-
Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: All Agents Care About Writers First
I never intended to do so many of the agent myths in a row, but since we’re having such a great conversation, and Laura Resnick brought this one up in the comments on the last one, it makes sense to just go on. New writers and many professional writers believe that when they hire an agent, the agent has their best interest only in mind. With many modern agents, this is so far wrong, a writer’s interest doesn’t even get in the top three places of focus for some agents. So said clearly, the myth is: Agents always have their client’s best interests in mind. But before I start, I…
-
Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Agent Agreements
Okay, without a doubt, the silliest thing that has ever come along is agents having writers sign an agreement. To understand how silly, just put this in real world terms instead of writing terms. Think about walking into a job interview with an employer and handing the employer an agreement that you wrote up that the employer must sign before you will work for him. Employer is going to frown and say, “I don’t think so.” An employer should be handing an employee an employee agreement. In other words, with agents it should be exactly the other way around than it is now. Duh. Shows how bad in general writers…
-
Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Agents Know Markets
Back to agent myths for a moment. There are a lot of them. I did a general Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post about how you need an agent to sell a book. If you haven’t read it, go here and read it now. The myths that surround agents are killing a lot of writer’s careers these days. There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t hear stories from at least one writer about how an agent hurt them. Often more than one. The myth that you need an agent to sell a book is an ugly one, the myth that writers work for agents instead of…
-
Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Self Promotion
The myth simply is: “All self promotion for a writer is good.” Nope. Completely false. The truth is sometimes self promotion of your own book can hurt you, sometimes it can help you. The key is not falling for the myth that all self promotion is good. Right now, in late 2009, the publishing industry is changing so fast that it is often hard to keep up for a writer with his head buried in writing the next book. Things are changing month to month, and the major publishers in New York and around the world are struggling to even stay a year or two behind. Where exactly is all…