Publishing agents don't want to get hate mail or have you posting bad things about them on in the internet
But book agents can work from anywhere, and your publishing agent doesn't have to be located in that state where you live.
Not exact matches
Traditional
publishing is a slog — find an
agent, pitch a book and if it's picked up by a publisher, sign away the rights to your work, then spend years
doing edits and waiting for the book to slot into a
publishing schedule — and the majority of these people don't score a deal, because most entrepreneurs «aren't in a position to be commercially
published,» says Sattersten.
Her conclusion, as
published in the report Villas, Castles and Vacations: How Perks and Giveaways Create Conflicts of Interest in the Annuity Industry: «Kickbacks may benefit the
agent and the company, but they
do so at the expense of their customers.»
You don't have enough king James scripture verses in it for any Christian publisher to be interested in putting it out (I've talked to Christian
agents about this, and they are as frustrated as the writers at how boxed in to rigid rules Christian books have to be) and that is a sad fact about book
publishing today.
While I am on the subject of the
publishing industry, let me make one little tiny suggestion to publishers and book
agents: Please, out of respect and courtesy to the authors who submit books to you, don't you think it would be wise to create a little form letter that you send to authors whose books you reject?
My
agent and I quickly learned that this title was not
doing us any favors, that the word «submission» had a special way of triggering rather heated responses in
publishing house board rooms across the country.
When this post was first
published, a number of marquee free
agents remained unsigned and many teams
did not know how their rotations would look for the upcoming season.
It was time to sit back and wait to see if an editor at a
publishing house believed in my work as much as my
agent did.
I thought I was going to have to self -
publish, then an
agent saw it and said, «Don't self
publish.»
I understand that there are plenty of
agents who NEVER SELL ANYTHING but churn writers for editing fees, but Harlequin
DOES publish authors.
As an individual, a business on my own, I can easily
publish my own e-books on Amazon... but what I would like, and what my
agent (Rachel Eckstrom at Irene Goodman Literary in New York) is looking for, are foreign deals, I don't want to
do translation, I don't want to
do print.
Let us explain a brutal reality of the
publishing biz in the 21st century: Like almost every other
agent or publisher out there, we don't want to see your manuscript.
How
do you see the laying - off of so many in - house editors in the past couple of years affecting the work you both
do, and how these new independents with
publishing contacts and skills will play out in the workforce — both as literary
agents and as independent editors — in the next few years?
Did you know that many authors, literary
agents, and other
publishing professionals give bad advice about how to write
agent queries?
Do I need an
agent to get to a
publishing co. & are self pub.
Elisa — You're one of my role models, because you're a major self -
publishing success story — and you
did it all without an
agent.
Unfortunately, many have little to no understanding of the trade; most have no direct
publishing experience, and the few who
do, are frequently authors themselves who moved into
agenting after seeing their own literary efforts fail to set the cash register ringing at the bookstores.
And when you're ready to submit your book to
agents or self -
publish,
do your research thoroughly so that you don't waste a single opportunity.
As of this writing, I don't know if having an
agent will produce any career momentum, or if I will be sent back to the minor leagues of self
publishing.
While Weinstein doesn't see corporate
publishing going away, ever, he
does think the business is at «an enormous transition point» and that the outsourcing major publishers have been
doing for years — forcing
agents to
do more editing, going with outside PR, telling authors they need to take hold of their own marketing — will mean that more agencies, and others, will jump into the
publishing fray.
The more we can
do to help authors navigate the tricky learning curve of either self -
publishing or working with
agents towards a trad
publishing contract the better!
Why she feels like you should submit to
agents and try to make it through the gauntlet of traditional
publishing even if you don't ultimately sign
If you think you're ready to find a
publishing agent, make sure you've
done the following things first.
Old school
publishing agents are harder and harder to find these days, but they
do still exist (and there's a lot to love about them).
How
do you sell a book to a traditional
publishing house without an
agent?
Once upon a time the only way to get
published was to enlist an
agent and
publishing house to
do the work for you.
What role
does self -
publishing play right now in the whole system from writing through
agent to publisher?
One
agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he certainly wouldn't call Konrath's deal a game changer, but that it
does say something interesting about the place of the midlist author in legacy
publishing: «It's not necessarily clear that big corporate
publishing is well structured to help low midlist authors with rapidly reducing print runs in an environment in which overall print sales are falling week by week.
In fact, until the existence of self -
publishing, it was one of the hardest things to
do on earth (just ask any author who's queried over 100
agents to represent their manuscript and come away empty - handed).
It's fairly well - known that self -
publishing once carried a stigma (some would argue it still
does), and that it was considered primarily a fall - back plan for authors who couldn't find an
agent or traditional publisher to work with them.
Ethan is a SF / F
agent, and is interested in me because I push the boundaries of
publishing, and what I
do has a big genre SF / F element.
In an interesting section of the talk, the
agents seemed to agree that as long as agencies don't require clients to sign over their rights to them, that certain agency -
publishing programs can be effective.
Don't submit a query letter to
Publishing Agent Ashley Kraas because she's on our list of book
agents who've stopped
agenting, retired, or passed away.
I
did buy one young writer's first novel, but she had an
agent and was
published «the old fashioned way.»
I can't speak for other literary agencies, but we tend to feel that it is wrong of a literary agency to try and commission works self -
published by an author when the
agent did not play a role in that self - publication.
Almost every author who lands an
agent and goes on to success was turned down by numerous
agents and
publishing houses, who didn't appreciate the work or didn't think it was commerically viable.
Author,
agents, and publishers can argue all they want while the industry watchers report on it, but at the end of the day, the reader simply
does not care how the book was
published.
We don't all have time to wait a year for a book to reach the shelf, nor
do we all want to wait to get screwed by bad
agents, bad marketers, or evil
publishing houses.
Literary value only comes into play for small boutique
publishing houses and very few publishers or
agents take on new authors that don't already have a
publishing track record.
I'm guessing that a lot of authors are not aware that even if they
do not have an
agent to represent them when dealing with a
publishing contract they can always hire the services of an Intellectual Properties lawyer.
I don't see that an
agent can add anything that a motivated self -
published author can't
do for him / herself.
If you and your
agent don't agree on your indie
publishing, then that's a serious problem.
Whether you choose to self
publish through a vanity publisher, or search for an
agent to submit your book to reputable companies, or go the route of ebook
publishing, the marketing work doesn't fall directly into the lap of the company.
I might self -
publish someday, but if I
do, it means I've given up my hope of being represented by an
agent.
With respect to the latter,
do you still have to pay an
agent commission on any sales of a self -
published backlist title which was the subject of an
agent contract?
If a publisher
does takes on your work, you (or your
agent) will need to negotiate a
publishing agreement.
It doesn't make much sense to advise someone to get an
agent, then tell them to not use that
agent and instead just self -
publish.
I can see it already: a
publishing culture in which the large
publishing houses don't even bother to employ editors who communicate with
agents and go through the slush pile.
I don't have any regrets about deciding to
publish my first series independently, but there have truly been moments when I wished I had an
agent's hand to hold.