AGENTS' VIEWS ON SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHORS

by BRENT SMITH
7th November 2014

Do agents have a problem with representing self-published authors? Will a mainstream publisher be willing to take on a self-published book?

Replies

Hello Adrian.

Yes, that's true of one of them, but I still think it's best to delay self-publishing until I have contacted many more. Of course I could be wrong with the new book but...time will tell.

I think that half the problem lies in the fact that the market is still in such turmoil over e-books, but according to the latest poll, 70% of people prefer conventional paperbacks. I know you can do anything with statistics, but even so, it's food for thought.

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BRENT
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BRENT SMITH
13/11/2014

Hi Brent.

I would have thought you would already have a toe in the agents door, albeit, a little toe.

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Adrian Sroka
13/11/2014

Thanks to you all --- Adrian, Jonathan, Paul and Lorraine.

I know there used to be quite a bit of hauteur among certain agents, but I had assumed that the real world would have intruded upon them by now.

I asked the question because it is a number of years now since I had an agent, and the internet was more or less in its infancy then. I am using Amazon and YouWriteOn at present but I have never believed that e-readers would supplant hard copy books, and a survey in The Times over the weekend bears this out.

Strange though, that some things just don't change; my agent in those days was Caradoc King at A.P. Watt (he's still with them as MD). It used to take them ten weeks to reply to a submission and guess what? --- it still does! Progress, eh?

I'll certainly let everyone know if I have any success with my little experiment, and if anyone's interested in publishing an erstwhile indie author. Fingers crossed!

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BRENT
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BRENT SMITH
10/11/2014