Khushwant Singh had quite literally ‘written off’ literary agents in India as ‘pimps’. The new breed of literary agents reacted with indulgent humour towards the grand old man and with due respect. Yes, there are a few and they are all gradually working towards finding an identity somewhere in between all the ‘labels’ that are attached to them — safety blankets, gate keepers, literary ringmasters, blood suckers, agents of imagination and of course Andrew Wylie has long been known as the ‘jackal’. Of all these, ‘agents of imagination’ is the most appreciative and I would say, apt as well.

Literary agents in India were and are a realistic need. With the publishers receiving a barrage of manuscripts every day and not being able to find time to wade through the pile, we may have lost out on some exciting writing talent. If an agent with a good nose steps in, it is a significant help to both — the publisher and the author.

I heard someone remark very pragmatically that representing an author is a business and the reality is that the agent isn’t your mom and publishing isn’t really as much art or science as it is timing and professionally crafted material. The timing is right — for aspiring authors, for lit agents to link the two up. The estimated market for popular books in India is around Rs 1000 crore. The industry is growing at between 10 percent to 15 percent annually.

With these kind of figures, it is only practical that literary agents step in to play a significant role. For Indian writers, they can help sell overseas rights since publishers in the West don’t consider manuscripts that don’t come through agents. For now, even if the role agents play in the whole business of pitching, selling, arranging deals for authors, “it will take a long time before agents start wielding power like in the West,” said Thomas Abraham, managing director of Hatchette Publishing (India). True enough. David Godwin instantly comes to mind when we think of agents wielding power.

With each passing year, an agent will be an author’s eyes and ears in the publishing world in India. “Give it a decade or two, and you could see some sweeping changes. In order for literary agents to make a difference, you need two things to happen. Advances have to go up, and that won’t happen until print runs/ the number of readers expands. And we need local agents who can represent both the “big guns” in sub-continental literature as well as the world’s best writers.

“It’s still not easy for a local Indian literary agent to represent the really big authors,” said Nilanjana Roy, chief editor of Westland and Tranqebar Press. “We commission a lot of work, especially on the trade publishing list; and we’re very selective about literary fiction/ non-fiction. We have picked up a few good manuscripts from the “slush pile”, but I’d say we reject 90 percent of the unsolicited manuscripts that come to us. I like working with literary agents; even if we accept just one or two manuscripts from an agent, what they send us tends to be of far higher quality than what you’d get off the slush pile.”

Selling a good story

An agent can’t sell a story that the author would never be able to sell, they aren’t magic. Though he/she definitely has a lot more possibilities for pushing the envelope. If 90 percent of the books sold in the US come through agents, there is hope for us here as well. Agented manuscripts are appropriately positioned and require limited editorial work. They also put in their bit for the marketing and promotion of the book — they will be able to eventually mastermind an author’s entire career.

In this brave new world of media cross-pollination it is essential to keep the larger picture in mind and don lateral thinking caps all the time. But I start at the basic step — I ask myself, can I see this book in a store? That has to get attached with a tremendous marketing plan and it is important to have the editorial component tied up to the power of marketing. It is true that it can be tough to get a first book published but it is also true that agents and editors are always looking for the ‘next new voice’.

The agent steps in to grab the editor’s attention and fills in that need. It is not without reason why Karan Bajaj, author of Keep off the Grass had his book accepted within 15 days of submission and sold 5000 copies in the first week or so. Not without reason that Harper Collins has decided to publish Sampurna Chatterji’s second novel straight after the first is released this November.

So are we over-rating or underestimating their level of importance given the present state of the Indian publishing industry? “I think somewhere in the middle is the right answer. Literary agents will definitely become more important especially as everyone in India is writing now; and there has to be some level of filtration between the author and the publisher. From an author’s perspective, it is tremendously helpful to have an agent since a reputed agent helps draw attention to your manuscript immediately versus having to wait for ages to finally get a rejection letter from a publisher,” said Karan Bajaj.

“I’m not sure agents can be ‘kingmakers’! Though it would be great if they could. Given the current state of Indian publishing I think agents have a far greater role than aiming to be ‘kingmakers’, and that is — to be able to see original, distinctive, cutting-edge writing for what it is. Agents should do what editors normally fail to — namely, spot a good thing when they see it, and be willing, able and committed enough to put themselves behind such new work, and sell it with conviction, a conviction that has more to do with the intrinsic value of the work, rather than any cynical market-driven needs, and they have to be courageous to take on what editors may be too timid to at first read. An agent has to be precisely the meaning of that word — a driving force, a catalyst, a spur. Agents need not only be persuasive, but they need to have vision, and that vision has to include the promotion of better writing, writing that breaks rules, that sets the bar high, that refuses to conform to the clichéd expectations of Indian writing in English as it stands today,” added Sampurna Chatterji, author of Rupture.

Agents feel there is a huge potential for cross translations. Best selling authors like Namita Devidayal and Chetan Bhagat are also keenly moving towards getting their books out in different languages. There is a storehouse of literature in our languages that calls for cross-language marketing, and agents have work towards breaking through the mind set of publishers in Indian languages. “Most foreign publishers/ editors seem to be really interested in translations — the potentially massive market in languages other than English. Though publishers have been moving in this direction, we haven’t seen enough yet; an agent who could offer foreign publishers translation rights would do very well. It’s still not easy for an Indian agent to make a dent abroad, though. The competition among international literary agents/ agencies is fierce, and I haven’t yet seen an Indian agent who packs comparable clout. I would like to see this happen, though!” said Nilanjana Roy.

‘Get us noticed’

Most authors feel it would be wonderful if Indian agents did for writers based in India what international agents do for their compatriots based overseas. “Get us noticed, get us good book deals, get us some wonderful advances,” as Sampurna quips, but levity apart, it would be nice to reverse the trend, and have important Indian writers represented by their Indian agents rather than their international agents and to be respected at par. “Give it 10 years and a wider market, and I think it could happen. Even a new publishing house like Westland is inundated with manuscripts; given the amount of time we have to spend on editing commissioned work, it isn’t possible for most editors to keep up with the flow of unsolicited work. A good agent — and there are at least two or three — saves you a lot of time by sending the right manuscripts your way; many agents also polish the manuscript before they submit it, and will offer excellent suggestions on marketing and publicity. The agent’s role and influence at present may be limited, but I think it will grow,” added Nilanjana.

To think we will ever reach a stage where our publishers will take on only those manuscripts that are sent through literary agents may eventually happen, after many years of evolution! I’m not sure though that that is a utopian scenario, either. One thing that is wonderfully un-intimidating about the Indian publishing industry, and I speak from experience, is the extent to which publishers are open to talking to writers and seeing their work (even if they take ages to revert). This openness is more so in cases where the publisher has commissioned work by an author, has liked what they have got, and therefore is willing to take the relationship further. There is a sense of openness, which I think would be a shame to lose, and which fellow-writers in other countries find hard to believe exists!

However, once agents start gaining credibility for the talent and value of the writers they represent, it would be to the good of writers and publishers alike, in that it would speed things up, and take the burden of selling their own work off the writer so he/she can simply get on with the writing! Karan feels, “Yes, definitely, everyone in India is writing now — IIT grads, IIM grads, medical school folks, CEOs apart from the real authors of-course; and publishers are inundated with manuscripts. There has to be some filtration.”

There are needs and there are niches. The agents in India can play a steadily increasing role in the growing publishing industry but more thought also has to be given to the spaces still lying vacant in different genre writing. “We have just scratched the surface. I can’t name a single mystery/suspense novelist like Agatha Christie, Stephen King, Dean Kontz etc. in India or someone writing medical/law fiction like Robin Cook or John Grisham; even serious literary stuff about living in India is also rare except for diaspora writers writing about immigrant experiences catered predominantly to Western audiences. We need scale to make the industry financially lucrative which in turn will encourage more creativity/more genres/more full-time writers. IIT/IIM grads with full-time corporate jobs writing as a hobby aren’t necessarily the best people to fill this gap!” said Karan Bajaj.

“I think the plight of the industry lies in wanting to ‘fill a gap’ rather than ‘fulfil a vision’. Right now I feel the publishing industry is very reactive. Someone publishes a campus novel that does very well, everyone wants to publish a me-too campus novel. I think that’s a colossal failure of imagination. I think we should stop thinking of genres and how to plug them, and simply focus on great writing and how to create a climate which accepts that kind of writing with discernment,” said Sampurna.

So whether or not a literary agent will ever be a kingmaker in India is a point of discussion that will remain. What is more important is that we take stock of the strengths we need to build up on — there is a high output of quality writing generating from our country in all languages, including English, we are standing on prime ground for new literary discoveries and we should concentrate on constructing the larger picture — fulfil the vision!