As a matter of fact Jim posted that survey here on the site (both in search of participants and then the subsequent results), and I participated in it (as a matter of digression, we've met a few times and I've even interviewed him). And I personally don't see how anything we've said in response to you in any way goes against what that survey suggests.
We aren't all of a groupthink mentality, no matter how many times people accuse us of that. I believe I personally acknowledged that there are cases when selling without an agent is an option. Smaller presses being one of them.
Someone else here noted that in the SF/Fantasy world (which is the one I believe you are in - yup I clicked on your signature
), there are publishers considered quite major to which you can submit directly, again with usually a much longer wait time than had you subbed with an agent.
It also depends on your goal of publishing doesn't it? What kind of house you want to be published with, if you are interested in selling foreign rights, movie rights etc. Not everyone wants that.
It also depends on your connections. Some people might begin in non-fiction say and develop relationships with publishers/editors etc over time. These people might then be asked if they are interested in working on a specific fiction project, and things can snowball from there. However most of us aren't that well connected, so need an inside man as it were, which is why an agent is most useful for us.
But back to Jim's study. You'll still note the majority of authors who sold did so with agents. Moreover, there was no specification as to what kind of publishers those were, nor what kind of publishers were sold to without an agent. I think that's kind of a big deal. You'll also note no financial breakdown. Jim had quite a wide selection of authors answering. And I would be very interested to know the average sale number for each category. My guess, and it is only that, is that the agent sold category would have a higher average.
Maybe it's all semantics here, that's our issue. Maybe for you major publisher means something different than it does to some of us. I personally am referring to those big six that are closed to submissions without an agent. But you might be including the big ones in the SF/Fantasy community like Tor and Daw (and I am in no way dismissing these by not including them in my initial assumption about your meaning, I would be more than thrilled to get a deal with either those publishers).
Please don't think that just because we disagree with your opinions (which were rather broadly painted, and generalised, possibly therefore leading to the confusion we are now facing) that it means we suffer from groupthink. And please don't lower yourself to using that argument, as it is beneath you. Re-read our replies to you and note that even though in general we agree with each other, we all have different points to make that are not entirely in sync with each other.
As for your link to Dean Wesley Smith . . .well . . . I've read his articles and I don't exactly consider him an expert source. Mostly because of a particular attitude exemplified in this quote:
Most agents you can get as an unpublished writer is not an agent you are going to want once you actually sell a book.
Aside from the poor grammar of that sentence, that is the biggest piece of bull ever, and I simply therefore can't respect anything else that man has to write. Because it is not true. Every single author I know was unpublished when they got their agent, and that would be their agent that sold their work and subsequent works. My first agent was one of the top agents in the UK and I had never had a single word published. And anyone who propagates the idea that an agent who takes on an unpublished author is likely a crap agent is not someone who I will trust to tell me anything about how the publishing industry works.
He also has a whole thing about blogging agents selling very little, which again I find an odd conclusion to draw as you have agents like Kristin Nelson who has NY Times bestselling authors as her clients and yet also blogs every day.
Basically I find most of his conclusions are either logical fallacies or drawn from faulty premises.
(Also I am well aware that there are people out there who believe an agent should be little more than an employee, and I say fine if that's what works for them. Me, I love having a partner in crime. I love having an agent who's opinion I respect, and who can act also as an editor when I need it. Do I always take her opinion? Nope. I'm pretty hard headed at times. But I do appreciate having someone else willing to help me out that way. I like editors in general, love the rush of working together to create something awesome, and some agents out there are very good editors as well. At least mine have been.)
In conclusion:
I don't disagree for a moment that there are other ways to get published than by having an agent. There certainly are. There are even some quite successful authors out there who have never used one. But the way you put it in this thread, the idea that there are many authors who have published sans agent with the big houses, is slightly misleading. And I still believe your suggestion of querying agents and editors at the same time is faulty. By all means, choose not to query agents at all and just do editors. But if you want both, I really do believe agents first, editors second, for the reasons I explained above.
You have a great deal of experience in the publishing industry, and I am sure we can learn much from it. But is it possible for you to share your ideas without automatically thinking we are all automatons that have been blinded by some evil agent alien creature. Some of us have a wee bit of intelligence and know what we're doing. Just as, I have no doubt, you do.
