Norah Myers is known on BookMachine for her blog posts about being an Editorial Assistant. This week she is back with some advice on Reading for an Agency.

Norah studied publishing in London at City University and worked for Picador and Bloomsbury before returning to Canada. She worked for a boutique literary agency before moving to an independent publisher of fiction and nonfiction. She loves yoga, books, and endless cups of tea. @bookish_norah

Before I began my editorial job, I read manuscripts for a literary agency. I read literary fiction, historical fiction, memoir, women’s fiction, psychological thriller, young adult, and work that defied classification. I found it tremendously helpful in the work I do now as an editorial assistant (and a freelance editor). These are the top 5 things I learned when working for an agent:

1. Agents are editors, too

Agents work tirelessly with their authors to develop draft after draft of their manuscripts to make them the most polished they can be before they create book proposals and send them to publishers.