|
Why Us? In the old days, if an agent asked you for a reading fee or "processing fee," I'd have advised you to find another agent. Agents made their money by getting your work published and taking a percentage of the sales (usually in the region of 10-20%). That was back in the days when there were fewer than two dozen major publishing houses and publishing was a gentlemanly endeavor. Today, publishing is chaotic. Those two dozen publishers are now part of giant international conglomerates, run by accountants; small and mid-sized publishers have sprung up to succeed with niche markets; electronics have made self-publishing, e-publishing and on-demand printing the big new options. Yes, everything has changed and is continuing to evolve. Publishing may change as much in the next five years as it has in the past 200 years. This means agenting, too, must change. (See Publishing Facts) Today the old ways of placing books with publishers is archaic. New services such as eLitAgent are meeting the challenge with innovative approaches. Innovation is needed, is effective, and it doesn't come cheap. Further, the old rules don't apply to new approaches. You may or may not know that I used to be a literary agent and quit, because I felt agenting (the old way) was becoming a white elephant . It was only when the concept of electronic agenting came to me that I felt it would again be worthwhile to pursue it. I liked the idea of being able to reach up to 100 publishers at a clip rather than the agonizing process of submitting to one at a time and waiting interminably for a decision. Most authors I work with understand that in accessing this innovative approach, they are financing their own website page and data base, not lining my pocket. Authoring is more democratic today, meaning that more and more books are being written by more and more people. And that means agents have a horrendous job sorting through to find books ready for publication. For agents, time is money. They can't give it away by giving free evaluations on every book that comes to them. We charge a fee for critiquing manuscripts and give good value for that fee: we advise authors about the marketing potentials for their books and let them know if their books are up to publishing standards. If so, we offer to represent them to appropriate publishers. Representation, however, has also changed. There are now hundreds of small to mid-sized publishers out there, most of them catering to a single niche market. Agents have to work harder to find the best home for each work they represent. And they have to get up to speed, meaning they have to go electronic. This is where our ability to present your manuscript to as many as 100 publishers at a time comes in.
We do the market research; we prepare the presentation package, following your wishes; we do the querying. You never deal with rejections because we only notify you of publishers who have expressed interest. We'll even handle beginning negotiations with interested publishers - and their positive interest is often expressed within days, not months! But what if the manuscript isn't up to professional standards? Each author then decides whether to make the revisions we suggest or to hire a book doctor. Those decisions are always left to the author. Our job is to assist with only those steps of the editing/publishing process the author selects. To keep the choices simple, we've broken down our services into distinct steps, with separate fees.
The Steps: Step I: Manuscript Evaluation We will read and critique your manuscript, determining its professionalism and its marketability and share this information with you. We'll make specific marketing suggestions, indicating the genre(s) we feel your manuscript fits and suggesting the most appropriate publishing avenue (submitting to major and/or niche publishers; electronic publication; self-publishing, either electronic or print or both.). If your manuscript is ready to go to press, we will either offer to represent you to publishers or guide you in self-publishing. Reading fees vary with manuscript length: see Submitting Your Manuscript Step II: Editing If your manuscript has merit but is not yet up to publishing standards, we'll indicate the specific changes needed to put it into professional condition. You can then decide whether to do the revision yourself, to find your own editing services, or to hire one of our professional editors. We will always match you with an editor who has expertise in your subject area. Since each manuscript varies in the complexity and amount of revision needed, it is not possible to set a standard fee for this service. Each manuscript will be individually estimated. Step III. Becoming Your Agent If we have agreed that your best publishing route is to submit for publication to major and/or niche publishers and that eLitAgent will represent you, the next step is to sign a contract making eLitAgent your exclusive literary agent for the manuscript. The contract becomes binding upon your signature plus payment of the $1,500 fee required to establish your web pages and to create the data base that allows us to identify the publishers (up to 100 of them!) who have an interest in your type of manuscript. One of the goals of this website is to keep you in control of your manuscript. Your website will consist of three pages. The first page will be your "mission statement" to publishers, in which you tell publishers your goals for the manuscript and how you wish to work with publishers. This lets publishers know immediately what you will and won't agree to. Your second page will consist of endorsements plus carefully selected excerpts from your manuscript. This gives publishers a quick overview of your material – enough to let them know if it suits their current publishing goals. We then individually contact each publisher with a probable interest and invite them to look at your manuscript. While there are no guarantees of sales, the very first manuscript so offered received 22 publisher responses the very first week. Six of those asked for the manuscript. Within two months the author had a publishing contract. (See Client Results)
Here's Why You may very well need an agent... click here
|