: Re: What can an agent do for me if I only write short stories? Recently, I have been having moderate success with my short stories, being selected to have my work read at several local literary

@Cugini967

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Agents generally do nothing for short stories. I have never heard of an agent representing a short story to a literary journal of any kind, since the 15% that they get from a sale would be too trivial of a sum to be worth their money.

There are two things that an agent could potentially do for you at this stage in your career:

Help you publish a short story collection. These are very hard to do on your own, but if you publish one they pay roughly as well as novels.
Help you with your eventual novel. Even if the novel isn't completed yet, it is probably worth your while to get on the agent's radar so that you have something to refer to when you get back in touch with them after the novel's finished.

I'd say that it's worth your time to meet with the agent, if only for networking and career-building. However, keep in mind that there isn't a whole lot that the agent is likely to do for you right now---the meeting will mostly be to prepare for a possible future contract.

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