I thanked someone today for hitting me at the right time with the right words regarding career changes, so I'm gonna throw some words out too:

We talk about how "a bad agent is worse than no agent" but not about the effect of having a "good" agent who's not good *for you*

Some agents have incredibly successful client rosters and do really well by those clients. Which is really consuming. And draining. And doesn't necessarily leave much for the rest of that list.

You are not necessarily best served by being a guppy in a very fancy pond.

It's a pretty terrifying aspect of the industry that one person can hold all your strings, but that's often what having an agent is, especially if the agency doesn't work together in close cooperation. You cannot move forward with someone who just doesn't handle your work.

"Bad" agent and "good" agent can mean a different things to different people but there's an element to it that's almost always subjective, and it's how they are in relation to *you* and your work. Them scoring six-figure deals is irrelevant to you if you never get to go on sub.

So now I'm gonna go back to that person's words, which were effectively, "Even if it's scary, even if it's embarrassing, just...move."

Bluntly, one day you might have no choice and looking back on the time you wasted will be much scarier and more embarrassing.

There are objectively good elements and objectively bad elements but there's going to be a lot of subjectivity in what makes the best partnership for you, same as not every client wants the same communication style or level of editing and a mismatch isn't anyone's flaw.

The long-lasting effects of both a bad agent and a good-but-not-for-you agent can be crushing in the same ways, most notably a blow to your confidence about your work and its value to the market. If you don't think that erodes your very ability to craft, think again.

Be kind to yourself. Emotionally invest in yourself. Evaluate your situation, and if you need to make changes, be honest about it. Publishing is hard enough when everything falls into place.