special section ▪ LITERARY AGENTS61 POETS & WRITERS^I just want to tell this per-
son how much I’m dying
to work with them,’ which
is also good for a writer to
hea r.”
In Rachel’s case the re-
sponses were similarly var-
ied, so it was important for
her to get a sense of where
each editor stood before the
auction began. As a result
of one of the phone calls, an
excited editor made a pre-
emptive offer. “With all of
the interest, we didn’t take
it,” Marya says. “It was a
really nice preempt from
an amazing editor and
house, but I wanted Ra-
chel to know where some
of these other houses and
editors were coming from.”
Instead Sarah Bowlin, a se-
nior editor at Henry Holt,
won the auction and the
rights to publish Goodbye,
Vitamin.
Fantastic news, but then
what? I’ve always been cu-
rious about the moments,
days, and weeks following
such a momentous decision.
Here’s a debut novelist whose life has
just been changed by a series of e-mails
and phone calls on the other side of the
country. What’s the next step?
“The next step is getting on an e-
mail chain together, and there’s lots
of exclamation points,” Marya says. “I
think it’s really important to celebrate.
This is a moment where everything
has gone right. Cherish that.” This is
solid advice. But an agent doesn’t just
raise a glass, then hand over the keys
and wish the writer well. There are
a number of things that require her
attention: The finer points of the con-
tract need to be settled—the formats
and markets in which the book will
be published, subsidiary rights, pay-
ment schedule, due dates, options, and
so on—and the publisher’s contracts
department likely needs a little nudg-
ing. And then there’s getting everyone
together—the author, the editor, the
publicity and marketing team—so
they can draw up a game plan for
publication.
Still, on some level there is a
handoff that happens naturally after
the author and editor have been in-
troduced. “I like to be looped in on
everything, but I also want writers to
have direct relationships with their
editors,” Marya says. “As much as I
would love to be a part of every step of
the editorial process, I just can’t be, so
they need to get comfortable as soon
as possible. I think of it sometimes
like a relay race. Up until that point,
for months or maybe years I’ve been
working with my writer on a super-
familiar basis; now the ball is more in
the editor’s court, and they might step
into that role of editorial and creative
collaboration.”But then sometimes, as
was the case with Rachel,
the unexpected happens:
Sarah Bowlin left Holt. As
a matter of fact, she left
editing altogether: She
moved to Los Angeles and
is now an agent at Aevitas
Creative Management.
“So then the book was re-
assigned to Barbara Jones,
who is wonderful,” Marya
says. “I could think of no
better editor to take up the
mantle than her. She had
said that she was the first
person to raise her hand
to take it on because she
read it and cried during
submission.”
Marya calls the depar-
ture of an editor mid-
process “very disruptive,”
but in this case it didn’t
spell disaster. The pub-
lisher was already fully
behind the book, and it
had already been edited,
but there were still many
things to be done before
publication, including fi-
nalizing the cover. Marya
stayed on top of the situation. “I think
authors need to hear, ‘Don’t worry,
I’m on top of them. I’ll make sure that
these balls don’t get dropped.’”
Agents, of course, are good at jug-
gling, and after Goodbye, Vitamin was
published in July 2017, it was named
a best book of the year by nearly a
dozen major publications, including
O, the Oprah Magazine; Vog ue; Esquire;
Entertainment Weekly; and BuzzFeed.
It went on to win a 2017 California
Book Award and was a finalist for
the Art Seidenbaum Award for First
Fiction.
I ask Marya if she has any advice for
authors in the middle of the publish-
ing process, who may be juggling a
bit of anxiety themselves. “Recognize
that there will always be surprises
along the way,” she says, “and know
that we’re on your team.”Marya Spence of Janklow & Nesbit Associates.