What An Agent Wants

lin wrote:

They coddle agents and publishers because they need their listings for their reference books (which they are desperately trying to pretend are still useful in a day of updated, searchable internet sites for agents and markets).

meh -I think there's still a place for printed references. I personally put more faith in commercially printed references and advice books (from books-on-shelves-houses, not barely-there epubs like Brenda's) than internet resources. I think if a newbie just relies on internet sites, s/he will find very bad information, and be pointed to sites that resemble publishers (like Tate), or are NOT authoritive, yet speak with an authority bestowed by Google rankings.

There are many examples of this. Preditors and Editors is one. That site is ONE GUY'S OPINION of agents and publishers, a self-appointed net nanny, and a convicted slanderer at that. Yet his friends have been so active in pimping it that it has gone viral and newbies now think that it's THE definitive place. As a Writer's Net poster once wrote, "Sometimes you need to Beware the Bewarers."

I don't know why info would be bad on internet data bases.
Writer's Digest has one, in fact--which is more up to date and searchable.

AAR has one--are they bogus? Agentquery is pretty powerful... and no reason that WD "vetting" something would make it more valid. In fact, if you think about it, since they have axes to grind....

duotrope is much more useful than Writers Market.
The agent sites referred to in this post are all at least as valid as some commercial book.

http://linrobinson.com/linrob.php?itemid=86

I agree on P&E very useful for a check-up (but just googling a name is more so) but I'm apalled to see how many people tell new writers it's THE PLACE to start agent searching.

Like telling somebody to look for business partners in a mug book.

lin wrote:

I don't know why info would be bad on internet data bases.

I didn't mean it was bad, just that it doesn't negate the value of printed sources. Printed sources are vetted by people in the business and who presumably know what they're doing. Internet sources are pigs in a poke. Some are great, some are awful, but the main problem is that you have to find your way on your own to them. A printed source hands it to you, in an orderly, organized manner. There's a lot to be said for that.

Well, to repeat... I don't really think you'd find the sources I cite as being particularly careless. Or disorganized.
SEARCHABLE means a lot more than "organized" anyway--"organized" only helps if they've organized according to your needs, which is what a database search does.
When you can dial in the area, genre, accept/not email, keywords like GLBT and such and punch up listings you've gone WAY beyond what some editor can organize for you.

And, again, the idea that a company in the business of selling directory books, and having secondary relationships with and uses for the agents involved makes them somehow more objective than a site that lists all AAR members or something like Publishers Market and AgentQuery sites is peculiar.

And, by the way, those printed books don't "hand it to you"... they charge you thirty bucks and up for it...as opposed to sites that hand it to you for free, and organized according to what you need to know at the time.

And with clickable addresses and emails, I might add.

Of course those internet sites are great and offer features you can't get from a book. And? You still have to find your way TO them, and you will have to wade through the muck and trash that Google will direct you to, first. Lots of people don't have the critical thinking or research skills to do that. Then they end up crying for ten years about a mistake they made. Not that I care -the point is that they COULDN'T find their way through the wilderness to more informative sites.

And you can borrow the print books at the library (no $30 required).

Yeah, if you want to run down to a library (assuming there's one you can reach) and do your research there and copy out all the info form a REALLY outdated book and bring it home--instead of doing the whole thing right there at your workstation.

But you know, I was about to say, look at the post I linked to before you go on, because you're missing it.

Now I KNOW you didn't look. Because there isn't any sifting around to do. Just click my links.

http://linrobinson.com/linrob.php?itemid=86

And that's just for people to stupid to look up the Writers Digest or Publishers Week databases instead of going and getting the books.

How does someone just starting to research the subject find your site in the first place?

Lin, that site of yours is great! Thanks for the research that makes mine easier.

LC wrote:

How does someone just starting to research the subject find your site in the first place?

They can find the site through my blog:

http://shelaghwatkins.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/how-to-find-an-agent/

How do they find their way to your blog?

same way they find the way to the library

But this is all a typically weird little magical hystery tour of subjective peccadillo (hey some people PREFER to get around in horse buggies) from my post, which was about Writers Digest.

No, they DON'T find it the same way they'd find their way to the library. They already know what the library is, where it is, and what to expect to find. They never heard of your site and have to come across it during the randomness of a Google search.

Horse and buggy thinking? Ok. I find the thinking that everything worthwhile and good is found on the net, easily and for free, as misguided in its own way.

eta -why didn't DK know of your site until just now? I get the impression that she has researched extensively.

Yeah, they do. They use their fucking brain and ask around and end up getting there.

Nobody is saying "everything worthwhile and good is found on the net"

I am saying that it's better to have something for free than pay a lot of money for it, to have it right on your computer instead of having to go downtown or wherever and carry data pack and enter it, that it's better to be able to search for exactly the combination of qualifiers that you are looking for than to flip around through alphabetical listings--when you don't know the names of who you're looking for, that's it better to search data that is updated constantly instead of once a year (if you're lucky), it's better to have the online information such as URL's of websites and email addresses clickable than have to copy them in.

Your objections to these pretty obvious advantages are peculiar, and most of them don't even stand up to the slightest examination.

But, hey, whatever it takes for you to get yourself an agent. My advice is for the masses out there struggling to breathe free.

Now, when can we get back to bashing Writers Digest.

LC wrote:

How do they find their way to your blog?

LC,

If you check my blog and look up the lists of books and reviews, you will see that the blog is very well visited.

lin wrote:

Nobody is saying "everything worthwhile and good is found on the net"

Great. No one has said that printed books are better than the internet, either. Just that the internet hasn't rendered them useless, as you basically said.

Shelagh -I'm sure your blog is very well visited. So? A lot of others are, too, thousands of them. There's only so much time in a day. If everyone was so good at finding exactly what they need, there wouldn't be "beware" and "crying my eyes out"-type sites.

Nobody said the internet rendered "printed books" useless, either.
I was talking about Writers Digest's books.

LC wrote:

Shelagh -I'm sure your blog is very well visited. So? A lot of others are, too, thousands of them. There's only so much time in a day. If everyone was so good at finding exactly what they need, there wouldn't be "beware" and "crying my eyes out"-type sites.

That sounds too good to be true! LOL!