"Say I have 5 years in front of me, what kind of work do I want to do?"
Literary agent Ellen Van Tichelt on being diagnosed with cancer and the choices it's forced her to make.
For the last five years, Ellen Van Tichelt was the only full-time literary agent in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. More and more local writers were needing a literary agent and she had found a gap in the market with her agency LNVT. Ellen nevertheless recently decided to let someone else fill up that space. Being diagnosed with cancer made her realise that you can adjust course as a self-employed person and, more importantly, that sometimes you have to.
How was LNVT born?
Up until five years ago, I was working as a marketing manager for a large Flemish publisher. The book industry has been shrinking for years, but instead of publishing fewer books, publishers are mostly cutting down on staff. I had had enough of that, but I still wanted to continue working with books and writers. I had more than enough experience and a large enough network to try to go it alone. I quickly booked my first major clients: I was able to work as a freelance literary events programmer for the Flemish-Dutch culture house deBuren, and writer Tom Lanoye hired me as his agent. LNVT grew into a literary agency because a lot of writers subsequently came knocking at my door and because I said yes to every request. I did everything: I managed authors, put together literary programmes, sold literary evenings …
You adjusted your offer a few times during the last five years. Why?
LNVT kept growing and while I was working with three collaborators at one point, I didn’t have the budget to pay myself a proper salary. I also took on a lot of projects that I later came to doubt. Then the COVID crisis hit. I used my suddenly empty agenda to reflect on exactly what I wanted to do with LNVT. I realised that selling shows and managing employees wasn’t my thing. I defined LNVT more clearly – from now on, I would focus on providing business assistance to writers.
Most managers take a cut of any income a writer makes. I thought that would be too complicated administratively speaking. So I opted to work with a subscription model. It seemed like a solid plan, but a lot of writers aren’t really able to pay for an agent. That’s why I often made exceptions, the result being that I worked far too long days for not enough money. It’s why I decided to adjust my offer once more: I decided to spend half my time on managing writers and the other half on major literary projects, like coordinating a new book festival.
You were diagnosed with skin cancer for the second time not long after that. How did that influence your relationship with your work?
The first time I was diagnosed with skin cancer, I resolved to drastically rearrange my work, but I ended up dragging my feet on that. Now that I’ve received this diagnosis for the second time, everything has come into sharp focus. Thankfully, my prognosis is good, with a 100% survival rate. But you can never be fully certain. It’s why I have no choice but to ask myself: if I have, say, five years in front of me, what do I want to do with my work? The answer is that I want to curate and organise big literary events. I really get into a flow when I work on those. I love bringing together themes, books and people into one complete experience. Managing writers – not to mention their dozen email inboxes – gives me a lot of stress on the other hand. And the rates I’m able to charge as a literary agent are simply too low for me to live off. It’s why, after five years, I’ve decided to stop working as a literary agent.
A courageous decision.
For the next 12 months, I will be administered immunotherapy every three weeks for 18 consecutive times. The treatment is injected intravenously in the hospital. It’s really confronting to be in that waiting room, surrounded by people with a potentially life-threatening disease. It forces me to stay as close to myself as possible. You don’t need a diagnosis to make major decisions though. As freelancers, we sometimes forget that we became self-employed precisely because we wanted that freedom to be able to completely change course. As a freelancer, you can cast off the services that don’t suit you, and create the time to work on a project that you dream of doing. I have adjusted course a number of times now and I will allow myself to do so ten additional times if need be.
Being diagnosed with cancer would be an emotional experience for everyone, but it’s probably even more stressful when you’re a freelancer. What has helped you during this period?
My work requires me to have a clear mind, but at the moment my mind is very tired. A time will come when I will have to rest. It’s why I’m really glad that I took out income protection insurance five years ago, even though it seemed like an absurd investment at the time. I would recommend it to everyone. You never know what will happen to you in your life. Invalidity benefits alone won’t be enough to get by, and income protection insurance covers the gap for you. I am not relying on it at the moment, but I know that I can fall back on it if I need to.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned in the last five years?
I wish I would have given more thought to my rates from the beginning. Instead of determining my rates based on what I thought my clients were able to afford, I should have determined how many hours I wanted to work per week and how much money I wanted to keep after taxes. I learned that when I attended a business coaching session: your asking price is probably twice the amount you think is realistic! Since that session, I’m factoring in much more that my income needs to allow me to schedule in sufficient quality time. Because no matter how much I enjoy my work, it’s still just that – work. I realise that now more than ever. I want to be able to lose myself in my work, but that work should be well paid and have boundaries, so that I can maintain my own identity. I want to have enough time for my family, for travel … If there’s one thing I would like to impress on other freelancers, that would be it – you are more than your work.