This week I chat to Marisa Noelle to get her unique perspective on working with a literary agent. We discuss the highs and lows as well as the real time benefits of working with a literary agent.
You can find her at marisanoelle.com
This week I chat to Marisa Noelle to get her unique perspective on working with a literary agent. We discuss the highs and lows as well as the real time benefits of working with a literary agent.
You can find her at marisanoelle.com
Hi, and welcome to the writing and marketing show brought to you by author Wendy H. Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. it's jam packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast. So it's time to get on with the show. And welcome to episode 126 of the writing and marketing short with author, entrepreneur, Wendy H. Jones. And as always, it's a pleasure to welcome you to the show. And to be honest, I didn't think we'd ever get to Episode 126. But I'm grateful to the people that listen consistently, that are enjoying the show and are learning from it. Today is the part four of working with an agent, a series I'm doing, giving you all the different aspects of working with an agent and getting views from different people in the industry. And that's, uh, you know, I thought that was important, I might try and get a publisher to speak about their views of working with an agent as well, just so that you get it from every angle. So what's been happening in my life? Well, I've been busy getting ready for my trip to the United States. I've been giving talks about Thomas Graham, I've been giving talks about my my trip to Antigua. It's all been all things history really. And I've also been working with my agent, which is great. She's working very hard in the background for me keeping me up to date, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it all. Before we get on and meet today's guest who is going to talk to us about about working with an agent. Her name is Marissa Noel, before we get on to Morris's interview, I would like to just say that I enjoy bringing you this every week, I do so willingly and I enjoy doing it. But if you would like to support the time it takes out of my writing, you can do so by going to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H. Jones, and supporting me for just $3 a month, which is the price of a tear of coffee. And I would be very grateful. And it would mean that you enjoy the show and you want me to keep doing it. So thank you to all my patrons. I really appreciate it. So what's up Marissa Noel? Well, when she is a writer of young adult middle grade novel, she leans towards grounded science fiction, urban fantasy, and paranormal, but mental health issues are important to her writing to publish books include the shadow keeper, the unadjusted trilogy, and the mermaid Chronicles secrets of the deep. You can find one of them about in the book section of a website, which is medicine oil.com. Growing up, Marissa had plenty of ideas for a career and still regrets not moving to Hawaii to train dolphins and pretend the real world didn't exist. struggling with anxiety and anorexia later to the field of psychology. Heavily influenced by underdog movies such as the Karate Kid, she realised her mission in life was to help other people through any medium. embarking on a psychology degree. She wanted to emulate her heroes Jodie Foster from Silence of the Lambs, and actually tried to secure work experience at Broadmoor. Thankfully, she left the idea of criminal profiling behind but uses many of these aspects in her novels. Marisa writes in a quiet corner of the kitchen or the coach or the study or whatever, she can find a quiet place. There's usually a forgotten cup of tea cooling nearby and there must be absolute silence. So that's all about Marissa. It's a pleasure to meet her. So let's get on and to actually meet her and hear what she has to say about working with an agent. And we have Marissa with us. Welcome, Marissa.
Marisa Noelle:Hello, thank you so much for having me.
Wendy Jones:it's absolutely my pleasure. Tell us where you are in the world.
Marisa Noelle:I am in a town called Woking in Surrey, in England. I can get into London and 25 minutes if I need to. So, I feel I love where I live.
Wendy Jones:excellent place to live. The South of England is very nice if it's got a lot of people, but it's very nice. It's true. And it's nice to be able to get to London quickly. Takes me five and a half hours to get to London from Dundee.
Marisa Noelle:Yeah.
Wendy Jones:Anyway, it's lovely of you to join us today because I know you're busy. So I don't want to waste your time. So I will get into the interrogation. I mean, the questions, questions interview.
Marisa Noelle:Yeah, not interrogation.
Wendy Jones:Are you sitting comfortably? I am glad to hear it. And we have a lot of people your books in the background, but we will talk about them later. So, let's get on with the show and today we're going to be talking about working with literally agents. Now, this is a fourth week on a mini series on working with literary agents. So we've set the scene really. But I know that all our journeys are different, which is why I wanted to interview you. I know all our journeys are different. So tell us about your journey with your agent or agents in your case.
Marisa Noelle:Yes, I have had quite a long journey. I've had three agents, and I'm on my third agent now. So, I really think that you've got to find the right agent when I was first starting out, people in our and I had a copy of the writers and artists handbook, whatever that is, it lists all the agents here for the UK anyway. And I was going through and the overwhelming advice was, it's got to be the right match, you know. And I think when you're, you know, when you're a new a new author, and you're looking for that first connection, and you're going through the slush pile, you know, you don't you don't think that you just think I want any offer I want any offer, you know, and so you can make mistakes, or you don't even know what questions to ask. So suffice it to say I have been through three agents trying to find the right match for me. And I've been in the slush pile each time. That the slush pile each time, I didn't have any networking or connections or anything like that. So that's where I am now. And it took me several years to get to the agent that I'm finally with now that I absolutely love. And your job is to go into more detail about each one, or is that for the next question. absolutely fascinated by
Wendy Jones:The fact that you've had three agents, most people think,you stick to one. So why three agents.
Marisa Noelle:So it's actually a lot more common than you think to move around. And agents, especially in the States, I find in the state agents, they don't get paid on commission, so they're not getting a salary. So this is something they're doing outside of day job until they've established them self. And I think that makes the relationship a lot trickier. And Eve agenting. People decide they haven't got the right clients, all sorts of things can go wrong. Here, it's a bit more tricky that there are less agents and the people that get a salary here in the UK, and they are agents, you know, they don't do anything else. So the first time I got an agent, I literally written the first draft of the injustice, which is my dystopian trilogy, gosh, years ago now. And I didn't know anything about I didn't have any friends. In university, I didn't have any connections. I knew nothing. But all I had was this book that told me the list of agents. And I was lucky enough when I was scrolling through the list, best that I can school friend of mine who worked for the agency, AMP from London. So I rang him and I said I need some advice, because he wasn't an agent. He wasn't a young adult agent. And that's what I needed. So that was great. We met up for lunch after 20 years of not seeing each other at school. And he gave me lots and lots of advice. And the one thing he said to me was persevere. And that is something that I will always continue to tell other authors today because it doesn't happen if you give up. So I kind of thought I don't know what he's talking about, well, I just need to write to an agent. And that will be fine. Now I was lucky enough that after my first draft, because I didn't really know what editing was at that point. I found an agent in Ireland who is Ireland's kind of super agent, and she liked the book. And she had me edit it with one of her freelance editors. And then she took me on. So obviously, I was super excited. And the book didn't do very well, because it was very similar to The Hunger Games, Hunger Games, you know, it was just in its fame and people weren't looking for dystopian anymore. So we wrote a few more things together on quite productive. And I think we had two or three books all die out on sub, and I started thinking something's going wrong here. We were together for three years, and I totally trusted her and I actually had some high profile clients. But I didn't understand why it wasn't working for me. So I had to have a long thing. And I realised I was the problem that I was too green still I was writing in a vacuum I hadn't really furthered my writing and I didn't know how to do that's kind of what I meant. When I got onto Twitter and I found my writing friends, I found my writing group, my support group, and through them, I discovered resources and I discovered things that I would never have found. And that's when my writing levelled up. And I went on to do the Curtis Brown, young adult course and all sorts of other things that really helped me establish myself as a writer and learn to be the best that I could be. Now saying that I can always improve. I think ut of writing is that there's no end limit. I think you could always learn things at different times in the career of writing, and I'd love to absorb them Thanks. So I was like a sponge just learning, learning, learning. Excuse me. So then I felt I was ready. And I had done an edit on the adjusters. And I've written a tonne of other books, and I went out to find my next agent. It was based in the UK. And we met at a Scooby agent party thing, and we really clicked really hit it off.
Wendy Jones:Sorry, can we say what SCBWI
Marisa Noelle:so Scooby SCBWI, I got that the right way round. Yeah, is a writing organisation for anything from picture books up to young adult. So it focuses on children and kidlit. And they provide workshops, you can join a critique group, they have confidence that they have a big conference every year and with keynote speakers, and it's really, really great community that you can be a part of, if you're writing for children, or young adult.
Wendy Jones:So, you're journey with your agent that you found through Scooby.
Marisa Noelle:Yeah, yeah. So, we went to the agents party, and they SCBWI will host different events where you can talk to librariansor they do a debut launch workshop days. So, when you're releasing a book, you can go along and learn how to get into schools and that kind of thing. So they do this agents party every year, and I was there. My second agent, and we really clicked. And I think, naively on my part, because we had collected met in person, all of my business questions kind of went out the window. I didn't sit there and grill her about her communication style. Or if this book just go, what do we do? Or I, you know, I felt like we had gotten along enough. I didn't need to do that. Silly me. So, I had already gotten a deal for the Unadjusted through a small press in the USA.Butshe had shipped out to other publishers, and we still got no nibbles. We went back to the small deal. And we took that. And she kind of made things a bit better, which was great. But after that, she wanted me to write something new. She didn't want, I had 17 books on my laptop. And she said, Well, let's write something fresh. So, I've literally just write written this book here. You know, that had not been my understanding of our relationship and what has happened. So, I said, I don't I don't think this is right. I'm not just going to forget seventeen books. Because if I had one or two, my laptop, baby, but I had a lot of books, and I had a lot of passion. And some of them were heart books, I was not just going to give up on them. So, we we parted ways. And then I went back into the stash. And this time that I used my middle grade novel that I had worked on with my first agent and gotten some really great feedback from publishers. So we edited that, and that's been on sub for a while. I'm hopeful that something will happen to that it's an important bit to me. Well, that went on to so that went on to I queried that with this agent and I had lots of requests. And I was focusing on America. Because most of my books are set in the States. I thought it's best to have an American agent and it's really hard to sell a book from an English agent into an English publisher that set in America. So I concentrated on that side of the pond and I found my family agent She plucked me out the slush pile again. I harassed her every couple of months to say have you read it yet? Have you read it yet? Have you ready yet? And I had a couple of offers and I went with Stacy Stacy kala the rights factory and I have not looked back twice so spectrum has now gone on to the end of this month we're going out and slapped with a YA as well as the way I clarify that we've been editing for a year. bane of my existence at the moment. What I love about Stacey is how editorial she is. And that was my mistake with my first agent. Even though she was a fantastic agent. She wasn't editorial. She didn't push me I didn't learn anything with Stacey. She is incredibly editorial. She won't put anything out to publishers unless she thinks it's publishable as it is. And I think publishers today are looking for reasons to reject not reasons to buy. So your manuscripts have to be bulletproof. And Stacey is really really good at making making me do that. So yes, plucked out the slush pile again. And here we are on the road again. So we'll see what happens.
Wendy Jones:That takes me directly into my next question because can you tell us what your agents represent for you? I know they represent different things. For example, my agent for some of my series is doing Publishing Rights TV, film everything. For another series that just doing TV film, foreign language and audio rights? Whereas I'm keeping the book right? What is your agent representing for you? Are you able to tell us?
Marisa Noelle:She, Yeah, she will represent everything. So she will be able to sell audio, you know, all of that stuff. And they have a film adaption agent as part of the agency, they have a film department. So anytime a book has sold the rights department get that. And then they explore film, and audio and all those other things that you can do to get deals for that. So there's like a whole department within the agency that just handles that. And Stacy would help, obviously, with foreign rights and things like that, too. So the whole shebang. Which is, which, you know, I think is what an agent is needed for to be honest, because I wouldn't have a clue about how how to go about selling foreign rights or translation rights or any of that kind of stuff. So
Wendy Jones:yeah, so she's doing everything. Yeah, one of the things that we never talk about, and I haven't even spoken about it in the last three episodes on this I've done is money. When we think about agents, now, I know that no money is paid up front, and that the agent gets paid when you sign a contract. Do you think that the agent is worth the money that they earn from selling your books,
Marisa Noelle:I think that they do an incredible amount of work for very little reward. I mean, when you think about the process, when you're querying, to find an agent, and how just emotional that is, and the rejections that come in. And your agent does that for you, publishers, that not only that they spent hours making connections, they spent hours at networking meetings and conferences and making sure they are making connections with the big five. And other presses say that when a client of theirs has the bit that editors looking for, they can go I've got it. And the better their relationships are with those people, the quicker they will be responded to, the more deals they start to get under their belt, the quicker they will be responded to. So it's like a little hierarchy agent hierarchy. Beyond that, they also have to negotiate contract. So number one, they have to understand all the legalese and what it actually means. Number two, they need to know when to hold back, right, like some publishers will want everything they will want world rights, and translation rights and audio and film, and they want to take everything. So a small agent will keep film back will keep audio back and sell those things separately, because you can make a lot more money doing that. So you really have to understand contracts, you have to understand how to negotiate with a publisher. And each publisher will have different negotiation methods. And that's a learning curve for an agent to have. And then once you have made that deal, your agent kind of takes care of that relationship. If you run into a problem and you don't like your book cover or your editor wants you to change something that you don't agree with, it changes the whole point of the book, your agent is there, to ease that over and to make sure that you come together and agree on the way forward for the better so they can smooth over any of those problems. Otherwise, you end up you know, fighting with an editor and maybe losing a book deal, potentially if you can't agree. So your your agent becomes your mediator and they become your friends, to be honest, they're the person that you can say, you know, don't really want to do that school visit because it's 600 kids and I'm nervous and what do I do, or you want to do this change, or you know, you can talk to them about anything, they become your friends. And so I really think an agent is worth their weight in gold. To be honest, I think it's a really special relationship when you find the right one. And I think finding the right one is really important. Yeah, don't be me. You know, when I was in the beginning of my career, be me now.
Wendy Jones:Absolutely, yes, I really and you've read led me beautifully into the next question, which is talk us through what a relationship with an agent looks like?
Marisa Noelle:Yeah, it's different for everyone. You know, I'll tell you the differences between all my agents. So with my first agent, I, although she was lovely on the phone, and she was very supportive. And she was very complimentary about my writing. I would send her an email, I might not hear from her for a couple of months. And it used to drive me up a wall because I would just be like, are you there? I don't know what to think, you know, that made me anxious. I didn't like that. And then, with my second agent, I decided I wasn't going to feel nervous. I was just going to ask questions. I was going to send her questions when I needed them. I was going to set expectations and then she accused me of needing too much hand holding, which I kind of thought you know what, that's not a nice thing for a new author because new authors do need a little bit of hand holding and they do have questions, and it's not hand holding so much as it is learning about the industry. So that was another reason I didn't really like that. But with Stacey um You know, I've been around the block a few times, by the time I've gotten to Stacey. So, you know, I didn't feel like I had quite as many questions. But she will always get back to me within 48 hours with anything. And I respect her holiday time, so I don't message them. You know, if it's an important question, and I'm pitching her ideas, then I will email her if I've got a little question, I might message her on Twitter. So for me, the relationship that I have with Stacey is that we have a really good communication. I know that I can message her when I need to, I know I can message her about anything that I need help with, or advice on. Sometimes I might come across an editor and I say, Oh, can we make sure we send it, send it there, and she'll get on top of that. And then we also have zoom meetings, once she sends me an asset letter from my books, we have a zoom to discuss it, because we've run into problems in the past where she'll read it, she has a reader that reads it might get a reading report. And then it's different to what Stacey might have mentioned. So we always have a zoom to kind of talk through what the things are that need to be changed so that we're all on the same page, I go off and make those edits. And that's really clarifying experience for me. And then we just go back and forth. She has a system that she has, she has a queue. So you send her a new book, it goes in her queue with all her clients. And she'll get to it when she gets to it. Now, if you're in the middle of edits, or you've got your final edits, she'll, she'll get to it a bit quicker. But otherwise, everyone just has to wait their turn for her to read your book and make your comments. So it does make the process a bit longer. But I think it's a fair process. And I think she is respectful of all of us. So I you know, I'm quite happy with that. So yeah, so that's how Stacy and I work. I wish she was a bit closer. So we could go and grab a lunch. But she's in. She's in. She's in Calgary. So that's not going to happen. I have to plan a trip over there. But it's called
Wendy Jones:Is that Canada. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah, my geography is the pits. So I don't even know why I knew that. Yeah, my, I'm hoping to have lunch with my agent when I'm out in the States. It would be really nice to see them more often. But what do you what do you feel are the benefits of working with an agent?
Marisa Noelle:Hey, I love to have support when I'm editing. And I've said this quite a few times. The part that makes me nervous about a book is once I finished my first couple of drafts, and I'm ready to make my developmental changes. And I second guessed myself, it's great to have critique partners that can say, Oh, this character isn't really working, or have you thought about doing that. So I have a couple of really, really good ones that I trust. But I always feel like I might make the wrong decision, or I might change the wrong thing. So having my agent be really close to me editorially, and say, we need to work on this aspect. It just gives me it's like following a recipe, I can't create things from scratch. But if you follow me or ask me tell me what to do, I can quite happily get on with it. So I just need someone to tell me what to do to make the book better. And for that, I mean, that is golden. For me just on its own, you know, I I just yeah, that's like the best thing for me. And then I can carry on with confidence, knowing that I'm doing the right thing, because here's this person who's well established in the market knows what's selling knows the marketplace, and she knows what's working, what's not working. So I totally trust her opinion on what needs to change and what doesn't need to change from the big things to the little things. And then I can just then I can just get on with it. I think that answered the question. I can't remember what the question was.
Wendy Jones:What are the benefits? You've ansered it beautifully? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Takes us smoothly towards - Do you perceive any drawbacks to working with an agent?
Marisa Noelle:It depends on the agent. And as you can see, through my experience, there have been drawbacks with my previous agent. And this is why it's really important to find the right connection. And you go and have your initial meeting with an agent, it's really important to understand their sales history. Who they're selling to, you know, are they do they have relationships with the big five? Or are they selling into really small presses? And the communication method with you? How often you're expecting to hear from each other? Or are you going to be left left for months on your own without a word. And there are so many authors who have struggled with this communication and have ended up leaving their agents to find new agents and it happens so frequently. So it's just really important. If you find the wrong agent that can be a lot of negatives. But once you find that right agent, it's a lovely is a marriage. So yeah, there can be drawn. The drawbacks are really only if you get that bad relationship Um, but otherwise having a good agent? I don't I don't think there are any drawbacks to that to be honest.
Wendy Jones:Excellent. So you're an author, obviously. And we've discussed agents here, but I'd like to know a bit more about your books. Can you tell us a bit about your books? 17 you might want to wow.
Marisa Noelle:More than that now. Wow. I think I've written about five now. I haven't counted recently. Yeah, I'm one of those people, I can write a really, really quick first draft, but my editing process has slowed down, because Stacy has beaten into me the importance of resting my manuscript and leaving it for a couple of months at a time before major edits, and that is really valuable. So I don't think I could ever be one of these rapid release people unless I had edited the whole series before I started. So yes, so I have, I have six or seven published novels, the unadjusted is a dystopian trilogy. So if you're into the Hunger Games, divergent Maze Runner, that kind of thing, it's all about a world where you can take a pill, and it will change your DNA. So these pills are called knmi pills. And they were originally developed to help soldiers who had limbs blown off during war and things like that. And using the DNA of a less lizard, which can regrow its tail, they could regrow their limbs or whatever body part they needed help with. And then of course, it snowballed from there. Now we can have wings or we can have super sea but we can have intelligence. And the remaining 20% of the population called the unadjusted, they have not had any enhancements and it's about their right to survive in the society and how they survive in the society when all starts to go wrong. So that that is a complete trilogy. Then there's the unravelling of enforcer, which is my latest book and recently won Award, which I'm really proud of. It is a controversial book. I can't tell you why. It's a it's just spoilers. It's really hard books to talk about without spoilers, very loose Red Riding Hood retelling, it's a psychological horror, and all we know is that there are a group of 17 people and creatures part of this family is Gryphon, telepathic Fox, an angel and a beacon of light. And there's a house fire. And all we know is that they have to go through the woods to grandmother's house as they start getting picked up one by one by supernatural means we need to figure out what's going on. Similarly to that is the shopkeepers, which is another psychological horror. Now, I set this in a real asylum, about a girl who sees these crow like creatures and mirrors and she gets committed to a hospital to prove you know, to get over it. So I lived opposite this old asylum for five years it was converted into luxury apartments. And it's a beautiful building. But when the residents started moving into these apartments, they started reporting stories of ghostly occurrences happening and I've I've always been fascinated by an asylum story and I thought this is the perfect place to start a book. So I pretend that Brookwood hospitals still exists. And it all takes place there with a little bit of the guli history. So and then I've got my fasting moment series. So secret's out now. September that's bit two that will be five parts together. So this is kind of like The Little Mermaid or grown up a Romeo and Juliet retelling. We're talking about amazing shark shapeshifters. And there are love triangles and love squares and magical jewels and quests for Atlantis, the Fountain of Youth and all these amazing things that make up adventure and that but love there's a love story underneath it all. And it does get a little bit of spicy later on in a second berkenaan. So if you're into little bits of spice that was for you. Oh, yes, that was a round up. So I write really within fantasy dystopian horror, all of those genres. And I like I like that.
Wendy Jones:Excellent. Well done. You sounds fascinating. birthday coming up for someone's birthday. And I think I might get lucky for that sort of thing we would like my very final question, because all interviews must come to an end. Where can my listeners find out more about you and your books?
Marisa Noelle:Anywhere I am everywhere you can get rid of me. So I have a website, which is Marisa norwell.com. You can find me on there. And you can read all my first chapters there. If you subscribe to the newsletter, you get the first three chapters, the shadowkeep is free. And every month I give away a free ebook. So that's fun. Christopher Atlanta's newsletter you'll be getting. The other justice also has its own website, the honour justice.com. And if you read that book, you could go to the website and it will there's a kind of quizzes that will tell you what character you're most like or what genetic ability you're most suited to. So that's quite fun. And then I'm all over social media. You Usually Marissa Noel 77 or Marisa? Well, 12 depending I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram. I'm on Tik Tok. You know, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook. I'm everywhere. It's the same picture I use for everything. So you'll you'll recognise me when you find me and to come say hi, because I'd love to chat. Yeah.
Wendy Jones:Excellent. Well, everybody should sign up to Maurices newsletter, they should go and look at her books, they've got to have to see the covers are fabulous. I know if you're listening to this on the podcast and not YouTube, you won't be able to see the covers that go to Amazon or go to Marissa and well.com. On recent oil.com, should I say? Be able to see the covers, and Marissa has been very patient with me getting her name wrong, but hey, you know,
Marisa Noelle:I've used to it, it's fine.
Wendy Jones:Thank you very much. Marisa it was an absolute pleasure having you.
Marisa Noelle:And thank you for having me. I've really I love talking to you and talking books, or talking to anyone about books.
Wendy Jones:Enjoy the rest of it.
Marisa Noelle:Thank you.
Wendy Jones:That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy H Jones. And you can find me at Wendy H jones.com. You can also find me on Patreon where you can support me for as little as $3 a month which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H Jones. I'm also Wendy H Jones on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing keep reading and keep learning