The following is taken from a reply I posted on discussion board for published authors. I found the question about the role of agents fascinating and it got me thinking about this topic that every author is wrestling with now.
Group: Published Authors Network Discussion: What Does It Take To get A Literary Agent In 2012?
Posted by Edward
It is almost 2012, and if you want to know how bad it is out there in literary agent land, then consider this - there are about 600 serious literary agents in the United States, and out of the 600, I have reached out to 293 of them in the last three months - there have been no takers and less than a half dozen replies from agents who thought they might be interested.
Now if I was a novice, or never published aspiring writer, this would not be a surprise to anyone - but I am a leading authority in my field, and a very well established author with 7 books published between 2005 and 2011 in the US, Canada (Toronto and Montreal), England, France, Germany and Australia.
What really makes this interesting is the fact that I have been seen on television worldwide, and that I have been involved with three television pilots as a consulting producer or executive producer - one of them was for HBO - and in the next few months I will be featured, along with one of my books that is printed in the French language, in a documentary that will be airing on the largest cable TV channel in France.
Since I have never had a literary agent bring me any of my literary or television deals in my career (I always solicited and closed my own deals), I even offered to bring literary and television deals to the literary agents (all they had to do was close them) - and still not one of the agents I contacted was interested.
So what do you think about the literary agent world in 2012?
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Ric Wasley
• Interesting discussion. I'm currently published with 3 solid mid-list publishers and although I've had 2 literary agents over the past 10 years, neither of them sold anything.
My feeling is that that the new technology of e-books and POD has made them increasingly irrelevant to the bulk of today's successful authors. In fact I signed the same deal with one of my publishers as did another author with an agent.
The only difference? I didn't to give up 15% to someone for doing what I was able to do myself.
I don't see this trend changing anytime soon and my prediction is that they will gradually fade away like the buggy whip manufactures at the turn of the 19th/20th century.
Oh, I do think that some mega authors will have agents for film, TV rights etc. but within 10 years I believe the majority of agents will be gone or acting as paid publicity managers.
Ric Wasley – Author – Speaker
Mystery Writers of America and the Cape Cod Writers Group
http://www.ricwasley.com/
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Group: Published Authors Network Discussion: What Does It Take To get A Literary Agent In 2012?
Posted by Edward
It is almost 2012, and if you want to know how bad it is out there in literary agent land, then consider this - there are about 600 serious literary agents in the United States, and out of the 600, I have reached out to 293 of them in the last three months - there have been no takers and less than a half dozen replies from agents who thought they might be interested.
Now if I was a novice, or never published aspiring writer, this would not be a surprise to anyone - but I am a leading authority in my field, and a very well established author with 7 books published between 2005 and 2011 in the US, Canada (Toronto and Montreal), England, France, Germany and Australia.
What really makes this interesting is the fact that I have been seen on television worldwide, and that I have been involved with three television pilots as a consulting producer or executive producer - one of them was for HBO - and in the next few months I will be featured, along with one of my books that is printed in the French language, in a documentary that will be airing on the largest cable TV channel in France.
Since I have never had a literary agent bring me any of my literary or television deals in my career (I always solicited and closed my own deals), I even offered to bring literary and television deals to the literary agents (all they had to do was close them) - and still not one of the agents I contacted was interested.
So what do you think about the literary agent world in 2012?
*********************************************************************************
Ric Wasley
• Interesting discussion. I'm currently published with 3 solid mid-list publishers and although I've had 2 literary agents over the past 10 years, neither of them sold anything.
My feeling is that that the new technology of e-books and POD has made them increasingly irrelevant to the bulk of today's successful authors. In fact I signed the same deal with one of my publishers as did another author with an agent.
The only difference? I didn't to give up 15% to someone for doing what I was able to do myself.
I don't see this trend changing anytime soon and my prediction is that they will gradually fade away like the buggy whip manufactures at the turn of the 19th/20th century.
Oh, I do think that some mega authors will have agents for film, TV rights etc. but within 10 years I believe the majority of agents will be gone or acting as paid publicity managers.
Ric Wasley – Author – Speaker
Mystery Writers of America and the Cape Cod Writers Group
http://www.ricwasley.com/
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Kate Rigby • I am published (once with a traditional publisher) the rest small press and Kindle. The thing is, when I was first published in 1990 (paperback) it was a whole different world out there and the agents came to me. Though it's probably changed a lot, I'm sure there's still an element of the Catch 22, that you can't get an agent until you're published but how do you get published without an agent? To be honest, I've had little success with agents, apart from maybe the one I decided to go with after my first book was published, but when they didn't accept my follow-up book, it was back to the drawing-board so to speak. I then had another very well-known agent interested in another of my novels in 93 (again this is almost the dark ages - pre-internet almost!) and he submitted it to various publishers but none of them would 'bite'. Years later in 2005 I sent another novel to this same literary agent - not the same person, you understand, but it was the same literary agents. I was invited up to London to have lunch with a woman from this literary agent, I spent lots on train fare, though she did buy me lunch. Then she asked me to write two proposals for books over the next three months. As the deadline approached I had a bit of problem with my printer (I had no email back then) and told her they would be a bit late. Sent them a few days later and didn't hear a dickie-bird, in spite of follow up. So... I really don't have much truck with them. What are you supposed to do? Hang about months while waiting for one reply from one publisher before they submit it to another? And what if you have multiple books? You will be waiting around for ever!
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Carol Jose • Ric, I agree in part with you, but only in part. Glad to know we're fellow MWA members and therefore know the process. I'd like to introduce a new angle here, as I think some of the authors participating in this discussion have not yet acquired an agent, are not sure they need one, and worse, are missing the point and order of things in the agenting process. First of all, many desired publishers will not look at unagented manuscripts, period. Mostly it's to minimize their expenses, conserve their time, and protect themselves from contractual, copyright, and plagiarism issues. "Over the transom" (unsolicited) manuscripts arrive on their doorsteps by the truckload, and they won't pay staff it would take to sort and read even one tenth of them. So yes, an agent is important in so many ways. They do the grunt work and deal realistically with the author's often outlandish expectations, before the manuscript is put into the hands of the publisher. Some auhors are so inwardly focused on their OWN perception that they've written the next hottest American best seller, they don't realize that publishers control 90% of the :"best seller" market,and dictate pretty much what the agent can do for the author. Some agents are great at foreign sales, some aren't. Some books interest foreign markets, some don't. Same with TV and Big Studio movie makers. Face it, publshers, not agents, are doing less and less for authors. Unless you are bankable from previous publications. It's in the agent's financial interest to SELL YOUR BOOK TO A PUBLISHER! They know the market. They're the sales force and have the right contacts,if they're a good agency. Publishers count on agents to weed out the wheat from the chaff for them, and eliminate quirks that could expose them to potential legal liability. Unless authors are independently wealthy, few of the comments I've read in this discussion seem aware of how difficult, costly, and time consuming self-publishing and self-selling your book on Kindle or Nook or wherever IS, including at Barnes and Noble. The public is fickle, okay CHEAP, and indifferent, in the current economy and hurry up techno world. Booming used book sales on Amazon.com render ZERO for the author or agent's pocket. Promoting your most-often-NOT-a-bestseller book, (publishers now require that unless you are a star author YOU do most of that)) takes time, money, travel, shipping costs ad nauseam. Trust me on that. Then there are the editing demands, not the help. Once a major publisher told my agent, "tell the authors to take two hundred pages out of this and we'll purchase it." Then you work like hell to take out the two hundred pages, and they don't buy it, because they've bought something else instead while you're slaving at meeting their editing demand! However, undaunted, our agent promptly sold the shorter edited manuscript to another publisher just as big, and it went through several editions and was recently rated one of the '"five best" ever, in its category by a reviewer in the Wall Street Journal. No, it wasn't a best-seller. Just a darn good book in its long shelf life. The agent served us very well, for his relatively paltry 15%. So don't overestimate your own talent in the marketing realm, and underestimate the agent's, which I see happening a lot here. This discussion has fascinated me in its many interesting facets, but also its misconceptions and misunderstanding of the industry and the publication process today. If you have a huge following you can count on buying your book, do it yourself, you'll make more return (not necessarily profits) from it. Be persistent, persuasive, but realistic about this economy and industry as it is TODAY, and try to ease up on blaming agents so heavily. "First, do no harm to yourself, by criticizing others you may need to succeed." .
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Gary Tavares • There is no statistical proof or data to support the fact of having an agent as significantly different or better than doing it any other way. Many of us are convinced that we have to do things a certain way or we can't be successful. We need to find agents, if we go that route, who like your work and do not try to change your work to fit what they believe may sell. In fact, many writers stuck to what they believed in with their writing and that is why they succeeded, even though they were rejected numerous times. The movie "Red Tails" was rejected numerous times because it is a predominantly black cast and nobody thought a film like that could fly... No pun intended. It isn't even out yet but it is being considered a blockbuster. The film "The Help" was rejected over 60 times yet was the number one film for about 4 weeks. Tyler Perry was rejected numerous times by Hollywood because they did not think his genre would sell. He built a hollywood-like studio right here in Atlanta and we all know the rest. Now Atlanta is becoming a major player in the film industry and Hollywood is coming here. You ever wonder where all these agents are who have turned all these famous people away, sometimes hundreds of times? If you read the bios of most of the big time writers now you will see most of them had powerful and original works, self-published and did out of the trunk sales. I have been told many times I wouldn't be successful doing it my way, yet I like a challenge and keep on proving I can. I have a novel I am working on entitled, "Predator In The Clubhouse:The Boston Red Sox Child Molestation Story." It's a true story that has never been told. I actually got the story from a victim over 6 years ago and since have finished the screenplay. The story is much bigger than the Penn State case. The book will be out by the spring. It's all about opportunity and timing. I can assure you it will do well because it is powerful and original. When you have something powerful, original and marketable you will get the attention of the agents if that is the way you want to go. www.tavaresentertainment.net
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Steven Thomas • As with most things in life its all about "who you know".Agents (by and large) know the right hands to get a manuscript into. They know certain publishers which prefer certain things over others. An effective agent saves the writer from wasting his or her (didn't want to make a Ms-take here) valuable time and energy! I also know that with the advent of POD and self publishing i think the big boys in the author biz will begin to elect to go self publishing routes. They have the name and reputation that affords them that luxury and taking a 95% cut!
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Steven Thomas • As with most things in life its all about "who you know".Agents (by and large) know the right hands to get a manuscript into. They know certain publishers which prefer certain things over others. An effective agent saves the writer from wasting his or her (didn't want to make a Ms-take here) valuable time and energy! I also know that with the advent of POD and self publishing i think the big boys in the author biz will begin to elect to go self publishing routes. They have the name and reputation that affords them that luxury and taking a 95% cut!
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Ric Wasley • That's true Steven and I just read a post by Lawrence Block that he had elected to take a number of his works into the realm of self publishing. Why? Because he can take a bigger slice of the pie. Then there's the young lady from the mid-west - a paranormal romance first time author who was turned down by dozens of agents only to go on and self publish. And after creating a huge following in a short period of time, has just signed a million dollar deal with a top publishing house! Hurrah for her. I think that's what happens when you truely believe in yourself !And Carol, thanks for your comment. For me personally I'm very happy with my midsized publishing houses and enjoy being able to talk one on one with my editors and publishers. And yes, I know there are some good agents out there and they can certainly be useful for film and big book deals. However I still maintain that they have lost their lofty perch as gatekeepers and arbiters of what is and is not great literature. Because now authors have the opportunity to speak directly to the reader as they never have before and those who don’t recognize that the paradigm is changing will miss a lot of opportunities over the next few years.So I’m not against agents I’m just for each writer having the opportunity of succeeding in the only arena where it should really count… with the reader
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