One Secret in Adventures in Ferreting Out an Agent
Self-publishing may have allowed all writers to get their books published, but having an agent is still a big plus in my mind.
Traditional brick-and-mortar publishing houses still maintain a stronghold on distribution, selling rights to books, and promoting works in major outlets. Of that, there is no question, although self-publishing can have its advantages, too.
For this article, I will not address the vanity presses that attempt to attract unsuspecting authors with promises of publishing their books; then comes the fee for that “accomplishment.” Usually, the publication fee is somewhere in the order of several thousand dollars.
When I graduated with my doctorate in psychology, my school (a usual requisite at universities) required that my dissertation be sent to ProQuest. There, my dissertation would be available for anyone to read, and a hard copy could be ordered in an on-demand format. This is where the vanity presses see opportunity.
I received a glowing letter regarding my accomplishment and how valuable my dissertation was. I scratched my head because my work was all statistics and theories with references to professional journal articles. Who would want to buy that? I thought it was too…
