The last few months, I’ve read various blogs and articles on well-established agencies hiring new agents. Some editors who lost their jobs are now agents. I’ve also read opinions from editors and others about how necessary it is to have an agent. And it’s true they now do the work editors once did decades ago.
There is one article that sticks for me. The editor that stated if we are unagented and we send our work to publishers, the editors figure our work is not worthy.
Now, I’m wondering if she speaks mainly of adult work.
If we’re paying attention, though, we see more children’s houses taking only agented work. I think with all the economic changes, which affects the publishing industry, we will see more and more children’s departments requiring agented only. Really, before the doom and gloom, we’ve seen this over the last decade or so.
There is much discussion in my writer’s group about this topic. We’ve decided to work at acquiring an agent. Most of us will hold off submitting to publishers, because we don’t want an agent to think our work has seen the rounds. There’s nowhere else to send.
In saying this, I still believe there are a few (a very few) children’s houses that would rather not work with agented material. I have targeted one and do plan to submit to them after the SCBWI Spring Conference in Portland, Oregon.
Until next time . . . write away!
No comments:
Post a Comment