Are Book Agents Necessary?
I don’t think an agent is necessary. Many good and successful books find their way to the market without one. But I really feel fortunate to have a good agent for three reasons: he sorts out the contracts that are getting increasingly difficult and time-consuming to negotiate with all the electronic rights; he speeds up the process of getting books accepted by publishers. (They know and trust his name and if he puts forward a book it goes closer to the top of the pile.) And finally he finds and negotiates contracts with foreign publishers that I wouldn’t have access to. My books are published around the world because of my agent. document.getElementById(‘adsense_placeholder_2’).innerHTML = document.getElementById(‘adsense_ad_2_hidden’).innerHTML; What Were You Looking for in a Literary Agent, and How Did You Find Yours? I wasn’t really looking – I met my agent through a friend who was also one of his clients. We pitched a picture book together which was never published, but the agency
