The literary agent is also a practicing author - say what?

[charlotte49ers]

I'm sure he has better things to do than steal ideas from his slush pile.

[Dankrubis]

You know what, Username? You've flipped me. I'm scared now, too. But it goes beyond Nathan here, check it out-

You send out your awesome idea to an agent who doesn't write, but he still manages all these other writers, right? He rejects your idea, but then a year later he comes up with an awesome idea that's actually your idea, verbatim. But he's not a writer! you may say. But what about all of his clients? They're writers. He talks to them all the time! What if he thinks one of his clients could take that idea he thinks he originated and run with it? BAM. Billion dollar Idea stolen. You're not gonna be the next Stephanie Meyer after all.

Screw publishing and its agents. I'm gonna go self-publishing.

[Username]

I'm sure he has better things to do than steal ideas from his slush pile.

Again, completely misses the point. Not in a million years would I believe that any literary agent would delve into the slush pile consciously searching for material to plagiarize.

See, this is the type of response that just baffles me. I can only assume that this person didn't even bother to read my post. Where in my post did I suggest that Mr. Bransford, or indeed any literary agent/novelist, would deliberately delve into the slush pile in search of material to plagiarize?

Maybe I shouldn't even bother responding to comments such as this? Yeah, you've gotta love forums. Sheesh.

[Username]

Then again, who knows... maybe this person IS delving into the slush pile in search of stuff... did anybody here submit anything even remotely like The Space Kapow or whatever it's called?

[Dankrubis]

Then again, who knows... maybe this person IS delving into the slush pile in search of stuff... did anybody here submit anything even remotely like The Space Kapow or whatever it's called?

Ohhhh, you're a forum troll. Well now this thread makes a little more sense.

[Yoshima]

Then again, who knows... maybe this person IS delving into the slush pile in search of stuff... did anybody here submit anything even remotely like The Space Kapow or whatever it's called?

Okay, Username. You love your book. We get it. You feel strongly about this topic. That's totally fine; it makes for good discussion. But this comment is downright insulting. You didn't even have the courtesy to type out the correct title of the book he worked just as hard on as you did yours. Seriously. Say what you want, "to each his own," to use your own phrase, but at least be respectful.

[KappaP]

If you've spent five years fine tuning that query, it better be pretty near perfect. Even IF Nathan or another agent subconsciously steals your amazing, bazillion dollar empire of an idea.... if your query and your story are really so good than an agent WOULD subconsciously steal it (barring all other logical inconsistencies), don't you think another agent-- a non-author agent-- would ya know.... pick it up? Literally the ONLY way that your idea could come to fruition is if your amazing idea that you've poured your soul into was queried out to a bunch of agents, was rejected by all of them and then one used that idea to outline, write and publish the book (which would take years). If that is the case and your idea/query/story meets with that much resistance from other agents, I'd doubt your idea/query/story has enough merit worth stealing. If something is worth stealing, people will pay for it. If it's not worth paying for, it's not worth stealing.

[Bryan Russell/Ink]

Okay, this thread is starting to walk a thin line. Debate is good... but let's keep this about the ideas and not the people. There are some interesting ideas at play here, so I don't want to delete anything. But let's avoid the personal comments and try not to psychoanalyze each other or cast veiled inuendo about the honesty of particular agents.

Ink

[casnow]

Actually, I think Dankrubis presented a more likely scenario (albeit one I don't find very likely either), which would be that an agent who doesn't write sees and idea in a query, loves it, requests a partial, and then realizes that the execution sucks. Then, a year or two later they are brainstorming with a writer and they throw out that idea or hook, something like, "Legal thrillers are hot, and wouldn't it be cool to have this type of hook/twist, and set it in location X". Even then, I would Guarantee that their novel would be SO different from your novel, that people would only notice they are in the same genre.

Where do ideas come from? I had no idea, but I told a friend about my novel the other day and he instantly replied, "That's just like that movie we rented back in grad school about 5 years ago." I went back and watched it, and there are broad similarities (however, I wrote my novel in English and the movie was in spanish)...

Plots are recycled over, and over, and over. They will continue to be recycled as well.

[charlotte49ers]

I'm sure he has better things to do than steal ideas from his slush pile.

Again, completely misses the point. Not in a million years would I believe that any literary agent would delve into the slush pile consciously searching for material to plagiarize.

See, this is the type of response that just baffles me. I can only assume that this person didn't even bother to read my post. Where in my post did I suggest that Mr. Bransford, or indeed any literary agent/novelist, would deliberately delve into the slush pile in search of material to plagiarize?

Maybe I shouldn't even bother responding to comments such as this? Yeah, you've gotta love forums. Sheesh.

You know what? I did misread your post (God forbid I be distracted while surfing the internet) and I would have been happy to apologize for that, but since you reacted so rudely, I really have lost the motivation. My response to you wasn't rude, just concise.

I just think you're reaching with your concern. I mean, if we seriously worried about people subconsciously using our ideas then what's the point of even trying? How would we ever get critique? And so many published books are inspired by other published books already. Besides, very few novels these days are entirely unique. It's the execution that matters.

[djf881]

Ideas are easy. Writing a book is difficult. If you're querying a novel, then you should have a complete, polished manuscript. In order to steal our idea, then the agent must write a whole new book based on the same concept before you secure representation for your novel.

If you are concerned this will happen to you, maybe your writing sucks.

[tameson]

I do see why someone would want to keep their idea secret. If I were to write a story about shiny vampires and their vapid teenage lovers, I could right the most amazing story ever, but it kind of has been done. Of course the problem is, if you have come up with this idea, odds are someone else has too- rule of large numbers and all that. How many novels about shiny vampires can the market bear (or Southern lawyers or whatever the idea is)? But whether you share with other writers or not, protecting your idea is impossible if you ever want feedback. I guess what I am saying is, ultimately, this might be a risk, but it is a small one and anything you can do to protect against it probably A) isn't good enough (since everyone is absorbing similar culture at the same time so wherever ideas come from, they might get them too) and B) will most likely hurt you more then any good it could do. And yes, it would really, really suck if your shiny vampire novel query hit the slush pile the same day Twilight was published (though, actually, I seem to think Twilight was a sleeper hit, but you get the point).

[shadow]

5 years for a query, firstly I have to say I would go belly up if I worked on my query for that long. You must mean your book. also, no reason for insulting Nathan's book. I imagine that he had tons of work on it since he is not only an author but an agent. My personal opinion is that I get what you are saying. We all unconciously take ideas from other places. I actually just recently wrote a blog post on that topic here: http://arielemerald.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... ality.html What I think though is that Nathan reads through so many darned query letters a day that he won't even be humanly able to take out ideas from there. If he will be interested in your query he won't save it and plan to write a book of it, he will contact you for representation. My advice to you is to not be so paranoid. We all have to risk things that are important to us. After all even a published novel can be copied in a way right?

[Elena]

Just to chime in really quick,

No reputable agent or other professional in the industry would risk their reputation and their job, not to mention their bank account, by stealing other people's work. It is preposterous to think so. Are there predators out there? Yes, most certainly. It is up to the writer to be smart enough to research and find reputable agents to query. Is Nathan Bransford a reputable agent? Yes, most certainly.

[Nathan Bransford]

There are many, many reasons to not worry about an agent stealing your idea (whether they're writers or not). Just a few:

1) While there have been isolated instances in the movie business (though let's not forget the one the OP mentioned happened over 20 years ago), I honestly have never heard of a genuine idea-stealing issue in the book publishing world in my entire time in the business. That's not to say it hasn't happened or will never happen, but when you consider the number of books that are written, the number of queries agents receive, and the number of books published... let's just say you're way more likely to be hit by a car on the way to the post office mailing your query than you are having your idea stolen. The plagiarism issues in the business have mostly been direct lifting of text. Not wholesale idea stealing.

2) But hey, I guess it's still theoretically possible. Here's why it's unlikely it will happen: reputation is everything in this business. How far would I get if I stole people's ideas? Answer: not very far. Do you think I'd risk incurring a lawsuit? Answer: no, I wouldn't. Sure, there have been times when I thought there was a great idea but poor execution and passed on a project. I have never, ever, ever gone on to share that idea with anyone. It would be hugely unethical, potentially illegal, and I'm not that stupid.

3) If you're worried about unconscious plagiarism, a couple of things. First, as others pointed out, ideas don't get books published. Execution gets books published. This isn't the movie industry, where a catchy hook can sell and the studio can take it from there. In this business you have to write the book, and your writing is way more important than your ideas. Ideas also aren't copyrightable. There have been lots of books that were inspired by other books. That's not plagiarism, that's writing. Focus on executing your idea better than anyone else, not thinking of (and protecting) the best idea possible. There have been lots of teen vampire novels published over the years, many of which were very similar. There's only one TWILIGHT.

4) If you're still worried about unconscious plagiarism and don't want to work with a writing agent, please tape record your (nonwriting) agent when you tell them you don't want your manuscript submitted to any editors who write. They'll laugh at you. Not only do a lot of agents write, a lot of editors write too. There may be even more published writing editors than there are writing agents. And I'd suspect somewhere around half of the business has at least a manuscript in the drawer.

5) If you're still worried about unconscious plagiarism even after considering that: I don't represent middle grade science fiction. When I get queries for middle grade science fiction I reject them without looking at them.

6) If you're still worried about unconscious plagiarism even after that: don't query me! There's no law that says you have to query me. I'd rather you just nip it in the bud there rather than have some unresolved issue that is going to affect our relationship down the line. I personally think experiencing both sides of the business has been a terrific learning experience and I think I'm a better agent having written and having gone through the query and submission process. If you don't agree: no worries. There are lots of agents in the sea.

7) If you're still worried: you might want to just put your manuscript under a desk and forget about it. Your manuscript is going to have to go out in public. Someone might be influenced by it, conscious or otherwise. Lots of people have to read it in order for it to be published, and yeah, one of them along the way could potentially lift from it. You can be terrified/paranoid about it, or you can consider your odds. Do you walk down the street paranoid that a bus is going to jump the curb and run you down? Do you refuse to go out in the rain because you might get struck by lightning? Getting plagiarized is way outside of your control, and the odds are miniscule. If you worry about it you're just going to go crazy.

8) If you don't believe me about all of this, here's a great post by Jessica Faust at Bookends that says essentially the exact same thing: http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/2 ... theft.html