About Davis Wager Literary Agency

I started Davis Wager Literary Agency in 2004 when I decided to leave the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, where I had worked as a reader and associate agent. At that time, I took with me a short list of authors I had already begun building. Since then, my client list has grown steadily; I currently represent 12 authors, 5 of who have published books through deals I have made.

Why such a small client list?

My philosophy is to take on new clients only when I resolutely believe in the quality of their writing and their projects. I do not, like some larger agents and agencies, sign on clients to take a quick gamble on their salability. In fact, the risk for the authors is much greater than it is for the agents. If and when the payoff does not come in a few weeks or months, these authors often find themselves without representation. Suddenly, their dream come true of being signed up by a big agency has turned into a nightmare. They now find that they are considered damaged goods by many other agents, who are loath to take on authors whose work has recently been considered and rejected by major publishers.

This is why it is so vitally important for new authors to take on the right agent, not just any agent who makes them an offer. I work closely with all of my authors through many drafts of their work before I send their projects out for consideration. Rushing a novel or a book proposal out onto the market before it’s truly ready can effectively kill a project off before it has a chance, and perhaps even permanently damage a writer’s career.

Editors generally do not reconsider projects they’ve already rejected, no matter who the new agent is or how much they’ve been revised. Moreover, editors share information with other editors at their houses, so very often a manuscript has only one chance with any one publisher. Therefore it’s crucial for a new author to have the strongest possible project when it first hits the market.

I can’t guarantee an author that I will sell his or her book. No agent can. I can, however, guarantee that I will work my hardest for my authors, editing their work until it’s at its strongest, and persevering to find the right editors and publishers for them, even if it takes years. Keeping my client list small allows me the time and energy to work diligently for every author I sign up.

How did you start working as an agent?

I came to agenting through an atypical route. I earned a PhD in English Literature and taught at the university level for a few years. After finding out that academia was not for me in 2002, I decided to pursue a related but different career, something portable that would allow me to live and work where I wanted. Part of my dissertation had focused on the origins of literary agenting, and working closely with students on their writing was something I knew I would miss about teaching. Having written a 300-page dissertation, I know the difficulties of writing and the necessity of having a good, sympathetic editor and advocate, so I like to think that my time in academia serves me well in working with my authors. Being a California boy in his mid-30’s, moving to New York to scrabble in competition for assistant jobs with fresh-faced recent college grads held no appeal for me, so I returned to Southern California, where I apprenticed myself to the best-known agent on the West Coast. I now live and work in Los Angeles, one of my favorite cities in the world.

Who is Davis?

There is no Davis. When I decided to start my own agency, naming it entirely after myself just didn’t seem right to me. So many friends, teachers, and family members have influenced me over the years and shaped me into who I am, that calling it “Timothy Wager Literary Agency” seemed too narrow and egotistical. Part of my inspiration to go into business for myself came from my mother, who started her own successful art conservation lab and ran it until she retired several years ago, so I decided to use her maiden name, Davis, in the agency’s name. Also, “Davis Wager” sounds much better to me than “Timothy Wager.” (Just so you know, too, it’s a hard “g” in my last name: WAY-grr, not WAY-jurr.)