As harsh as it sounds, I think Ken is correct. (He's almost never wrong.) I have access to BookTV on cable and subscribe to Poets and Writers Magazine. I've seen and read a number of interviews with agents and editors over the past several months. (Most from the New York publishing scene.) And most of it is very discouraging to a novice writer.
Okay, please give me some specifics of what those agents say. Please give me sources.
As for whether another poster is right or wrong, he can be wrong with facts, but opinion is opinion.
Agents, I think, just get tired and bored with looking at bad manuscripts. Agents sometime talk about finding a "unique" voice (whatever that is), and claim they can determine a writer's voice and skill by a few lines of the query letter.
Of course they do. I get bored reading what I think is a bad book, but it somehow got published and sold.
Of course they want a unique voice. I love reading books with different voices.
Many claims made of never getting past the query. And they want clean manuscripts.
Finally, writing a good query letter is a must. That is agent's first introduction to the writer.
I have read where the agent said they read the MS looking for a reason to reject and if they hadn't found a reason by page 50, they could usually continue to the end.
Please provide your source for this. If a book is bad, most people don't read past a certain page.
Although fear of being called for age discrimination, two women agents in one interview, reluctantly claimed not to look at manuscripts from any writer over fifty, and did not want any new clients over that age.
Who are these agents?
The appearance and energy of the writer is evidently very important for the agent, as they want authors willing to get out and sell their book. They seem to prefer pretty people, with pretty stories appealing to a wide range of reader interest, requiring little editing.
Excuses. The agent-author relationship is a partnership, people have a part to do. However, not all authors are pretty or young or have pretty stories.
Can you blame an agent for wanting a book that requires less editing? Or, that they want an an author who will participate in selling their book? I'm afraid age has nothing to do with that.
Anyway, that's why I'm looking into self-publishing the three novels I currently have gathering dust
How many agents have your queried? If your work has been rejected, did you ever learn why? What do you feel you can accomplish with self-publishing as opposed to seeking an agent?
I continue to disagree that agents are just looking for work to reject. What would be the pay off? A legit agent makes money off books they sell, not off ones they reject. Therefore, it makes sense that they are looking for the gold in the rocks, not the rocks hiding the gold.
