Using An Agent

To repeat, 40% of literary agents won’t take on unknown authors — for the same reasons that major publishers are leery of publishing them. Since you don’t need an agent to approach most small to mid-sized houses, why bother with one?

A new solution is eLitAgent — the first electronic agent. Because eLitAgent communicates with publishers electronically, it brings agenting into the 21^st Century, contacting up to 100 appropriate publishers in a single day about your manuscript.

Innovation In Agenting

Patrika Vaughn, today‘s foremost leading Author’s Advocate, used to be a literary agent.

"I quit," she says, "because the agent’s role seemed to be obsolete."

Her reasoning:

"There’s a Catch-22 in publishing today. You need an agent to approach the big publishing houses, where it’s unlikely you’ll be received because the biggies are now part of international conglomerates run by accountants, not editors. The most important factor for accountants is the bottom line, so these major houses tend to publish authors with proven track records. That’s why you seem the same names over and over on the Best Seller lists.

"Small and midsize publishing houses are where new authors have to go, and these publishers can be approached directly, without an agent. So why bother with an agent?

"Then I realized that the real problem was that agenting was being done the same way it’s always been done. Agenting still operated in the dark ages of the 20^th Century, while the rest of the industry had progressed into the electronic 21^st Century. And that’s when I got the idea for eLit Agent – the first (as far as I know) electronic agent, who could keep up with the lightning-fast changes in publishing houses and their owners; in editors and where they worked; in the desires of the changing market.

" The idea is to make contact with up to 100 appropriate publishing houses at a crack, allowing them to "shop" manuscripts without having to deal with messy paper until they ask for a hard copy. We’re new, but the first manuscript presented through the eLit concept received replies from 22 publishers in the first week, and within four weeks the author had a publishing contract.

"So I’m back as an agent – this time at the head of the changes rather than tagging behind."