Q: What can writers do to make agents’ lives easier?

Saturday afternoon I had the pleasure of co-hosting the BookCampTO ‘Agenting Today’ session at Ryerson University with my esteemed colleagues Sam Hiyate, The Rights Factory, and Chris Bucci, Anne McDermid & Associates. We fielded great questions from writers and industry professionals alike. Didn’t make it to BookCamp? Want to know what we discussed? Here’s one question that generated a lot of conversation:

What can writers do to make agents’ lives easier?

Here are 10 answers from the BookCamp session and debriefing afterwards:

1. Don’t announce deals until they’re public knowledge.
2. The agent and author relationship is a mutually beneficial relationship. Be honest with yourself and your agent if feelings ever change.
3. If you are a writer wanting to be ‘found’ make sure you have clear and up-to-date contact information on your website, blog or Twitter bio.
4. Listen to us when we give advice about social media, author brands and platforms. We really want the best for you and we understand the industry standards.
5. Have managed expectations. Know what’s going on in your genre and the industry so you know what to expect. If you are a debut learn what you can online and from your agent to make your editor’s life easy too.
6. Don’t bad mouth your editor, your agent, or your co-author on your public platform.
7. Read Poets & Writers.
8. Don’t call us everyday.
9. Keep us involved with things you do outside the projects we work on together. Submit to a literary journal? Let us know!
10. And above all: Write a good book.

Thanks to our great audience at BookCamp and the organizers, CanBPA, for putting on a great event. For more topics and tweets that you may have missed checked out #bcto11.