Every January, right after the new year, my agent plans her Annual Strategy Session calls.
(Side note: I'm fairly certain she doesn't use a phone like this with which to call her clients, although that would be pretty cool. In fact, I used to collect real, old fashioned phones as a kid, and I had one just like this! My favorite game was to pretend that I was Mrs. Martin getting a frantic phone call from the local sheriff saying that Lassie rescued Timmy from a well.)
Anyway.
The Strategy Call is an awesome way of making sure agent and client are on the same page, so to speak.
Basically, the way it works is, Carrie schedules a week of available time slots and emails them to her clients, and we choose which one we want, and that's the time she'll call us for a half hour to discuss everything from life to work to everything in between.
Here's what we discussed during our call two weeks ago:
1. Random fun, catch-ups about life, of course.
2. A plan of action for my on sub book, AT FIRST BLUSH, and our determination to get it seen by the editor who will fall in love with it.
3. My new book. I gave her a time frame of spring I'd like to get it to her, and she answered some questions for me regarding how much romance needs to be "shown" for the market I'm writing in, which is young upmarket women's commercial fiction (basically, good old fashioned chick lit along the lines of the Shopaholic series.)
4. Getting together to meet! Believe it or not, she's been my agent unoffically for 2 yrs, offically for 1.5 years, and we haven't met! I'm rarely in the city but it's only a forty five minute trip for me, so I'm looking forward to setting a date to have lunch.
I know I say it a lot, but I really am lucky to have her in my corner. She's a wonderful, hard-working agent and an all-around fantastic person, and she makes navigating this crazy biz not only easier, but fun!
The call is invigorating and gets me amped up for the new year, new projects and hopefully some sales, and it clearly maps out our goals.
Do you get more excited to start new projects once the new year hits?? Or do you love it all year round?
xoxo Beth
11 comments:
Great summary of how it goes! I'm really glad Carrie does this. Not all my friends with agents have an agent that does a strategy session call like this. Have fun meeting up with her!
And I love the Shopaholic concept, sounds great!
This is a neat insight into the author/agent relationship that I bet a lot of writers would like to know about. I'm getting my fingers crossed you sell your book.
thanks! yup, her accessibility is seriously amazing. I know a lot of people who aren't happy at all once they get agented b/c the agent never has time for them or never gets back to them. We're lucky authors!
thanks, I'm hopeful this year!
How neat that you guys will get to meet! If it was me, I'd be buying an all new outfit, new nail polish, new shoes... And this is definitely a neat aspect of her agenting. I do get more excited at the beginning of the year to work on stuff. Probably why I timed to start revisions in Jan. It's all fresh and possible!
Same here, any excuse for a new outfit and nail polish!! :)
That's great that you get to meet and that you had such a great call!
thank you! :) yes I'm psyched to finally meet. gonna try and lock down a date maybe when it gets a teeny bit warmer lol
Wow, great insider info, Beth. Thanks for sharing!
yay, glad you liked it! :)
I'm glad you are planning to have lunch with your agent. Face to face is so much better than texts, emails, and phone calls for almost any of life's challenges. Great post. Thanks for the update.
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