Alexandra Penfold - Real Talk About Maximizing Your Agent Relationship

 Alexandra Penfold is an agent at Upstart Crow Literary AND author of NYT best-selling picture books. She was ALSO an editor with a marketing/publicity background at Simon & Schuster, AND she STILL always knows where to go for the best baked goods in literally any city she is in.

Alex wants us to know that getting an agent is not the end of your professional journey, it is only the beginning. Alex thinks that once you have an agent, you should be prepared to work even harder.

She shares a great slide showing how most of us envision what our publishing life will look like after we garner representation on the left, but what the reality really looks and feels like on the right:

Alex is full of great quotes:

“Publishing time is an alternate reality of time and we can let that break us or MAKE US STRONGER.”

“Always have an in-progress project to turn to when you are on submission, don’t wait to hear back on that first project, publishing takes a long time.”

“Even with an agent, you still need to balance your non-writing work (email/social media promo/social media socialness) with your writing work.”

My favorite is probably:

“To be READY for publishing, you need to understand and recognize the limitations of external validation.” “You will always want more stickers. Instead think about the reader, write the next book.”