Navigating Sharque Infested Waters: gifts to agents and editors

I am extremely fortunate to have an agent I love (yea!) and, recently, a brand-spanking new editor (new to me; not new to the business)! So excited that my novel will—after lots more work—see the light of day. Here’s the question: the holidays are approaching. What is an appropriate token of appreciation from an author to an agent and to an editor? I feel like especially now I should be sending a holiday/thank you gift, but don’t know what is considered nice and what is considered too much. Is there something I should definitely NOT send (like teachers who have cabinets full of “Greatest Teacher Ever” mugs)?


Any advice you have for the holiday season would be most appreciated. We writers do tend to stress over the little things. :-)

First, congrats on your pending publication. This is a terrific achievement!

Gifts, even at the holidays, are not needed or required. It is NOT rude, forgetful, impolite or socially unacceptable to not give gifts to business associates.

If you are moved to send something, a lovely card with your own words of appreciation would be very nice.  {I save those.}

What you don't want to send is food or perishables of any kind. Deliveries slow down in NYC due to weather and volume.  Agents aren't in the office every day of the week, and particularly not during the holidays.  For example, this holiday week, I was out of the office the entire week.  Most people didn't know it because I was still "working" but if you'd sent something fresh or perishable, well, my minion would have enjoyed it very much but I would not have seen it.

I can't tell you how awful it is to get lovely boxes of what had been fresh fruit on January 3rd.  That happens more than you think.

If you absolutely must send something to say thank you, it's really hard to go wrong with a gift card. Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, all good things.

But I strongly encourage you to not send gifts. Save that for when we do something above and beyond the call of duty like bail you out of the hoosegow after you and Jeff Somers decided to re-enact the bathtub scene from We Are Not Good People.