Do I need an Agent

Hi there ALL

It has been my dream to be a published author. My father passed away a little after my son was born and I found that my 'hobby' for writing delivered not the completed novel I had started and never finished, but an actual book (the other is still waiting for me to 'get on with it').

Ok; I will quantify that. It's a poem / story, 40 stanzas and ends with a moral. Yes, it's a childrens book.

I found an illustrator and worked out a deal.

I found a publisher and went down the self-publish route, and the book will be out at the end of July (pre-order now on Amazon).

Now I am thinking that maybe I should get an Agent....

I still want to have a novel published, but I am thinking that if I manage to get all of the first print sold, and my first book goes to 2nd print then this will make any future projects easier.

Truely, I appreciate any suggestions that you can provide. I guess what I really need to do is get my 'self' out there and advertise. Websites, Facebook and other stuff....I guess an Agent would help?. But this is a beginning of what I can only describe as a long journey and I don't appear to have a map.

I welcome your thoughts.

Aprill

Hi April,

Agents sell manuscripts to publishers and hook writers up with publishers looking for a specific project. They don't assist with advertising and promotion.

You aren't going to interest an agent in a self-published work unless you are one of those rare types who sell thousands on your own. Self-publishing, unless it's a specific nonfiction niche, is a difficult row to hoe. And unless it's wildly successful, it isn't the kind of credit you can use to persuade an agent or a publisher to take on another work.

I recommend that you read books on the subject -go to the library or Barnes and Noble, there's a whole section on getting published- before dropping lots of money on your promotion efforts. Or even on your publishing efforts. How many books are you printing up in this first print run?

As for specific reading material, I recommend starting with Stephen King's "On Writing."

Just make sure the books you read are current. It's a rapidly-changing landscape.

Al -I agree, but I don't think that the function of agents -legitimate agents, at least- has changed.

Probably not, but the process for getting one has. And what to expect after that. Old books might build wrong expectations.

How has it changed? I have no idea, since I never solicited one until my efforts a month or so ago. Was it different from just sending them a query? I understand there's an e-query option now, but I don't even see that as different, just a different medium.

Wyldcat -another thing about your OP. You said you found an illustrator for your children's book. My understanding is that children's book publishers prefer to use their own illustrators to control cost and quality.

LC wrote:

How has it changed? I have no idea, since I never solicited one until my efforts a month or so ago.

In the ol' days, there were no e-queries, and there were no agent websites with online guidelines for submissions. You used one format for snail mail queries, and you sent it to everyone. You didn't have to make custom versions to suit the specific quidelines for each specific agent. There was no spectre hanging over you clanking its chains and saying, "Get the smallest detail wrong, grasshopper, and into the circular file your query goes."

And, if you were already published as we are, you could get an agent to look at your proposal by making a phone call.

Interesting. I wonder if that was because less people queried agents then? Do you think more people are trying to get published now then before?

You're kidding me?

LOL, ok, I guess it WAS a stupid question.

So why are so many people interested in being writers now?

I write. There is no rational reason. I write.

I don't know why, but I think it might be the same mentality that keeps karaoke going.