Hi,
I just read this article: http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/312/74/
And among other advice to hopefuls, Stephen King states:
An agent? Forget it. For now
Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you've done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able to take your pick of good agents.
So... what's your take on this advice?
I'm probably two weeks to a month away from finishing my fourth cycle of revisions, and I think I'll be ready to start querying then. It's hard to be sure right now, but that's the goal. Anyway, I've been reading a lot of articles and blogs, and it seems like the prevailing wisdom is to query agents (intelligently) whether one has had anything published before or not. I've read that it is a bad idea to 1) query publishers first and 2) self-publish first. King's advice seems to fly in the face of that. I'd really like to have the right idea before I start going about all of this.
I just read this article: http://www.greatwriting.co.uk/content/view/312/74/
And among other advice to hopefuls, Stephen King states:
An agent? Forget it. For now
Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you've done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able to take your pick of good agents.
So... what's your take on this advice?
I'm probably two weeks to a month away from finishing my fourth cycle of revisions, and I think I'll be ready to start querying then. It's hard to be sure right now, but that's the goal. Anyway, I've been reading a lot of articles and blogs, and it seems like the prevailing wisdom is to query agents (intelligently) whether one has had anything published before or not. I've read that it is a bad idea to 1) query publishers first and 2) self-publish first. King's advice seems to fly in the face of that. I'd really like to have the right idea before I start going about all of this.