house? Who is your dream agent? Those are two questions an aspiring author gets asked all the time. They were asked of me. Once by my agent, constantly by everyone else. My response to my agent was to the point. I don’t have a dream house, I have a dream deal. The simple truth is that no two authors have the same experience at the same house so wishing for a house doesn’t make much sense to me, but wishing for a scenario surrounding the purchase of a manuscript, that did. In my view, my first contracts were my foundation for the rest of my career. I wanted them strong and in accordance with how I saw my career going. Before deciding on a dream house, I always support understanding what’s important to you as an author before progressing to decisions.

Agents- I’m always so surprised by aspiring authors who fixate on an agent without having ever spoken to them. It’s all well and good that they’ve made ex deal for ex author, but that doesn’t correlate that they’ll be able to do the same for another’s manuscript. They’re not miracle workers or magicians. There’s a lot of variables that surround a manuscripts arrival on the market. There’s a lot of variables that surround an author/agent relationship. IMO, it’s best to explore them and discuss aspirations and concepts of a working relationship before mentally committing to an agency, because you are forming a relationship.