poor agents

LightShadow said:

I am aware of writer beware, and preditors and editors: but sometimes one may still find a poor agent. In fact, the agent may be a decent one, but not as up to snuff as the writer may prefer. Have you had to fire agents, and what was the reasons? My recent firing was because all of their submissions were by blanket mailings, and it turned out that they had no working relationships with any publishers. How about you?

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I had an excellent agent. I got on very well with her. But in the end we parted company. I hesitate to say I "fired" her, though I did write her the godbye letter, for I feel she knew it had come to parting of the ways herself.

The reason is that I felt her basic attitide to writing was simply too commercial. She expected me to toe the line as far as publisher's demands went. "Just play the game", she'd say, "Give them what they want", even if those demands went totally against my grain. I found I could not do this; I had the need to stretch and develop, and I felt she had no understanding for that. I may have shot myself in the foot, but so be it.

However, she is not a poor agent, just not the right one for me. She has many very successful authors, and when we were together she was a good friend and always there when I needed advice.

If i ever have an agent to fire i'll tell you

Agents

LightShadow said:

I am aware of writer beware, and preditors and editors: but sometimes one may still find a poor agent. In fact, the agent may be a decent one, but not as up to snuff as the writer may prefer. Have you had to fire agents, and what was the reasons? My recent firing was because all of their submissions were by blanket mailings, and it turned out that they had no working relationships with any publishers. How about you?

Click to expand...

I've now had four agents. I parted with one simply because I was offered a deal I couldn't pass up, and one of the conditions was that I work with another writer's agent. I parted with that one simply because, while she was a good agent, she really didn't work in as many areas as I do, and it was intended to be a short term, two book deal right from the start. So, in a sense, I really didn't leave that agent at all.

I parted with the third, after only a short while, because I decided it was time to make a change in the way my career had been going, and the opportunity to go with a very large agency arose. I may live to regret this decision, but such opportunities don't present tehmselves very often, and I felt I had to give it a shot.

I've never had a bad agent, and I won't. I simply will not work with an agent who doesn't have a solid track record with mainstream publishers.