If you haven’t been reading Dean Wesley Smith’s “Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing” posts, you’ve been missing out. There’s an epic discussion going on right now about the topic of “Agents Know Markets.” Make sure to read the entire comments section, for Laura Resnick and Dean Wesley Smith go over 20 years of experience in the fiction writing business there in long comments. Almost as good as sitting next to them in a bar while they chat.
Here’s a small sample of his article. But go read the entire thing! In this section he’s explaining that “Agents are human.”
See, the real truth about publishing is that it only takes one. Put that phrase over your marketing desk. IT ONLY TAKES ONE.
One editor to fall in love with your work, to push your work through all the roadblocks in a publishing house, to turn an unlikely book into the next bestseller. But if you have to run everything through the “taste meter” of your employee, you are adding a second level of acceptance to a book that often makes selling just flat impossible. It is hard enough in this business to have one person fall in love with your book, it’s damn near impossible to have two in a row. So by following an agent’s “taste meter” you are dooming a lot of work.
As a special bonus in this post, Smith and Resnick discuss how to survive as a fiction writer until you can find a good agent.
