I do a contract now and then for a single project, but for the most part Hartline contracts are for all book length work. We aren't really that interested in just getting a book published, we're looking to help them develop their writing career.
For that reason a client has a reasonable expectation that I am going to represent any book length work they write. And that is true, but with one caveat, it has to be something I would normally accept to represent. If the book I sign them for is good in my opinion, but the second offering is not where it needs to be, I'm not going to try to pitch it just because they are a client. We are going to try to work with them to get it to where it needs to be, but until it is it doesn't do either one of us any good to pitch a project that I don't believe is ready to publish.
Sometimes I stretch a little as a professional courtesy for a client and pitch a genre I don't usually handle. I don't know these markets or the editors in them as well and depend on the client to help me target the submissions in such a case. I depend on clients to help me in that manner anyway. I don't have time to read books that would be comparables for all my clients so I expect them to continue to do that and to pass on potential editors and publishing houses that they find in such reading. It is, after all, OUR job to get them published, not just MY job.
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