From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Getting an Agent?
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:46:39 GMT
Organization: I is a writur

ARL00SJB@UNCCVM.UNCC.EDU writes:

>I just read Chuq's post about getting an agent to rep you if you want to
>get serious about writing.  I have a question about that.  I read elsewhere
>that a writer doesn't need an agent until and unless the writer can't keep
>track of what's been sent where, and who owes you money, and the like.

To me, that's not an agent, that's a secretary. 

As Elizabeth nicely pointed, out, different authors have different opinions
on what agents should do and what agents are worth. I see an agent as
another tool for helping leverage my writing to get the maximum benefit,
while also allowing me to focus on my writing and not have to take writing
time and turn it into marketing time. (writers don't get paid for marketing
their works. They get paid for writing them. So if I can find cost-effective
ways to do more writing and less administrative 'stuff', that's a potential
income increase, even ignoring the thought that the agent can potentially
get me a better deal than I can get on my own because I don't know what to
ask for).

Basically, what Elizabeth said about agents. She and I think alike on them.

>*I*
>have a problem with the idea that I need to pay someone out of money that
>I don't yet have, to get my work sold.

All *good* agents work on commission basis. They don't eat until you do.

>I just submitted a manuscript to
>a market that I found out *after* the manuscript was mailed doesn't
>accept unagented work *and* doesn't accept unsolicited work.  I think
>this looks like a Catch-22 situation to me - you can't sell your work
>without an agent

Actually, you can sell works without agents. There are other markets that
aren't closed to unsolicited manuscripts.

Also, as elizabeth pointed out, in some cases, this is a screen to
discourage the easily discouraged. Publishers are being seriously
overwhelmed by hundreds of really horrible, illiterate manuscripts.
They are doing what they can to hold back the floods of slush, because they
can't afford the time and energy of processing that much crap. 

That means that your manuscript gets caught in the floodwaters as well, even
if it IS good, because until something pulls it out of the slush, there's no
way they can tell the difference between your manuscript and the other 500
they got this month. Using agents as (effectively) first readers is one way
the cull the heap of slush down to marginally manageable levels. 

>So much for the wide-eyed writer who thought all she had to do was
>finish the manuscript and submit it - or is that the same fantasy of
>the scores of young people who flock to Hollywood and think that they
>will be "discovered"?

Same fantasy. Writing is a business. Remember that at any given time, 85% of
the members of the Screen Actors Guild is unemployed, and those are the
folks that got into the guild in the first place.

It's a tough business. Be glad you learned the lesson early before it became
an expensive one.


-- 
            Chuq "IMHO" Von Rospach, Enterprise Products Support
            chuq@apple.com | GEnie:CHUQ & MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ
               Book Reviewer, Amazing Stories =+= Member, SFWA
           Editor, OtherRealms =+= #include <standard/disclaimer.h>

And lo, though I travel through the valley of the archetypes, I shall fear
no evil, for I know that the author can't kill me off for at least another
150 pages, no matter how stupid or trite I become, or he ruins the book.
Xref: sparky misc.writing:1236 rec.arts.books:7593 rec.arts.sf.written:5481