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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I'm Selling Your Book on My Shoe Phone

That happy little website entitled Guide To Literary Agents has a feature called "How I Got My Agent."  I think it would be more interesting if there were one entitled, "I Was A Bad Secret Agent," or "How & Why I Fired My Agent," but I'm just stupidly curious that way.  If anyone wants to post on the latter topic, please feel free.

3 comments:

The Oceanside Animals said...

Hmm, well, I once fired an agent when he tried to set me up with a subsidy publisher. I was like, "If I were going to do THAT, what would I need YOU for?"

Anonymous said...

How and Why I Fired My Agent

1. How: I wrote her a polite letter.

2. Why: Two years after she could not sell my first novel, I gave her my second manuscript. I waited five months for her response, then sent the letter.

Writer, Rejected said...

I only fire agents when they are more depressed and discouraged than I am. (And so you know that's very down and out, right?) I fired two agents for being too glum. One hadn't even tried to sell anything for me. But I figure I need representation and optimism.

Two other agents quit the business on me, one right after the other. (They were from separate agencies, and didn't even know each other.) My last agent (who inherited me from one of the quitters) met with me for reassurance and took my new manuscript to read, then was never ever heard from again. That was weird. Of course, I never contacted him again either. I guess we weren't very impressed with one another.


That's 5 agents. I am unlucky.