Are Literary Agents Required Anymore?

[Vincent Zandri]

Every year a new surprise breakout author rises up from the ashes of literary despair. In the past we've seen JK Rowling and James Frey fill the bill. But this year’s breakout author is different in some pretty remarkable aspects. Not only is she self-published, yet she works with an established literary agent. Her name is Amanda Hocking and she's a 26 year paranormal YA author who not only has one book listed on the USA Today Top 150 bestseller's List, she's got half a dozen.

Her kick assness on Kindle alone led the Chief Amazon honcho to officially declare "The fall of the paper curtain!" But it leads me to ponder something else. We all know that big publishers are no longer needed in order for an author to succeed in this business. In fact, we now know that authors like Aaron Patterson, LJ Sellers, Scott Nicholson, JA Konrath, and many others have proven that not only do you not need NYC to make money, you don't need a publisher, big or small, in order to make a very good living....like, potential millionaire kind of living. All you need is Amazon and the world's ever growing population of Kindle Kats...

 

...Get the rest of the scoop at the Vincent Zandri Vox

 

 

[sean]

I've been pondering this question a good bit and even did a blog on it a few weeks back.  It seems to me that literally every week the progress made in the publishing world leaves agent after agent in the dust.  In the traditional model the agents helped by acting as gatekeepers for the editors at the publishers.  To get to the publisher you had to go through the editor.  In my quest to have my first novel published - a quest that spanned 7 years - I amassed a rather impressive file of rejections.  Along the road to being published, I received a great deal of assistance and guidance from my agents, but in the end, particularly in this ever evolving world of publishing, I feel that the ranks of agents will soon be a thinning herd.

[I. J. Parker]

Just what is it the agent does???

[Vincent Zandri]

Right on Dana...that's the spirit we should all have!

[Dana King]

People win the lottery every week, too. Anyone who is looking to make money as a writer probably still needs someone to help them through the minefield. Granted, I'm writing this as someone who is planning to release a book direct to Kindle this summer, but I have made peace with the fact that I'm not going to make money from writing, and have found my energy re-ignited by knowing I'm doing it for fun. I'll make them available if people want to read them--a storyteller is nothing without some kind of audience, if only a  handful--but I'm not in any way expecting anything but personal satisfaction to come from it.

 

I buy lottery tickets it I want to dream about big money. They're a LOT less of a pain in the ass.