Thursday, May 9, 2013

Agents, a circular reference

For those of you new to my blog, here's another legacy post from Goodreads.

November 3, 2012

Circular references are when you define a word with itself. Why do I mention this with regard to agents? Let me explain.

My research in January quickly branched off into a process of finding and sorting through various agents and what they were looking for. Before I began I was under the impression that an agent was a magical person who would champion my book to the publishers, land me book deals, arrange for signings and readings, etc. Shortly afterwards, I realized that my guess was off a bit.

First of all, marketing. I discovered that agents were most interested in authors who already had a good grasp of marketing their own works, had blogs, had followers and fans. Basically, agents want someone who will champion themselves.

Second, published works. Sure agents are the go betweens between authors and the publishing houses, but I learned that they are most interested in prolific writers. This means that agents want to represent authors who are already published and who are churning out quality books at a good rate.

I can see how that would be attractive, but here I am with one book under my belt and no presence. Hence the circular reference, in order to get published, I would have to have an agent; in order to attract an agent, I would have to be published and established (with some sort of following).

Hmm, now what?
       
Published on November 03, 2012 10:31• 12 views • Tags: agents, new-author, publishing

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