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Agent or go solo? The pros and cons are many!
The tools for self publication grow more effective and more accepted every day. Platforms like Kindle and social media such as Twitter give you the means to publish with low hassle, and to make your audience aware of it if you are savvy and assiduous enough. Should you jump in? Or do you need an agent?
Our list below can help you set your head straight about the benefits of having an agent and of being a loner.
First, the “NEED AN AGENT” side:
1. The agent can help you overcome your own laziness.
2. Agents have the editor’s ear.
3. Your agent can negotiate a better deal for you.
There’s plenty to be said for having an agent – but let the buyer beware!
4. A good agent will navigate the labyrinth of a publishing contract in ways you can’t.
5. The agent can act as a referee between writer and editor.
6. Coaching.
Good agents know the market and can powwow with you, nudging you towards which of the many projects you are keeping warms has, in his experience, more market potential.
Whew! That’s a long list. So what’s the question here? Well, many writers have had bad experiences with agents, too:
1. Your agent may not do anything.
This is a much shorter list, but point no. 1 here is worth at least five above. It is worth expanding upon. Children and young adult author Sandy Asher summed up her experiences:
An experienced agent took me on—and placed me in the very last stall of her very large stable of authors, some of them impressively rich and famous. She rarely visited my stall. She rarely answered my phone calls or my letters. … Looking back, I suppose her theory was that I showed promise and eventually I’d send her something she could easily sell. No hurry. When that time came, she’d trot me out to the starting gate.
In the meantime, I sent her manuscripts—revisions of Daughters of the Law and a string of those ever-hopeful picture books. As far as I know, she never submitted a single one of them to publishers. Two years passed. I grew so angry, frustrated, and sick at heart, I stopped writing. The woman was, for some of her clients, wildly successful, and for others, like me, toxic. I finally called her secretary and said, “Gather up everything you can find and mail it back to me. Whatever this relationship is, it’s over.”
2. Agents don’t usually submit your work to small publishers.
The small advances offered by independent publishing houses – sometimes just a few thousand dollars – will amount to peanuts for your agent’s commission. She may not bother to approach those venues. However, a small publisher may be just the right fit you’re a novice. Naturally, your chances of getting a foot in the door are vastly greater with a Hungry indie publishing house.
So there’s plenty to be said for having an agent – but let the buyer beware! If you are saddled with a do-nothing agent, then give her the boot and go elsewhere to get the treatment you deserve.
And Sandy, above? She’s gone through six, and is mightily satisfied with her current one, Wendy Schmalz.
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Anne Panning’s novel, 
John is an American writer, translator and teacher based in Budapest. John has translated and edited hundreds of literary, legal, and medical texts. He has maintained Scribes since 2012 and is editor-in-chief of the new online literary magazine The Hickory Stump, debuting April 4. He has co-authored numerous textbooks, his most recent being
1 comment
Self Aware
September 27, 2013 at 2:54 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I sent my opening chapters around to a list of hundreds of agents. I got only one request for the whole book and that guy never even got back to me. I’m fed up with the whole agent mess. I’m writing my books now for direct publication on Amazon.