness as well. So if every single culture industry is ill at the same time, what do we have to look to?

STEINBERG: And maybe we also shouldn't feel so bad.

MASSIE: It's an interesting time, if you think about it. Look at how the music industry got hit so hard by iTunes and iPods. They had no time to react. But the book publishing industry actually has a little time to think about things and explore possibilities and try to figure out what the next thing is going to be without being hit so hard.

What are the big problems in your opinions, and who are you looking to—Jim said Jason Epstein—for the solutions? Is it Bob Miller? Is it Jon Karp? Who is it?
STEIN: Those are the first two people I would have mentioned. The big problems are too many books, inflated advances for—

RUTMAN: The few.

MASSIE: Marketing budgets going to big, established authors.

STEINBERG: No one ever hearing about great books that are published.

STEIN: Returns.

RUTMAN: Trend-hunting.

STEINBERG: Barnes & Noble making many decisions for publishers.

STEIN: Inflexible models across the board. For example, it's time for us to be reasonable as agents. We shouldn't ask for unreasonable advances. But in exchange, shouldn't we be able to ask for paperback escalators? Publishers will say, "It's our company policy not to give paperback escalators." But we're going to give a little bit, so publishers should give a little bit.