Someone asked me about one of my novelists recently and said, "How lucky you are to work with authors and take a cut of their earnings, too." I think they thought that I just sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that my writers are toiling away on their next bestseller or Booker prize-winner, earning all that commission for me. I just smiled and came out with my stock answer: that it involved a little bit more than that.

What I didn't say was that I often drive 200 miles a week to visit that novelist who has a towering ego and has to be cajoled out of his tantrums to fulfil commitments he's made to the publishing house he's tied to – a contract he wanted but I urged him not to take. I foresaw trouble.

My job with him has gone way beyond the remit of an agent. I grit my teeth as I apologise to people he regularly insults, who are too scared to stand up to him and vent on me. I often send flowers to his partner, pretending they're from him.

Then there are the clients who get writers' block. I've spent the early hours of many a weekend trying to console them, talk them through a difficult chapter. Creatives are temperamental and need calm handling. I once rewrote the last scene of a film myself because communication had broken down so badly between the parties involved.

I never have enough time with my husband and children as I work such erratic hours. Sometimes I dream of having a massive strop myself. But then who would pay the mortgage?

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