I’m your agent. You’re my client. We’re a team trying to sell your book to a publisher. We need to work as a team, with each of us doing what we do best. I don’t mind if you make suggestions about editors you feel would like to see my pitch letter about your book. I expect you not to mind when I make suggestions about ways I feel you could improve your book’s chances to get the nod.

So what can you do to get me riled up? Originally, I thought about titling this article “Ways to Piss Off Your Agent,” but I decided not to use that four-letter word right up front. That introduces the first way you can make me cringe: you’re a professional so make sure you use appropriate language for each of your characters. If the characters you’ve created would not say “shit” if their mouth was full of it, then keep those words out of their dialog. If it would be natural for them to curse, then don’t be afraid to use that language. Impress me with your knowledge of language and how people would actually talk if faced with the situations you’ve developed in your story. For God’s sake, make sure your characters don’t all sound alike! Doing less than a professional job will make me cringe. I might even cry. You don’t want to make your agent cry.

The second way to pi..—oops—make me cringe is to keep bugging me about what’s going on with your book. We have to trust each other or this agency business won’t work. I have to trust that you really want me to work for you and you have to trust that I will. I can’t promise you a sale—no agent can. What I will promise is to research appropriate editors and compose pitch letters designed to get those editors to say “Send the manuscript.” After that, a hundred elements can erect barriers between your book and a publishing contract. Each editor will have dozens of manuscripts to review. It all takes time. I may not hear from an editor for four to six months. So if you don’t hear from me for several weeks, don’t presume that I am not working for you. It may just mean that editors are too swamped to accept another manuscript onto their review list and I have to try additional editors. If I have notified you that I’ve sent a manuscript to specific houses and editors, please know that I’ll contact you as soon as they report to me on your material. Bugging me won’t make that happen any sooner.

Finally, I’ll cringe if I want to accept you and your book and work on your behalf, and you suddenly decide you don’t want me to agent. You go to all the trouble of querying me, I ask for your manuscript, review it and fall in love. Then you tell me you’re not ready to “let it go”? What?! You’ve just wasted hours—days—of my time. Before you query me, be certain you WANT your book to be published. It’s okay if, by the time I get around to your manuscript, you’ve already signed with another agent, but have the courtesy to notify me when that happens so I don’t waste my time reading something I won’t be allowed to handle. No hard feelings.

However, if I offer you an agency contract when you’re still up for grabs, be ready to sign it and let me get to work for you. If not, I’ll really be pissed.

And that IS the appropriate word.