On Believing in Books: A Literary Agent's Honest Lesson About Passion vs. Publishing Reality4/15/2026
 As a new agent, one of my biggest mistakes was signing clients because I believed in them. Americans love an underdog success story, especially when their success is attributed to passion. We love to tell the legends of famous books that found their way to bookstore shelves through the author’s relentless determination in the face of rejection until they found a single devotee on the other side of the table. The Lord of the Rings, Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Help. For years, my insatiable passion for books fueled little more than my own spending habits. Becoming an agent gave me a thrill of empowerment. Finally, I was ready to put the force of my conviction behind authors who just needed a wind in their sails to overcome what their business plan lacked. Suddenly, I had the midas touch. I could pick a project that no one else on “team gatekeeper” understood and use my sales superpowers to remove the scales from their eyes. And then a terrible thing happened. It worked. A young woman came to us with a memoir about surviving a toxic childhood with her horse by her side. My boss and colleague passed on it for fair reasons, but I jumped on it because I believed in it. Everyone in the industry knows memoir isn’t selling well these days unless you’re a celebrity, so what I did was out of reckless passion for this story. That questionable decision led to… my first book sale. I will forever be sad that there wasn’t a hidden camera pointed at my desk to capture the world’s most awkward happy dance when that offer hit my inbox. Invigorated, I went out and signed a handful of other passion projects, convinced that I had an intuition for this stuff. Boy, the Tolkeins of today are sure lucky that I’m around. One by one, they failed to sell. Instead of being an elevator to the top, I was more like a human shield for the volley of rejection that landed on my clients. A few of them quit me. One of them took a hiatus to reconsider whether she wanted to continue writing at all. They didn’t look back on our year of working passionately side by side as a success, they saw it for what it was - a waste of time. And I was the one who put us through it, knowing it would likely end up this way.  How far would you go for your best friend? When her parents’ devastating divorce uprooted her life, Haylee Graham plunged into a downward spiral. Heartbroken and afraid, the young girl turned to her beloved horse, Cartier, as a lifeline. The only place she felt safe was hiding with him in his stall; the only time she felt like herself was when the two jumped fences together. So when a corrupt lawyer threatened to seize ownership of Cartier and sell him to a slaughterhouse to repay their debts, Haylee knew she would do anything to save him. Her mom said, "Take the horse and run!"—and she did. Their late-night escape set off a relentless pursuit with a shady private investigator terrorizing Haylee and Cartier every step of the way as they tried to outrun the forces that threatened to tear them apart. But God had other plans. Apparently, my passion does not carry a project any further than the author’s passion. An agent’s job is to balance the author’s passion with business sense, and I wasn’t doing my job. If you recall the full story of the Midas touch, King Midas soon realized that his golden touch brought him endless gold, but robbed him of food, drink, a soft pillow and a warm blanket. When his own daughter ran to embrace him and became a gold statue, he realized that gold was not his greatest joy after all. On the contrary, acquiring gold had cost him his greatest joy and his daily essentials for living. I meet a lot of authors in a year, and many of them are convinced that signing with an agent is what they want most. The announcement on social media that you’re represented by an agency, replying to emails with the line “I’ve CC’d my agent,” adding your agent’s email to your author website - all fun, sexy accessories to the author life. But slaving over a proposal and a manuscript that go nowhere wastes a lot of time, attention and emotional energy - things that are essential to living. The crushing disappointment of having a book “die on submission” has the potential to cost an author the joy of writing itself. As a writer myself, given the choice between a book deal or the love of writing, I would keep the love of writing. I still believe in authors, but I have learned to champion them differently depending on where they’re at in their journey and what they need most. Agents have more to offer than representation. We validate good writing, we make introductions between potential collaborators, we help authors make a plan to get where they want to go. In that sense, there’s no harm in talking to an agent. A 15 minute appointment at a conference is not a pass/fail audition, it’s an opportunity for mentorship. Most people aren’t ready for a book deal, but everyone needs encouragement and the best encouragers I’ve met in this business are agents.  Emma Fulenwider loves books and the wierdos who write them. A former magazine editor, indie publisher and TEDx speaker, she now has the honor of partnering with Writer’s Digest as an essay contest judge and WordServe Literary Group as an agent representing non-fiction authors. Emma likes working with thought leaders called to contribute their respectful insights into the problems we’re facing, and the ones we’re avoiding. She’s looking for adult nonfiction books that are funny, nerdy, helpful, and true. Her author’s memoir Take the Horse and Run releases in April. Check out Emma's MSWL here: https://manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/emma-fulenwider/ Submission Guidelines Submissions should be emailed to [email protected]  This post was complied by Brandy Vallance, a literary agent with Barbara Bova Literary Agency, an award-winning author, and a Story Consultant for Writing Day Workshops. Brandy is the winner of two national writing awards, one of which included a $20,000 prize. Her novel, THE COVERED DEEP, has been featured in USA Today & Writer’s Digest. WITHIN THE VEIL has been called “passionate and riveting” and Publisher’s Weekly encourages those who like sweeping Scottish sagas to dive in because “the journey is wonderful.” Brandy loves to mentor writers and help them break the chains of fear and self-doubt. You can find out more at brandyvallance.com.  Attend a Writers Conference in 2026:
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