I always seeing these pet peeve lists from agents who honestly think they’re perfect and beyond criticism let alone reproach. Oh yes, please d tell me how much you hate even your own clients and your job in general. Well, here’s my list of pet peeves regarding literary agent.

2. If I ask for extra work, I expect you to be making me (and yourself) more money. It sounds more like you are screwing yourself on that one.

3. If you do not think that my work is ready (or close) when presented – we have a whole series of problems to discuss.

4. I am never late. Again, if am late I am dead or dying and you should be worrying about other things.

5. & 6. – I do not send rude notes to my editor(s). In fact, I rarely talk by telephone, email, old-style mail, meet them directly, nor do I want to. What the f… am I paying you for?

7. While I am not opposed to ‘small publishers’, I am only interested in how much money that you can make me. (And it had best be a lot more than I could make doing it myself. I don’t pretend to be an agent.)

8. Expectations are getting more and more difficult to discuss. Publishing is more insane than ever and that’s a tough one for both of us.

9. I am unlikely to lie to you. It’s just not worth it. But don’t expect trust from me that hasn’t been earned with blood. I’m watching y’all also.

10. Productivity = $$$, and that cuts both ways. I’m a writer, businessman, and artist. Artist comes last (except for personal projects that ain’t going to make any money anyway).

11. My frustrations – If you think that you can sell something, don’t waste my time. I only care about results. If it turns out that you can’t sell it, or that offers aren’t worth taking, then I’ll go another way. That may mean trashing it, and it may mean taking it another way. You’ll get a fair chance, but don’t f… me.

While everyone is entitled to their opinions and their own ways of handling their jobs, I feel mutual respect goes along way. No one, even if their name is removed from things, wants to be slammed publicly for simply wanting to further what they would like to do.

Frustrations are a part of every job, how we deal with them is what sets us apart from others.

Agents are parasites, and I mean this in the nicest possible way. If we did not write you would not be an agent. Writing is creating something out of nothing, day after day. Writers are like painters, surgeons, and other highly specialized people. They have to work constantly, to the exclusion of many other things possibly including balancing their checkbook.

If I had a dime for every time someone in my day job says, “(Physicians) should be like everybody else, they should blah blah blah…” meaning “I go home and have my time free after my job and I will never kill someone at work, so everybody should be like me” I could quit my day job. When we hire someone new and they start that rant, I ask them how well they do surgery and they either eventually get it or they don’t. The ones who get it stay and do well. The ones who don’t get it leave.

Jane, you have a good reputation, so I assume you understand writers, and are just blowing off steam. However, I see this kind of rant all the time and would ask you to please stop contributing to the push -em-toward-mediocrity cultural trend. Our parents, friends, co-workers and random people off the street are doing just fine in that area.

To Jane’s readers, until you have had screaming nightmares for a week straight because you are working on a section of a manuscript that is psychologically difficult (and keep on working on it), just shut up about how you would never oversleep and miss a meeting. OK? It’s that kind of chatter that makes me want to move to Ireland, where professional artists don’t have to pay taxes.

Sure, we all have our bad days, but that kind of behavior is awful. To quote the great Dr. Henry Jones, Sr., “This is intolerable!”

I would hope that those authors fortunate enough to find representation would treat said representation with a bit more respect. Everyone should be afforded common professional courtesy.