I don’t have an agent. Should I have an agent? Do I, as a fiction author, need an agent? What’s it like to have an agent?

To answer the last question first: I don’t know what it is like to have an agent. I’ve never had representation. 

I Wanted to Find an Agent

Quick anecdote: In my final semester of my MFA in Creative Writing program, my university sponsored a pitch fest, where we got to pitch our book to up to two agents working in our genre. We authors were able to select slots for agents based on their bios and their wishlists on a first-come, first-served basis. I found two agents who seemed to have my exact novel on their wish lists. 

I was excited, so excited. Then I got COVID, back when COVID made you very sick. However, the pitch fest was virtual, so I “showed up” anyway, albeit hoarse and possibly a little delirious. 

Both of the agents I pitched my book to demonstrated enthusiasm for my MFA thesis novel. One solicited the opening chapters of the story; the other requested the entire manuscript. I worked on the submissions to make them perfect. I sent them in. I held my breath.

Then came the long silence. Look, this is a huge part of the traditional writer’s profession. You submit to magazines. You wait. You submit to agents. You wait. You submit to an independent publisher, you wait. You wait, you wait, you wait, you wait. At least when you enter a writing contest, the contest publishes an announcement of the winners, so you know when your work has been rejected. 

The Submissions Grind

The grind of submitting and waiting is nothing new to fiction authors. Contests and magazines now charge you for the mere privilege of considering your work.

And in addition to waiting, you pay. You pay, you pay, you pay. Twenty-five bucks to be submit a story to this magazine, eighty-five to enter that contest. The entry fees are supposedly so that these esteemed institutions aren’t bogged down by entries that aren’t “serious.” Some writers even like the fact that these contests and magazines gate-keep away those who can’t afford submission fees. I’m not making this up; I’ve read their posts on Reddit. I can’t think of a better example of Stockholm Syndrome than praising someone who wants you to pay to submit your work. 

Agent Queries: A Blind Process

Agents are just another blind submission process. You don’t have to pay for agents to consider your work, at least not in money. You only have to endure a waiting process that may last forever.

That happened to me. One of the two agents who requested my book never—and I mean never—bothered to respond. This was the one who was so excited about my work that she wanted to see the full manuscript straight out of the pitch fest. I even sent a follow-up query at the six-month mark, only to be told by an assistant that the agent was still considering my work. That was fifteen months ago. Still crickets. So long ago, almost two years, that I never bothered to withdraw my query even after the book was published. 

I Get It: Book Agents Are Busy

From the agent’s perspective, I get it. I really do. Responding to a writer they don’t like has zero ROI, so why would they bother? 

But a better question is, why would I waste time on a process that probably has zero ROI? At least in my case, the five or six agents I submitted to, including these two, who actually heard me pitch my book and got to ask me questions, responded late or never that they had any interest in producing my book. That was a lot of effort on my part to put submissions together without a return. 

Keep Querying Agents or Nah?

I had a decision to make. If I wanted to pursue the path of traditional publication with a Big Five publisher, I needed an agent. None of them will touch an unsolicited manuscript, and only agents have access to the route to get a solicitation.  

I decided my destiny was to go it alone—for now. Especially given that the gap between author income for full-time self-published authors and traditionally published authors is only $2,200, according to statistics published by the Authors Guild. That means traditionally published writers make only about 17% more income than their independently published counterparts. Add the meager difference in income to the hassle and time it takes to find an agent and then a publisher, and I had to question the utility of an agent and, thus, the traditional publishing route altogether.

Time: The Most Important Resource

Time waiting for agents and traditional publishers is a wasted resource. I was 51 when I independently published my first “cozy dystopian” novel, and I just didn’t want to wait anymore. So I published independently. 

Getting in Front of an Audience

Instead of using the time to search for an agent and a traditional publishing contract that might never have materialized, I spent my efforts slashing my own path through independent publishing. I worked, and continue to work, on finding and building my audience. I am learning things about the literary industry that I might not have ever learned if I’d gone down the well-travelled agent/traditional publisher road. 

For instance, I found through my earliest efforts at selling my book at local venues such as farmers’ markets that nothing beats selling my novel in person. It allows me to interface directly with my readers, pitching them the book and listening to their feedback, both before and after they buy it. Reviews are one thing. Having a reader come up and tell me what she thinks at a farmers’ market this week, after having bought at the same market last week, is not only an incredible rush, but it is the most valuable market research I could hope for.

Plus, I learned about the intoxicating effects of DIY indie publishing. There is no better motivation to sell my book than lugging a six-foot table, a ten-by-ten canopy tent, and a folding metal chair to an outdoor venue on a hot, cold or rainy day. I’ve already paid for my product, and the only way I will earn that money back is by selling my book to the passers-by. 

That’s not an experience I would have with a traditional writer-agent-publisher relationship. Working from the ground forces me to market to my pool of readers, and it allows them to provide immediate feedback on whether they like my book, both verbally and through their actions, such as purchasing it. 

Agents Might Work Under Other Circumstances

This is not meant to be an indictment against agents and the traditional publishing industry. It’s only my two cents about the process and why it didn’t work for me, during a particular snapshot in time, which was as I was ramping up my full-time fiction career. Who knows? In the future, my need/desire for representation could well change. 

Maybe I just didn’t have enough time or patience. But both of these are finite resources that I wasn’t ready to continue to spend without a tangible prospect of a return. 

Interested in reading a dystopian novel with a heart and hope for the future? Purchase Five Years here.