Interview with an Agent: Faye Bender

Faye and I talk queries, how book buying has changed, and remind ourselves that publishing cycles through crises and then cycles out of them again.

Hello everyone,

This week’s installment of The Plot Doctor involves another agent interview, this time with Faye Bender. Faye is one of the founding partners of The Book Group, and she represents some of my favorite authors—and surely yours too if you look at her list—including a very good friend of mine, Rebecca Stead, who connected us for this interview. (Rebecca is the author of some of the best Middle Grade around, including WHEN YOU REACH ME, which won the Newbery Medal, in 2010.)

One of the biggest questions I get from writer clients and MFA students and aspiring writers in general has to do with agents—how to get one, what they’re looking for, how agents sort through queries. My goal on The Plot Doctor is to demystify the “getting an agent” process and the agents themselves (they are only human after all, and very nice humans at that!), plus give aspiring writers the information they need to successfully get an agent once they reach the point of querying.

I invite you to join in on my wonderful conversation with Faye by either watching the video of our zoom, or downloading the audio for your next run or walk or night of cooking (I do love to listen to podcasts while I’m cooking). Among other things, Faye and I talked about how she became an agent, how *not* to query and the common mistakes people make, plus what’s going on with publishing right now (is the crisis as bad as people say?), celebrity book clubs, and so many other things. Enjoy!