An unfortunate controversy erupted on social media over the weekend when a literary agent, Hilary Harwell, tweeted that she wanted to see a novel similar to a query she just rejected:
This appalled Book Twitter/Threads to no end, with many accusing her of stealing the original author’s idea. Harwell was subsequently let go from KT Literary (at least I think she was, she wasn’t named directly in that post).
Perhaps because I used to be a literary agent myself, I find myself pretty out of step with many of the hot takes circulating on social media, particularly with the anxiety writers feel about their ideas being stolen.
Here’s what I think this incident says about the process writ large.
Authors deserve confidentiality
For me, the most egregious error in judgment here was posting publicly about a submission. Agents just shouldn’t be tweeting about their submissions or dealings with clients and publishers except in the most anonymized way, where no party involved can recognize themselves.
The relationship between agents and querying authors is a bit of a strange one. An agent has no obligation to an author who isn’t their client, which querying authors know all too well when they’re dealing with “no response means no” policies.
But I agree with author Moniza Hussain here. Confidentiality is the bare minimum authors should be able to expect from an agent they’re querying. Authors should certainly be able to trust that they can submit to agents without being put on blast on social media, which can make an already-fraught submission process all the more demoralizing.
While sure, again, agents don’t owe aspiring authors anything, I still wish they’d treat it more like a holistic community and ecosystem that needs more careful cultivation. And even the appearance of idea stealing erodes trust in the process.
All that said…
Book ideas aren’t sacred
As both an author myself and a former literary agent, I just can’t bring myself to believe even the most high concept book idea is sacred.
As Victoria Strauss points out, book ideas are not copyrightable. You can give the exact same idea to two different authors and they’re going to produce wildly different novels.
No matter how original and never-done-before you think your book idea is, I can guarantee you there is someone out there writing something in a similar vein. And that’s okay! It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.
Similar books come out all the time. Movies too! In the late 90’s, there were two separate movies about Steve Prefontaine of all people!! It happens with inventions, it happens in science.
What matters is execution.
Don’t get all hung up on your idea being the thing that’s going to sell your book, and, accordingly, don’t turn into a paranoiac about your idea being stolen. The best idea in the world is not going to sell if you don’t write it in an engaging way.
Just focus on writing something that can only be yours.
One near miss doesn’t doom a book
Harwell didn’t think this particular author had the comps she wanted, and she didn’t like the opening. Okay! That’s one opinion. It doesn’t mean the author is somehow doomed or that their novel now has no chance of selling.
Near misses are extremely frustrating when you’re going through the submission process. I’ve been there. They happen. It just means that this project was not right for this particular agent, even if she liked the overall concept.
That’s it. That’s all it means.
There are no crystal balls in this business, and even top agents aren’t 100% sure something will sell. Personal fit is extremely important. Agents pass on good projects all the time simply because they don’t believe that they’d be the right advocate for them.
If I were the author in question here, I’d be extremely frustrated. Then I’d dust myself off and keep going.
Overly specific manuscript wish lists need to go
And, in the end, this whole episode speaks to one of my biggest pet peeves in the publishing world: agents with overly specific manuscript wishlists.
How can an agent possibly know something will work based on a high concept pitch alone, when so much depends on the execution? I honestly cannot count the number of authors I’ve heard from who wrote something eerily similar to something on an agent’s manuscript wishlist, only for the agent to reject them anyway.
Worse, I think very specific manuscript wishlists are actually a big factor in the intense social media firestorm that resulted from Harwell’s tweets. These overly precise wishlists give aspiring authors a mistaken notion of how the submission and acquisition process actually works.
Some agents make it seem like the surest ticket to publication is to write a very specific concept according to their exact specifications, send it to them, and they’ll take care of the rest. And that’s just not the case!
Sure, comp titles and high concept plots can play a role in the process. But what’s most important are the characters, the richness of the setting, the prose, a particular author’s singular vision. Again, it’s the execution. It’s the craft, it’s the writing.
I’m sure there are a few success stories where the stars aligned, but that’s just serendipity, it’s not the way the process generally works.
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Art: The invention of compass by Anonymous
I always chuckle at the super specific MSWL ideas put out there. I want data. Do they ever get what they ask for? I’m happy if they share they’d like more humor in the vein of Never Have I Ever or more even ghost friendships in the countryside, but if it gets any more specific I have to imagine some stressed out writer trying to make it happen. Or, probably, more likely, it just disperses into the ether. Unless she can kiss transfer it like Elizabeth Gilbert.
I’m so surprised this agent did this. It’s just bad manners. Rude. Dismissive of someone’s hard work and hopes and dreams. Not cool, man.
*even more
I saw that tweet too. Hilary is no longer listed as an agent on kt literary’s website, and her X account has been deactivated. Thanks for giving us the heads up. I updated her agent spotlight interview at Literary Rambles.
And you have an interesting point about agents being too specific about their wishes on their manuscript wish lists.
Thank you. Not just for a well-written article but including the name of the painting at the top. Attribution is important, even if it has been in the public domain for hundreds of year.
I so want to add the Ron Burgundy, “Well, that escalated quickly” meme, alas. I started writing in in Jan of 23 and submitted my first novel 4 months later. I say this only to announce my level of noob to this conversation and potentially a different perspective.
The backlash from writers was expected for obvious reasons but I found it surprisingly refreshing agents too were upset. Candidly/naively, I thought Hilary’s actions were common if not tacitly approved.
For the life of me, I don’t see why agents don’t shop queries to publishers to gauge interest. If they get a bite, go back to the writer and offer a contract. Sounds insidious but, how does anyone know?
You’re revealing a bit of a mistaken assumption that a good pitch alone is enough to anyone in the process to decide whether they should make an offer. I don’t blame you for believing this because of the way agents talk about their wishlists, but agents (and publishers) need to read an entire novel before they know whether they’re going to offer or not. Pitches help agents and editors decide whether they want to read the book in the first place, but it’s the execution of the actual novel that matters in the end.
As a querying author myself, had that been me she’d done that to, I would have been absolutely devastated. I couldn’t have taken that as anything but a total affront to my own talent.
It’s just one person saying, more or less, that they like the idea but the execution isn’t for them. No rejection should carry that much weight!
Nathan, thank you for sharing the specifics.
So what was wrong with simply sending it back to the author with a request for a rewrite? (And perhaps a little helpful guidance as to exactly where it had fallen short) Or is that too much like hard work?
Most of us are flying blind when we submit. There’s no way for us to know what a publisher or agent is looking for and trying to read between the lines—on the rare occasions when we actually receive feedback—could stifle any true creativity. No wonder most authors choose to self-pub these days, despite the challenges involved.
If the agent didn’t like the writing in the opening, a rewrite is not likely to be fruitful. Agents typically work with authors on revisions on books that are 90-95% of the way there and need a push over the finish line, not ones that aren’t close from the start. But again, it’s just one agent’s opinion.
*ETHICS, HONESTY, INTEGRITY & CHARACTER STILL MATTER* in the business world between partners or companies- as well as on an individual personal basis, between two people.
If we, as individuals “can’t” rely & trust in someone we have a transaction with, isn’t “the game over”?
I was just reading about Photopea. There are a lot of similar products. What is different about Photopea? Execution, mostly. Had Kutskir pitched his idea to a venture capitalist or agent, (including a rough, buggy prototype), there would have been a non disclosure agreement, even though the core idea cannot be patented. Yes, his idea has a major variation (no server, the entire product loads into your browser), but making that work requires excellent Javascript skills and a fervent imagination.
Yes, “ideas” are “stolen” all the time in the software tech industry. But the convention has been, for decades, that prototypes and proposals are received in confidence. The signers of the NDA and the entities they represent are barred by the NDA from using the information in the disclosure to create a similar product.
Because I am relatively new to the world of querying (and the industrial publishing machine as a whole), I have to admit that the worry of ‘idea theft’ has crossed my mind more than a few times, especially when I see statements like this:
“By agreeing to review a submission, we do not assume any obligation to refrain from publishing a book based on a similar idea, concept, or story.”
These ‘disclaimers’ seem to appear under the submission guidelines on so many publishers’ websites. As much as they are understandable, I feel that they can also be potentially underhanded.
Maybe I’m wrong but don’t many publishing houses outsource ideas to book packaging companies or even have in-house/freelance writers to develop marketable ideas? So what stops a publisher from taking a poorly executed ‘great’ idea, polishing it up, and calling it their own? Wait, let me answer this: absolutely nothing!
We all know that, at the end of the day, the publishing industry, like any other industry, worships at the altar of the almighty dollar.
Looks like Ms. Harwell has let out the (copy)cat out of the bag. Caveat scriptor.
“Maybe I’m wrong but don’t many publishing houses outsource ideas to book packaging companies or even have in-house/freelance writers to develop marketable ideas?”
These usually operate outside the literary agent ecosystem, and trust me, they have plenty of their own ideas without needing to pilfer them from unsuspecting queriers.
Having worked at a literary agency, again, it’s all about execution not the ideas. And what typically makes for good execution is authors writing the ideas they’re passionate about.
I’m sure there has been some isolated idea thieving over the years, just as there’s been isolated outright plagiarism, but even if someone’s completely unethical, the incentive structures involved just aren’t really aligned toward theft.