Young Writers Society

Does anyone have any idea, whether it is acceptable to work at the same time with several literary agents - to handle different genres, under different pen-names, or, whether the market reacts punitively if one is published under one name by a variety of publishers?

I've yet to see whether I'm one of those 'write a book in a week' people like Moorcock and Cartland, but maybe in the future I'll have my explosions of writing at similar speed. And I've read of various authors having to use pen-names when publishing more the two books under their names... While other publish up to eight and ten books and more, wthout problems... Also a question of genres probably.

And so, this is my confused question, if anyone can help, ahem, Karsten, if anyone can help, I'd quite glad.

One agent per writer.

A standard agency contract stipulates that the agent is the only person who represents your work. They may contract out sales of subsidiary and foreign rights to their own people, eg. your US-based agent might have a UK sub rights agent who will sell your UK rights on your agent's behalf.

A rare exception is when your agent can't or won't handle all of your work. Say you primarily write thrillers and your agent sells them, but you're desperate to write romances on the side and your agent doesn't represent them. In this scenario, with your primary agent's consent, you might get another agent to represent your romances.

Pen names are useful if you don't want your real name on a book and/or for writing in different genres and/or starting over if your career tanks. There's no rule about how many books you can publish under any one name. If you write children's books, you may not want your graphic BDSM erotic romance published under the same name, so you get a pen name. Your agent still handles all your work.

Hope this helps.

Excellent and to the point reply. Thanx Karsten

You're welcome. Further reading:

Agent Nathan Bransford on pen names.

Agent Jennifer Jackson on multiple agents, genres and pen names.

Karsten,
thanx for the links, I checked them out,and they answered any residual questions and 'yes buts' which I had. The more you go into a field, the more details jump out, the more difficult it gets. I hate this inverse logic