![\"agent](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/files\/2014\/06\/IMG_20140604_180756015_HDR-2.jpg\")
<\/a>agent & client: David Miller, David Flusfeder and some familiar CW faces<\/p><\/div>\n
David Miller has been an agent for half of his life. He schooled in Canterbury, studied theology at university and \u2018hadn\u2019t a clue\u2019 what to do next.\u00a0 Then he was tipped off \u2018by the woman who was the object of my desires\u2019 about an agent who represented \u2018everyone I had ever told her to read\u2019. The agent needed an assistant. Miller sent in his CV, and after three months of silence he phoned to ask if there was a still a post. There wasn\u2019t, but he got an interview anyway, and started soon after as a receptionist at the agency where he still works, Rogers, Coleridge & White. \u2018I was a smug twenty-three year old. I didn\u2019t know anything, but I stuck around and now represent the authors I\u2019m proud to have on my client list.\u2019 It\u2019s a list which includes Kent tutors Flusfeder, Scarlett Thomas and Abdulrazak Gurnah. So how do aspiring writers get on it, and what would someone like Miller do for them anyway?<\/p>\n
Miller described the literary agent as \u2018the ghost in the machine\u2019, a shadowy role that encompasses counselling, representation, being a middle man, handling money, nursing bruises, industrial espionage, match-making and \u2018acting as a Jiminy Cricket\u2019. By way of explanation, Miller read an extract from the work of one client, Keith Ridgway, featuring a down-at-heel writer lunching with his exuberant agent. The writer, while determined to retain his integrity, is penniless, recently dumped and really just wants to get drunk. The agent, whose significant pauses are intended to suggest import but actually signify confusion, bemoans those publishers who only pay for inconsequential trash, and suggests that the writer gets a job to keep him afloat. Could he teach Creative Writing, perhaps? The writer is horrified. The agent smoothes him down.<\/p>\n
Miller batted away applause for his reading. \u2018Save it for Keith. Buy his book!\u2019 When asked if this story was typical of the agent-writer relationship, Miller claimed that his relationships with authors are \u2018singular\u2019, atypical, and that the whole business is \u2018disgustingly promiscuous\u2019. Does every writer need an agent? \u2018I have never said that a writer has to have an agent. So why do they?\u2019 Miller puts it down to the amount of legal bureaucracy thrown at them by publishers. \u2018A writer wants to go off and write. Some might want to run their own business, in which case they don\u2019t need me to do it for them.\u2019 An agent\u2019s job, Miller said, is to ensure that a writer reaches \u2018the audience they deserve\u2019, but he baulks at the sense of entitlement that some writers convey. His own experience as a novelist made him realise that \u2018a lot of people whine\u2019, something he has no time for.\u00a0 \u2018When I took on the writer Magnus Mills, he drove a bus. He\u2019s written nine books and he still drives a bus. He doesn\u2019t feel entitled.\u2019 By staying in the world of work, Mills is also well placed to gather inspiration for his writing. Miller admires those writers who have \u2018lived a bit first\u2019 and started their careers later in life, such as Penelope Lively and Anita Brookner: writers who embrace the \u2018slow build\u2019 of a reputation, rather than chasing the money and \u2018going for advances\u2019.<\/p>\n
Miller conceded that publishers take fewer risks these days. \u2018There was more originality and risk-taking twenty years ago\u2019, when publishers were willing to create a readership for new authors. \u2018It\u2019s no surprise that people who have won prizes lately have been with smaller publishers, where there\u2019s more \u2018room\u2019 for them.\u2019 But publishers have to make their money too. \u2018A publisher isn\u2019t a charity.\u2019 As far as Miller is concerned, part of the problem is that books are just too cheap. We\u2019ve lost respect for them. \u00a0\u2018You don\u2019t think twice about spending \u00a310 on a Pizza Express pizza, where the ingredients probably cost 60p. But you if you go into a bookshop and what you want isn\u2019t in the Buy One Get One Free you think you\u2019ve been diddled. Why do we think the price isn\u2019t worth the value?\u2019 While Miller feels that some of the blame for this rests with the publishers and their price wars, and the stranglehold of a few retailers, it is also our fault for \u2018not valuing our literary culture\u2019.<\/p>\n
Much of what Miller had to say about selecting writers chimed with Lee Brackstone\u2019s talk the week before. \u2018Write a good book. Be careful about it, think about it and mean it.\u2019 Miller won\u2019t accept a partial manuscript, although other agents may. He doesn\u2019t need any more clients, so if he takes one on, he knows it\u2019s because he really wants them. Don\u2019t send him your manuscript just because he has published something similar before (\u2018why would I want it if I\u2019ve already got one?\u2019). He promotes what interests him, which is why his list is \u2018all over the place\u2019.<\/p>\n