How to Craft a Query Letter Agents Can’t Ignore with Sam Hiyate | Ep. 61

What makes a literary agent say “yes” to your book pitch in under 30 seconds? 

Allison Lane sits with Sam Hiyate, founder of The Rights Factory, to demystify how to write a compelling query letter, position your book in today’s market, and avoid the most common author mistakes. 

If you've been wondering how to land an agent or make your book proposal unskippable, this is your masterclass in reverse engineering your author marketing. Hit play now because the publishing game is changing, and this episode helps you change with it.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to tailor your query letter to grab an agent’s attention fast.
• The role of market positioning, comparables, and agent fit in getting published.
• What makes agents say no and how to avoid that response.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Rights Factory: https://www.therightsfactory.com/ 
• Connect with Sam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samhiyate/ 
• Research Tool: Publishers Marketplace https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/ 
• Book Recommendation:
  • How to Survive a Bear Attack - A Memoir by Claire Cameron: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9781039056350 
  • Detective Aunty - A Novel by Uzma Jalaluddin: https://bookshop.org/a/55773/9780063434875 

Timestamps:

• [02:00] What agents scan for in a pitch beyond the writing.
• [06:00] The real purpose of comparables in your proposal.
• [17:00] How to know if an agent relationship is the right fit.
• [26:00] Why your agent is not your marketing director.
• [44:00] The truth about manuscript quality before pitching.

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Transcript

Sam: 0:00

Nobody knows how good a book has to be in terms of the quality before you find an agent. Because even if we're willing to work with you, we want it to be 90% plus there. And what a lot of people don't understand is what is 90%?

Allison: 0:39

Today on the author's edge, we're pulling back the curtain on what agents actually look for and what gets your pitch shining from the slush pile. What gets your pitch noticed right away in a matter of seconds. Sam Hiyate is here, CEO, and founder of the Rights Factory based in New York City and Toronto. And has 16 agents who are eager for your pitch. So, if you've ever wondered what goes on inside the agents inbox, or how to craft a book proposal and a query letter that stands out, this episode is for you. Sam tells us exactly what he's looking for. The biggest mistakes authors make and why the market is changing and how you need to change with it. Let's get into it. The big question and my clients, I have a membership. I teach a course bestseller launch school. And then I have a monthly membership. It's$37 a month, it's nothing but people come and they get access to me twice a month. And I give them tools like I just talked to you about. And they have questions for you. And they're all about you know, very directly which is hilarious. I was like, what do you want me to say, exactly? So, here's the what they wanna know. Most pitches, we understand get deleted in 30 seconds because most of the pitches that get sent to you are not informed by the standards. We understand that remove 90% of what you get sent'cause I'm sure it's grandiose and not compelling. Of the 10% that are left, what do agents actually scan for and what makes you stop?

Sam: 2:48

That's gonna be different for every agent, and that's why it's worth doing your research. So, what I'm scanning for is why are you reaching out to me? One, is this something I'm actually looking for? Two, are there key words that really resonate with me? Does it feel like it's a funny story? Heartwarming, transformative? There are some things that work, especially for me I'm not so good with overcoming very difficult stories like people that talk about their years of drug addiction or alcohol addiction or whatever, and how tough that is. It's hard for me to even go in that place. I live in this kind of beautiful world of books and most of it, even when people do have adverse circumstances, I wanna feel like I can be there with them. And if it's something that goes beyond. A kind of level that I know or understand or resonates with me. I'm like, this isn't right for me. I know there are agents who have overcome alcoholism and addiction and other kinds of things like cancers and other health conditions. And there's a lot of stories around those and it's better to find somebody that will resonate with. So almost all health related stuff, mental illness. Even though, I feel like depression and anxiety and A-A-D-H-D and some neurodiversity are so common now that.

Allison: 4:07

Yeah.

Sam: 4:07

I can't really put that aside'cause that would leave nothing left if we go there. So, my biggest books are stories of relationships. Often there's a central relationship, the film club was a father and son Moore was about a husband and wife figuring something out. I've done a bunch of other ones. I'm pitching a bunch now, and that relationship is important, but it doesn't have to be about the relationship. It could be just about the journey. But again, I like it to be entertaining, funny, a little sad. I have to feel moved by it. And every agent is gonna respond differently to a pitch, and that's why you have to do your homework and try a bunch of them. I don't know if that answers the question, but I'm happy to go on.

Allison: 4:48

Well, I think what I'm asking you to do is first of all, anyone who wants to query Sam, yes, you should do that because.

Sam: 4:56

I'm one of the few people that has my email right, on the site. Yeah. I'm open to everybody.

Allison: 5:00

The cheese you definitely like cat's, pajamas you. If he's right for you, you should query him. What I find from people who you know, send me questions is how do I really find out what an agent is looking for in general? And also there's very little, there's not like a match.com for agents. There's manuscript wishlist, but manuscript wishlist will list things like, I'm looking for a memoir. Thank you. I'm looking for long walks on the beach as well. But like, how can the emerging author really understand what an agent is looking for? Because there's so little there. I tell them, look at their socials. But still.

Sam: 5:54

I don't have any socials. My personal socials are rebroadcasting my authors. So, I try to have a personal life so our agency is my social media outlet and the agency promotes all of our clients and all of our agents equally. So, that's not gonna work for me. I think you've given me an idea which is I need to put on my personal page on the website. A list of some of my biggest books and how you as somebody who doesn't know me, could use that to infer whether your book might be right for me or not. What it was about maybe my top 10 biggest books that captured my imagination that sold me, whether it was a good pitch or bad pitch. There was something about the story, there was something about the author that kind of got me in there and excited to work with them. And I think that's the part that I think it's hard for writers who are querying to understand is ultimately you're trying to get an agent very excited about the project and if the query is lackluster. If the proposal is lackluster. If their writing is lackluster, it's not gonna happen. It has to be the best you can do. And only then should you try to find somebody to say, Hey, I have this really special project. Basically, that's all a query is I have something really great. It's just a very distilled and beautifully condensed and efficient way of pitching your project and yourself. I think I mentioned in one of our talks, Allison, recently, that conferences are a great way for me to meet people because I get to meet them outside of the query and then they can pitch me and I can ask them questions. Some of these conferences are pretty crazy where you get five minutes to pitch an agent, but it's worth it because if I like it, I'll say there's something here that I think is interesting for me. Because it's interactive. When a query comes to me, it's just a one-sided communication. It's a pitch to me, and I get to say yes or no, or maybe. But if somebody's in front of me and we're talking, and if I like something about what they're saying and it's unclear, I can say do you mean this or that? Do you mean does this story go here? Is this really the kind of main central conflict in case they missed it? Or is this the main obstacle in the story that you have to overcome? Whether it's a memoir or a narrative story, or if it's some other kind of book, like a how to or self-help or advice. Then I wanna know how their expertise connects with the material. So there's always a bunch of things depending on the category and the person in front of me that I can ask that I can't ask in a query. And sometimes we don't wanna respond to a query by saying do you mean this or that? Because then we're gonna have somebody that gets all excited. This agent responded to me, and then it's a flurry of activity and I don't wanna give somebody a heart attack.

Allison: 8:33

Yeah, exactly. Because they're like, oh, I found the one. No, the agent that you're pitching doesn't have to become a believer in your five part method. They need to be excited that you know that this method is needed in the world, that there's proof of it. And that they're like, oh, thank heavens, I really like this but you are not trying to win them over as a student. Or don't you wanna learn more about 18th Century England or don't you wanna also read this book? As a super fan, it's the agent is salesperson who loves books. You, guys could be selling pharmaceuticals if you wanted. You have hearts of gold and our agents on earth because you are working in the book industry. So check one. That's why we love you. But also, if I were an agent, which I'm not, and for those people who keep sending me their manuscripts, please stop. Just send them to Sam. I would want people to realize, stop trying to persuade me that your perspective is the one I should have persuade me that your perspective is needed in the world and that there's proof of it that's different. And I wanna go back to something you said that surprised me too. You said that when someone sends you a query letter, which for those of you who are new to publishing a query letter is a pitch letter. It's like the cover letter of a resume, and it needs to be super juicy and worth reading. It is a distillation of your book. It's like the balsamic glaze. It's boiled down. It's concentrate. And also confusingly query is also a verb. So when you query an agent with your query letter, you see how stupid this is. You'd think that in publishing we could come up with something else.

Sam: 10:40

It is a little redundant.

Allison: 10:42

It's silly. But what you said is you wanna know why someone queried you. That's often the hardest part of querying because there's so little that someone could say other than because of what you put on your website, which is that's not even helpful to you. Because you said you like nonfiction. That's not helpful. Or they've gotta become a digital analyst. Go to publisher's Marketplace, put together your pattern of deals.

Sam: 11:19

It is like you're working for the FBI as an analyst and you're profiling somebody like this is a serial killer. We have to figure out what their process is motivation?

Allison: 11:29

And that's what I do one on one with my clients'cause they're like, I don't know how to do what I do.

Sam: 11:35

I'm not implying that agents are killers. I'm just saying it's the same kind of profiling work.

Allison: 11:39

It's the same as anything when you do a little background research on, even when you're applying for a job. Oh, I know that they're looking for this, or they seem to looking for authors who have this in common. But you have to make the leap because agents are too busy to update their entire website once a week or even once a month to say, this is what I'm looking for. And I've looked at hundreds of agent pages and none of them are truly helpful because they say things like, I'm looking for a sweeping family saga. Thank you. I also am looking for someone who's kind and funny. It's just not helpful. So, the author themselves has to take a leap, like a gut feeling. And actually say to the agent, I really like your advocacy for foster kids aging outta the system and because of that, I am querying you with my 62,000 word psychology book, which is this. At least that as the agent. I would be like, oh, okay, now I'm ready. Now I understand.

Sam: 13:01

They've looked me up. They found something personal about me.

Allison: 13:04

For you listening, that intro of Here's why I'm quering you, that was one sense. You get to the point, we do not need to know your life story in that first, that is an intro. And all you're doing is saying here's why. Now get ready. Now, Sam, what do you think is missing? You see a lot of pitches. What makes you instantly pay attention? What do you think is missing from most pitches.

Sam: 13:36

So assuming that they found a reason to query me over any other agent.

Allison: 13:42

Yeah.

Sam: 13:43

Whatever that is. It's usually based on my list, that there's something that resonated with them about one of the books that I sold. And so they've got that, they've got a good description later on of their story. But somewhere in between, i'd like to get some comparables. I'd like to know where this book fits in the market. And that's really hard because most people, it's not their job. Their job is to write a great book. Their job isn't to figure out where does my book fit into this big market of books, and it's a massive market. If you go on Amazon and started looking at all the categories and all the subcategories and which books are the best sellers? Like when I say the market, that's what I mean, the whole market. And I guess a way of limiting it that might be really useful is imagine now instead of Amazon, which is infinite. That you're walking into a local bookstore and there's all those sections and categories and there's the best sellers table and there's new this and new that. And what you wanna say is what the comparables is about is you telling me, saying, imagine if you went to this section in the bookstore. You found this book and then you walked over to another section, you found that book? My book is like those two books in those two sections together. Some of the themes and stories and characters, journeys and situations in, if you combine them, you'll get my book. And you never really should use one book because if it's already written, why are you comparing your book to just my book is that book exactly. I changed the name of the characters and change a few things. Nobody's gonna care. So you have to say, it's originally enough that I can't quantify it with one, one book. Or even better, I'm always saying use really recent things like television and movies so that we can get a sense of it. If it doesn't already exist, and often those things come from books anyway. So if you can use something about the actor or how. Something that caught your attention about the adaptation of it, use that because it's still based on a book, but why not make it more kind of snazzy, by talking about the actor.

Allison: 15:47

So, you're saying present it, not it's like this book that was published five years ago, but it's new.

Sam: 15:55

That would work for something like a book that maybe was published 30 or 40 years ago, especially if you had a twist on it. You could use that. This bestselling book, but with this twist on it. Then you explain the twist and why you're the best person, because you know that twist. You've lived that twist so what qualifies you to give us, to add that twist to it?

Allison: 16:13

And this is true for fiction as well, right?

Sam: 16:17

Absolutely. Fiction is much harder than nonfiction because nonfiction has data and once you've got the category and maybe the subcategory. If you find the right comparables, that's even more valuable than just figuring out where it's placed in the market. Because it gives you sales data. So, if you think that this book is gonna be like that book and looking at the samples, it really reads that way, then a publisher can be very optimistic because nonfiction has a direct positioning in the market. If you go back to when Christopher Little, who was JK Rowling's agent was trying to pitch the first Harry Potter book, a lot of people passed on it because they couldn't figure out the place in the market. So, at those meetings, they would've said it's like magic school for kids. Where does that fit in? How does that fit in? There is no magic school for kids. It didn't exist. So, in a way that was the challenge of that story until it found its way to a Bloomsbury, a guy called Barry Cunningham, who ended up buying it for very little money because he took a chance on it. And the comps are useful when you have strong comps. But in the case of somebody pitching, I don't know even know what the original pitch looked like, but I would love to be, go back in time and find the query letter that Christopher Little sent to Barry Cunningham with the manuscript for the first Harry Potter book. I wonder how he articulated it, but he probably might've said Magic school for kids. But more likely he said in the tradition of, the Hobbit or other fantasy, maybe even a little bit of like the lion, which the wardrobe.

Allison: 17:52

Oh, I didn't realize it's a very Cinderella story.

Sam: 17:57

Yeah. It is Because he's an orphan which is a very Disney trope. Like the Lion King. Their parents are always dead.

Allison: 18:02

Yeah,'cause how else can they become their own leader and champion? Oh, that's so interesting. Okay, here's a question from someone. What is possible in an agent relationship?

Sam: 18:19

Is a great question, but it's really open. Can you gimme more? Do they qualify at all?

Allison: 18:23

I can. So this came from somebody who had an agent and ended that relationship and now has another one. And it's just wondering what are the words I need to say or need to hear? And in order to discern is this agent right for me? Because every agent is essentially pitching a business relationship with an author. But authors I talk to are thinking I wanna work with this agent for the long haul. I want them to help me grow my career. And Sam, you are that kind of Asian, but not everybody is.

Sam: 19:03

I wish I could be that way for all my clients, but sometimes things happen. There may be three, or there's a handful of clients that I've had for maybe two decades, which is the span of my career.

Allison: 19:13

Holy crackers.

Sam: 19:14

But it's like in real life people come and go and the different things happen. Sometimes somebody wants to go in a direction where I don't feel I am their best agent, for example. It's just life people, same way that people get divorced, they change over time. Writers and agents change and their priorities and their values, and their preoccupations, what they think they can sell changes. And nobody wants a great agent who's your friend, who's no longer interested in the kind of stuff you're writing, right? So many of these things can happen. But I would say when you're starting out, and I think a lot, this is all over the internet, so it's not just me. If you do some homework saying, what is the first conversation with an agent like that is interested in representing you? Then, I think the two most important things, one is communication style. How are we gonna communicate? If you consider what dating is like, more people on first dates should probably talk about that. But it's different. You're texting, you're flirting, it's a different thing. There's more of an emotional thing there. But if you talked about it, it might avoid ghosting or strange behaviors later on. So with your agent, you should establish that. What is your preferred communication style? And are we gonna be compatible? What happens if you get worried or anxious or panic or whatever as an author? How is your agent gonna respond to that? How are you gonna communicate with them? So, I think that this is probably not a secret, even though I probably shouldn't be saying it in public. But there's probably five to 10% of my clients where they have my cell number and they can text me anytime. And they've slid from being a professional relationship to somebody that we're now on this journey together and we're committed and it's like we are friends. So, that's really special that's my favorite. It doesn't always happen. It can't happen to everybody because I can't be everybody's friend and their agent at the same time because it also adds some complications in there. But that is a very sweet spot, and that's when whenever there is a problem, you tend to resolve it right away because the idea of losing your friend and your client both is really hard. So the stakes are doubled. But for anybody else, if you aren't communicating regularly the agent relationship goes back to the normal styles of any relationship communication. Are you sharing your values? Are you talking about what your goals are? Are you in regular touch or has somebody just fallen off the map and is there a problem? And what if it's the agent, when somebody comes to me and they say, Sam, I have an agent, but they haven't talked to me in about a year. I'd say that you're probably already fired. What agent doesn't talk to their client in a year? There's something going on there, so you need to figure that one out. I think I said there were two things. So, one is that communication style and secondly, you need to have especially in the beginning and going forward, strategy. I always say an agent is like a business partner or a strategist for an artist. So, you are making art. You wanna find a place in the market for your work. An agent's job is to help you do that. We are the perfect intermediary between what the talent wants to create and what the market wants to buy. So, we will help you curate your work to make it more sellable and we'll help massage the pitch. If we can't get the work the way we want, maybe we can get the pitch right to get people to look at it. And often, if the book is difficult, then it's our job to work with you to make it less difficult, whatever that is to find a home for it. And part of that is if we don't understand what's happening in the market, we can't really help you. We need to know what I'm always in touch with editors. What are you looking for? And they're like, Sam, can you find me this? Can you find me that? And I love those kinds of mandates from editors because I'm like, okay, I know what that person wants. Let me find it. And I will often share stuff within the agency with all the agents saying, I talked to this editor looking for this. And somebody will say, oh my God, I have something that might really, so then we're always sharing information internally, which is another good sign of a good agency. This is not something you would know from your conversation with your agent, but you can ask. Which is, how does your agency differ from other agencies? Not just you as in terms of your style, but what is the culture like at your agency? How receptive and accessible and open is it, and what are its values?

Allison: 23:24

That's something that people don't talk about is the agency culture. Because an agency could function like Keller Williams, like every realtor has a home base, and that's where they keep the administrative staff, but they're really in competition with each other.

Sam: 23:44

Yeah we try to avoid that. I think one of my main goals is to have everybody collaboratively working rather than competitively working.

Allison: 23:52

Right. And that the difference and you can kind of sniff that out when the agency website says, if you don't hear from me in 12 weeks, go ahead and query someone else. That is a big sparkler that you need to pay attention to. That's saying we don't talk internally. And I'm not gonna share if it's not for me or if I just don't get to it. Which people find very rude. The querying group. just in what world do people just not respond like in this world. Because there are too many people pitching and you can't possibly.

Sam: 24:29

Well, in a way it's a very stark meritocracy. You give us a good pitch. That's exciting. We'll get back to you. We'll say, this sounds really good. We'll take a look. Send me the whole thing. If it's not, that means you failed to find the right person. It doesn't mean that you failed with your query. That's why the research is so important, like I say.

Allison: 24:45

So that is, that's a little tip. If you're looking for a collaborative culture, then look for those tips.

Sam: 24:54

And I wanna go back to research publishers. A publisher's marketplace does have a pass that's good for 24 or 48 hours, I can't remember. So you can pay 10 bucks, get your pass, do some digging on a few agents. And you should have all your questions written out so you can just use it during that window and then it expires. But then you've got your data.

Allison: 25:13

You can reverse engineer what you know you're paying attention and a lot of the agents that you're looking at are brokering deals with the same imprint. Maybe look at that imprint and see who else is pitching them, which other agents have relationship with that imprint because that widens your agent list. I give my clients a list of questions or topics that they need to listen for or ask agents like here are 40 things that you might need to listen for in that first conversation with an agent. Which might be an hour, and I know sometimes you, Sam, get to chit chat with people in person, which is I'm sure better. You gotta get your questions answered. But also the agent has to get their questions answered. So I like this list that I made, of course I do. But because it's a checklist, circle the topics that are important to you and make sure that you're listening for them. That way you won't at the end feel like, oh, I should have asked this, or I'm not sure where they're coming from.

Sam: 26:23

Oh, having a checklist. It's if you're trying to accomplish anything in a phone call. Like if I have a tough negotiation by phone or conversation, I usually have notes to make sure I don't miss anything. Because if you get emotionally involved at any point. It's easy to miss stuff. The way that the brain works is really it's a little unpredictable. So, having notes is just a simple thing to, to make.

Allison: 26:47

I mean, this is true for any relationship. Even when you're going to the doctor, they have seven minutes with you and they walk in and say, how are you? And you say, I'm good. And then you forget to tell them that your back is killing you because you already said you're good. And they're like, great, I'll put it in the computer and go with God. Bye. So you do have to be prepared. But wanna circle back to something you said. You said that with an agent, you have to have your marketing vision, and then the agent also has a vision. But I want to make sure that people understand your agent is not your marketing director. You are your marketing director. Your agent is not going to help you implement your marketing plan. They're going to say to you, what else are you doing? Because not booking you for speaking gigs. You are. They're not building your website. You are.

Sam: 27:48

We refer people to other speaking agencies because we don't wanna be that agency that tries to be everything. We wanna be good at doing one thing, which is finding great books and putting them into the market over and over. My people ask me why did I become an agent? And I always tell people, I studied English Lit and from the kind of books that I read that were considered part of the cannon, this would've been in the late eighties when I was in college. I didn't see any of the stories that I was interested in or what I wanted. So by the time I became a young publisher and then an agent, that's been one of my biggest things to bring new voices to the cannon. And I said this at a conference and somebody said later on, they're like, Sam, i'm so excited to talk to you. Apparently, you wanted to shoot writers out of a cannon, and I'm like, it's not that cannon, and I'm not shooting writers out of a cannon.

Allison: 28:36

Yeah.

Sam: 28:36

It's the cannon not the military device, but.

Allison: 28:40

Right.

Sam: 28:41

The canon of what makes literature, the body of work that we all study and we use it to prove that we're civilized. And that we're cultured and sophisticated and we have values that are human values rather than basically killing each other for stupid reasons. So, the way that history would show us if we looked at it closely.

Allison: 29:00

Yeah. Well, publishing is changing a lot now and as the.

Sam: 29:07

Oh yeah. Almost everybody's excited about underrepresented voices. It's just that it was something that I was doing from the very beginning, being somebody who is a bipoc person. So, I was always conscious of it. When I was early in my career, I remember meeting somebody for coffee and one of our other friends said, you should talk to Sam. I think you'd be a great writer. And I'm like, I'll meet anybody for coffee. I'm that kind of person. I'm just really open. And I'm trying to share those values with the agency now through our socials and through our branding and what the agency does. But I remember meeting this person for coffee and they were my ancestry is originally Indian a long time ago, but I grew up in the Caribbean and I moved to Canada. And in her case she was born in Canada, and her family was from India, but she'd never been there, but she's Indian. And so, we talked about it and I said, your stories are so good. You should really write something for me. And she was so funny. So, we ended up, she ended up, I gave her a challenge and I said, gimme something funny and I think I can sell it'cause there is nothing like this. And so, she gave me chapter or two and we had another meeting. And then I sold it and it came out in both Canada and the us. Riverhead published it in the US and McClellan Stewart in Canada, and it's called On the Outside Looking Indian. And it established this writer's sensibility and voice as a brown woman in the western world here. And she ended up being a writer on Schitt's Creek, which then became a really popular show, even though it was originally just Canadian. But of course it became international when it blew up on Netflix. And now she's in LA writing for a bunch of other things. Did I add something to the canon? I added a voice that I thought was interesting and I was successful in getting it into two North American publishers, and the book is out there, it still sells. I will help launch somebody's career because they had a job before that and now they're living a dream of being a writer full-time, which almost never happens. So, people ask me, why am I doing this? That's the kind of story that I wanna say times 20 or times 30 or times 40. I fail almost as many times as I succeed, which is unfortunate, but it shows you how difficult this thing that I'm doing is. There are a lot of agents who won't even talk about the canon or about underrepresented voices or about changing culture. What they're gonna talk about is making money, and they're gonna say, you need to have these boxes checked before you even talk to me. Otherwise I'm not interested. And we never wanna be that kind of an agency. But there are a lot of them like that. And if you're, if you like that style, then you get your homework done, get the boxes checked, and contact them. And you'll probably get representation because there's a good fit there. So, the fit is really important.

Allison: 31:39

Mm-hmm.

Sam: 31:40

Which I keep coming back to.

Allison: 31:42

In the same way, I have lived now as an adult in six or seven houses. And in three different states. Don't ask, it's a longer story. But in each city, I've lived in at least two houses. And I have a relationship with my realtor she's not my like life coach. She doesn't help me come and paint the kitchen. There are things she'll say, she'll come by and be like I can sell this, you need to fix the deck and the kitchen maybe go ahead and put in hardwoods. In the same way, I think agents can run the gamut. Maybe you have an agent who loves to work with you from the kernel of an idea. And then, there are the agents that are similar to like the realtors of selling on Sunset. Yeah, anybody can sell a newly renovated condo on Sunset, but that's a particular type. So, I think.

Sam: 32:45

It is a good comparison is literary agents or film and TV agents versus normal agents. Like recruiters, people that are helping you find work or real estate. The thing is, almost everybody wants to buy or sell a house you're looking at maybe even if they can't afford it, a hundred percent of the population would love to be able to buy or sell the house. Buying is a difficult part. You have enough money to do it, but once you start, then you are buying and selling because then now you're in the market. In terms of recruiting, it's a little more competitive. The companies have to be looking for your skills and your knowledge base before a recruiter will contact you. So, now it's a smaller part of the market. By the time you get to what we do in terms of books, there are only a couple of hundred literary agents in the world. We are more rare than brain surgeons, so we're talking about less than 1% of the population versus a hundred percent for the real estate agents. So, you can get a sense of what they're doing. But until you're in this world as a writer and having to engage and find an agent. One of the great disappointments that I have is how many people can't be bothered and they don't even try. They self publish their books, sells 300 copies, and then it's so sad because if only somebody known about it, they might have had another chance. So I would say, go ahead. Self-publish as a last resort. You've tried, you can make a case that you've really made an effort. But you know, it's sad when sometimes people come to me with a great story. And then I'm like, this is great. Who have you shown it to? And then, I'm interested in looking at it. They're like, oh, it's self published on Amazon. And I'm like, wah, wah, wah... it's like, well, what do I do? Like I can't explain to the publisher, that it's already had a shot at being published and it's got a cover and it's got an ISBN number and it already exists and it's being reviewed on good reads or whatever. But the corollary to that is, I must said caloric, but the corollary, the, Yeah. The kind of other side to that. Let's just put it that way.

Allison: 34:39

Yeah.

Sam: 34:40

The other side to that is if you're self-publish and it's part of a market segment in books and entertainment that's trending like romantic or horror, and people are excited about it. That means it's already selling and editors are looking now more and more. They're really drilling deep down into the market of self-published books when the books are selling. And then they'll come after you. And I've seen a number of deals recently where people will get seven figures for expanding their bestselling self-published ebook, and maybe audio and print on demand into a big five deal with one of the big publishers. And they're gonna bring out a series now and expand it to be a trilogy or quartet of books or whatever. So, And then of course there's probably interest from film and TV if it's trending because they're looking at what's hot too. Everybody's culture is an interesting game because you, if you're in with a zeitgeist, you're gonna get a lot of attention, and the moment that you're out, then everything stops. And then I tell my authors when the attention stops on their book, it's time to start the next one because there's no point being naval and feeling sad. What did I do wrong? It was never gonna last forever.

Allison: 35:53

What do authors need to know or do in order to land an agent considering that everything's changing?

Sam: 36:01

So, that's a big question and what I was trying to say the first time, is if you're writing fiction. You should write what's important to you because your conviction, your talent the stuff that preoccupies you as an artist is if you're writing literary fiction, that's really all you have. You shouldn't be concerned about the market. You should be concerned about writing a great book that is using the most of your talent. And there are a number of agents who are for example, connected to many of the MFA programs where people are working on their novels and testing their, the limits of their talent and pushing themselves to with their craft. And that stuff, I think literature by definition has to exist outside of the kind of zeitgeist or trending. The trending stuff is gonna be more commercial fiction or things in nonfiction that are booming. One of of the big things recently in terms of nonfiction, probably for the a decade now, has been self-help and self-improvement. You know, a number of publishers have created lifestyle imprints where, how do we live longer? How do we live better? We look at bestsellers like Peter Atias Outlive, which has been on the list since it came out. We have an aging population who doesn't wanna spend the last part of their lives in bed, unable to actually enjoy the fact that they're still alive. So, there's all this stuff about eating protein, strength training. There's all this stuff that's very trendy and there's a bunch of stuff because I think a lot of it works. And so, the question is people wanna know, how do I keep the quality of life longer? That's a very simple thing that any publisher or any kind of producer of media would say, people wanna do this. Let's figure out how to give it to them. If you're writing in that space, you're always gonna be of interest, especially if you have expertise and knowledge that nobody else has, and that's what Dr. Peter ATT did was he had a clinic and he did it. So that stuff is always gonna be there. I noticed that more and more people are bringing, this is also part of a trend for a while now. People are bringing neuroscience into behaviors so that we can, there's a whole bunch of the neuroscience of X or Y or whatever. It's hard for me to explain it across the broad spectrum of types of books you might be working on. But I do wanna highlight that nonfiction and fiction are very different in how you position them as a writer. And one of my areas of expertise is memoir, and I'm really good at looking at what we might be able to do with your story to make it more sellable. But outside of that, I really feel that if you are writing something in the literary side or even in fiction in general that isn't really commercial, but something that you have to write that could be really important to the world. When you look at you know, when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, she was trying to write a metaphor for how bad her life had gone so far by marrying a bully, you know, perceived as Shelly. And the idea of how I guess the monster is really just the monster in culture. It's just a monster that we all have to deal with and I think in some ways it's a female monster. But trying to find its way, a voice. And that kind of fiction, there's always gonna be room for that because it's people telling a very personal story, but using metaphor, using their talent to make it bigger, somehow make it universal without it being memoir.

Allison: 39:20

So, just to boil that down, you're saying that publishing is changing, but to connect with your core message or your core belief, put more trust in yourself.

Sam: 39:37

You have to, as an artist. Sometimes I use, I don't use the word writer because I think this is where all art is connected. Like whether you're a musician or a visual artist or a playwright or a novelist, it's about finding your voice and making a work of art that you want to ideally last. You Know that, but it has to come from somewhere within you. And a lot of what I think the training of artists is about is finding that voice and finding that unique thing that you bring to the world. It's funny'cause you could argue that for business too. If somebody wants to launch a usually they have to do the same kind of work that an artist would do to find what is their offering. What is gonna be the one thing that they're gonna give the world that nobody else could?

Allison: 40:18

Right. You have to really want. And I would say too, don't go into a cave and just write your book. If you have an expertise, don't save your best content for the book because you still have to show that there's a market for it. You have to be sharing it. And I think that people think, no, that's gonna go in the book, so I can't talk about it. You can talk about it, but it's not of a book yet.

Sam: 40:47

You should talk about it because that's a test to publishers. If you've talked about something and it's gone viral, they'll say well, let's do the book. And now's the time. You've just made a case for the market.

Allison: 40:55

Exactly. So don't wait. Don't save your best story for the essay that you think is gonna go in your memoir of essays. Maybe talk about it, make a video. It's really fine. You don't have to have perfect lighting. I am in a basement and this is a window that is lighting me. I just happen to have my desk faced toward a window. This is nothing fancy. I don't even have a ring light right now. Sam, different question pivot. What is a book you're loving right now?

Sam: 41:32

You mean a client book or in the market?

Allison: 41:35

I'm saying a book recommendation that I could link to give people what's in your reading stack. And it can be a client book or not a client book.

Sam: 41:46

Let me find something that there's a couple. This is an interesting book. It's called How to Survive a Bear Attack. Claire Cameron, and she's a Canadian writer. This is published in the US and Canada, which is something that I always admire when a Canadian can cross the border. It may be more difficult now than ever, but for culture it's still fairly easy. And if you have a great story, I'm enjoying it. And Claire Cameron is a brilliant writer. We're lucky in Canada that so many writers are. They've trained and they've focused on the poetry, the kind of beautiful language. And then they've learned how to tell a story on top of that. That's the same for people like Margaret Atwood and Michael and Dace, who started off as poets. And then it's part of the whole Canadian tradition, Leonard Cohen, so all the Canadians start before they started writing novels. And anyway, so I'm really enjoying it. On the commercial side, this is a book also published in both Canada and the us, another Canadian writer, and it's called Detective Aunty. So in the Indian culture you call everybody who's a older woman, an auntie. And it's usma, usma Jin. So I'm enjoying that for, that's just fun. Cozy mystery with a lot of Indian stuff. And if you like chai and you like Indian sweets, it's all there.

Allison: 43:03

Get it and we'll have those links in the show notes to bookshop.org.

Sam: 43:08

They're both published in both Canada and the us. So that's always exciting to me when somebody, I'm looking at it because I do represent a fair number of Canadian writers. I can't get them all in the us, but I try. And i'm representing more and more over time American writers that just come to me and they're like, I love your stuff. Can I work with you? And the borders are irrelevant.

Allison: 43:28

Your agency is US and Canada, so you.

Sam: 43:32

Yeah. And we just hired an American agent, Matt Belford from, he left another agency in New York called New Leaf, and he's a great new agent for us. It's always a mix at our agency, the rights factory, of having people that have come in and trained as assistants that we bring up and give them a chance to be agents and mentor them. And then we have people like Matt that come in with over a decade of experience. So, I'm excited to see, he's already brought some clients and we're doing,

Allison: 43:58

Wow.

Sam: 43:58

He is doing deals already, so it's exciting.

Allison: 44:00

That's really cool. What is something you want readers and authors to know that if you could take someone by the shoulders and just be like, do this? What's something that people should do today that if you could take a writer aside and just whisper to them. Like, know this one thing, do this one thing. That they can, you know, other than you can do it. We understand that, people want your special sauce.

Sam: 44:34

I think the one advice I can give is that almost nobody knows how good a book has to be in terms of the quality before you find an agent. Because even if we're willing to work with you, we want it to be 90% plus there. And what a lot of people don't understand is what is 90%? So there's a lot of crap, like millions of self-published books that are just crap. Nobody's ever gonna care about them. People halfheartedly wrote something, they couldn't get any interest. They put it up. That's probably good for them. There's also a number of books that never, were gonna have a big market anyway. It's probably best that they self-published. But outside of that, if you are passionate about your book and you think it's important and you think it's a great story for whatever reasons, and you should have some justification for that. You can't be delusional. So you should have either you're in a writing community or a series of writing workshops, it doesn't even have to be an MFA in creative writing, but that helps. It could just be some writing courses or you have a mentor or you have an editor that's working with you who has tested their work against the market and can encourage you. And I tell people it takes a village to write a book and it takes a bigger village to publish a book. But in terms of the writing you need to have beta readers. You need to have. Your friends around you and you need to test it with them. There is a great quote that I read recently by Miranda July in writing all fours, and she said that she knew exactly what she wanted the book to be, so it's not like it randomly became this book about sex after menopause. She and one of her friends would meet once a week and talk about exactly what she was doing. She had a strategy, she was thinking about the book in the market. And she wanted it to be successful from the ground up. Planned it that way. So sometimes if you have, but you you can't do that in your head. You need to have people around you that believe in what you're doing and that reinforce you and maybe sometimes criticize you and say, I think that's wrong. If you look this up, I'm sure there was an interview somewhere online where she talked about how much strategy there was, and that's something that is really rare. I guess what I'm trying to say is she was an experienced writer and she put the strategy in, even if you're brand new, you need to know that your book is good enough that if you share it. People are gonna look at it and say, this is actually really good, I'm interested in working with you because I think I can show this to some publishers. When you're reaching an agent, that's the number one thing that you have to ask yourself. Is this gonna be good enough for the agent to wanna share it to their friends at Penguin Random House or Harper Collins or Simon and Schuster? So that's basically what it is. Even if there's potential there, they might say, you came close, I'm really sorry, but are we gonna have to a few hours out of our day to write you a critique? No. So, usually people criticize agents for saying, sorry, this isn't right for me. We don't have time to give you any more than that. That's the best we can do. That's if you get an answer.

Allison: 47:24

Right. If you get an answer. I think the value of getting input from a trusted source, not from your sister. She's not a writer, she's not gonna be able to help you. But get input and sometimes you have to just you're mulling in your head and you've gotta make a decision A or B, does the plot go this way or that way? Or do the chapters get structured this way or that way? If you have someone coming along with you, even if you're in a community, you can get a quick input and then go, oh, okay. They understand what I'm doing, so I trust that they said, go with the you know, thread A.

Sam: 48:04

Even if you're not in a writing workshop or whatever, a critique group is really valuable. Because one, writing is very isolating. You're lonely. You can't write and have conversations with other people at the same time you're alone. So, it gives you a community, which is really important. Two, it gives you discipline because you promised a deadline to the group and now you gotta deliver. So, now, even if you're a little hungover, you gotta deliver the chapter that you promised. And third, it gives you feedback by people that are qualified. Like you said, your sister might not be the best person to help, even though they might be really encouraging. So, you want those three things, and every writing critique group will give that to you. And the fourth thing that I tell people is try to belong to a critique group where everybody's a better writer than you. But they love you anyway. Because then you're really gonna push your work, you're gonna get a lot out of it. And then hopefully you're gonna give them something back too.

Allison: 48:55

That's perfect. Thank you Sam, so much. And tell everyone where they can find you and.

Sam: 49:01

The company is the Rights Factory. So, it's therightsfactory.com, all one word. And I do have some socials. I never use them, but so go to the agency. I would say if you are curious about what we're doing, add our Instagram, which is at the Rights factory. Then you can see we try to post something daily about new books that are out press for our books, things that are happening to our authors, shortlists and awards, which is something that's happening more and more, which is we're very grateful for. And new agents and what they're looking for. We're constantly, or where we're gonna be. I was at the San Miguel conference earlier this year and I, and people saw that and I, we posted I was gonna be in Mexico, which I loved. Follow us and see what we're doing and if something resonates with you, you might say, oh, these guys might be good for us for something.

Allison: 49:43

And it offer a dozen agents, it's a big agency.

Sam: 49:47

Yeah. We're growing. There's 16 agents now. Yeah.

Allison: 49:50

Yeah, that's quite a lot. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your patience and your guidance with me and with everyone listening who wants their book to be in the world and be a success. It matters what you do and we all appreciate you.

Sam: 50:11

Thanks, Allison. You know, one of the lines I learned early in my career is a professional writer is an amateur who never gave up.

Allison: 50:18

That is a mic drop moment. Boom, people, I can't think of any better way to sign off. If you like and appreciate this episode and especially Sam Hyatt and genius, please stop and. Share a review. Just scroll down in your phone, click the five stars. And if you think is this a four star? If four star, email me. Listen the algorithm enjoys the five stars. If there's something that you feel like is missing, email me and I will deliver it. In the meantime, give us a review and share this with someone who needs it because you are the writers, and the people who should be writers and the authors who are already out there and they want their books to continue. They all need support. We are in it together. There are no competitors. There's only teamwork. There are only peers and who's gonna help but other authors. I will see you next week.

Sam: 51:28

Thanks so much, Allison, for having me on. Appreciate it.