#askagent

I happened to be on Twitter the other day when an #askagent happened. For those of you not yet on Twitter, imagine a conversation around a campfire, complete with weenies and marshmallows. Agents pop in, answer questions, and then just as mysteriously disappear.

I asked a few questions around e-books, and here are a few of the responses.

First of all, I asked if any agents were looking through ‘best-selling’ self-published e-books to find new talent. None of them said they were. I was told that there are ‘too many of them’.

I followed up the question by pointing out that sales, or at least reviews, were quantifiable; they didn’t need to look through all of them, only the good ones. I also asked if a book had sold five or ten thousand copies, would that interest them. Somebody replied and said there were too many factors. How much were they selling them for, what is the contract, etc. I got the impression the person did not really understand e-books.

Another person asked if they read all queries, or had an intern do it. Most said they had interns. One said, “but my intern has a really good eye.”

I see this is a lost opportunity. We have thousands of queries and manuscripts coming to literary agents. Agents have an intern sift out the good stuff. You are relying on the opinion of one person. Why not look to best selling self-published e-books. If you find a book that a hundred people have given five stars, doesn’t that tell you the book might be good? The term for that is crowd sourcing.

I then asked the following question twice:

“If you can’t sell a manuscript, have any of you recommended e-books as an alternate route to attracting attention [from a publisher] & a contract?”

Nobody answered my question. I must admit, I was a bit surprised that e-books were not discussed more. It seems to me that e-books are changing the industry, and authors on Twitter generally tend to be open to new technology.

E-books are going to change things, and it will affect everybody from authors, to publishers, and even literary agents. It will be interesting to see how they adjust.