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I found this blog entry quite interesting. Not only a good history lesson, but fascinating series of "what ifs" Where do you stand?
1) There is no perfect book.
2) Editors can’t buy books they don’t see.
3) Agents work for writers.
Having them vanish will make no difference to the system in general or readers who buy books.
But I also wonder about the closing argument of his (rather lengthy) post:
It's hard to not feel that his opinion on the subject and his ultimate conclusion on the matter (quoted above) is somewhat tainted by his own admission that he's never used an agent to sell a book.
I think fails as an analogy. Because there's a difference between an employee saying, "No, I won't sell the product" and one saying, "This product could be improved here, here, and here, and if you do that, it will be a far superior product and better received," which is what a good agent can do (and be correct). Some employers even hire people to tell them that kind of stuff <gasps>An employee who works for an employer is telling the employer they can’t sell their product. Imagine that happening in any other business? You work at a production factory (which is what a writer is) and you tell your boss that you won’t sell their product. What would happen? You would be fired, of course.
The section about agents making you do massive rewrites, and making the book be "safe" does actually resonate with what I've been seeing lately. I'm talking personal experience, discussions with other authors about their agents, even things some agents have mentioned in their blogs. And it's really interesting because agents are saying "God, please listen to us or you won't get published. Really. In this economy you really have to be safe and sure." Then you have situations where different agents are telling you you need to do different things, so which one was the safe and sure way to get published?
Sage said:Anyway, I think there's a middle ground. Somewhere where the writer has control, takes the agent's knowledge of what is preferred by publishers, and uses it to create a stronger book that is still theirs.
Definitely, my sitch, CT. Hopefully, the 2nd frog will be the one, though. Everything she suggested made sense, and I was quite willing to revise based on her suggestions.I'm curious, Sage, what you mean by making the book safe. Maybe I'm not reading the same blogs/talking to the same authors, because it isn't connecting for me (other than your recent experience).
Thing is, the writer only loses control if they choose to do so. Every agent/author partnership is inherently different, and I think this middle ground comes from finding the right agent. There are multi-published authors who've had more than two agents in their careers, because the first one (or two, or whatever) were not a good fit.
Again, this is coming from my experience, but I have never had to make a change to my books, via my agent's suggestion, that I didn't want to make. I went into the partnership with a clear understanding of the revisions I'd do, and we've yet to butt heads in a way that makes me think I've lost control of my book. I've just completed massive revisions on another, older book, based on his suggestions, and I agreed with most of them.
I know I'm lucky to have found an agent with whom I work well the first time out.
What's that old saying? Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs?
Agents who consistently tell an author how much they love the full of his novel but their reason for rejection is that they have no clue who they'd sell it to.
I read that post and saw much that confused me.
Then I looked at the title bar and saw that it was written by Dean Wesley Smith, and all became clear.