These days, you're likely to get a rejection from a literary agent that mentions the tough market for fiction. Not much demand, that sort of thing, and you move along knowing that you're not about to write some scholarly tome. Which you'd never be able to sell either because you don't have a platform.
What's a literary agent to do when the publishers aren't interested so much in fiction?
Quit accepting fiction submissions, as agent Kathi J. Paton has done.
Her agency specializes in non-fiction, according to her revised Publishers Marketplace page.
Fiction's gone. There's no market for it. Why take on an author, spend valuable time promoting and pushing, only to be told by the acquisitions editors that there's no market for today's fiction?
Ms. Paton is looking for writers who are specialists in the field in which they write. No amateurs need apply. Only those with a strong and sturdy platform are welcome to submit.
One less agent to query. One less rejection to field.
Less opportunity for writers who can tell a good story to get their product to market.
5 comments:
Oh, yes, I've heard this. As from the agent who praised my "strong writing voice...thoughtful plotting...enjoyable and engaging read" of a book only to add, "but in today's hypercompetitive fiction market..." It's disappointing to hear, but what are ya gonna do, stop writing? (It has occurred to me, but I don't think I can. Not yet, anyway."
I see you posted your novel on another website -- have you moved on to another work? Are you querying anything now?
Sláinte!
I'm forever querying & writing. A few rejections and I'm back to the editing before starting the process again.
Don't stop writing. You'd only guarantee that you'll never get published.
This has been in the making for quite a while. Both my past agents turned to non-fiction exclusively. My last agent kept me on because I had been with him for so many years. However, at the end he stopped doing anything with it and just sent my screenplays to the directors/producers I had queried and wanted to see it, but for legal reasons could only receive 'solicited' and from agents.
As for fiction... I'm pushing forward with 'independant' publishing.
And no, DO NOT stop writing. Besides, I don't think we can stop writing. It's in our DNA. But it's hard and at times frealking heart breaking. I always think of this very successful screenplayer (can't remember his name, but he wrote big Oscar movies) who to this days when he gets a project rejected (Oh, yes, they get rejected) he goes in his room, lies down on the floor and indulges in a 4 hour temper tantrum/self pity/wallowing in victimhood session. :)
Lately I've been reading more non-fiction because I can't find enough good novels that are worth reading.
Every other book I pick up has been written by someone with an MFA or someone who teaches creative writing, and most of those novels are boring.
Knowing how to craft lofty prose isn't enough to tell a coherent story, but I've come to believe that literary agents are enraptured with credentials.
Maybe some day someone will wake up and realize that authors didn't always hold fine arts degrees and people are still reading those novels.
Oh, yes... the university professor platform. I just ran into such an example. A woman from the 'old country' who teaches 'feminism in literature' at some obscure women's college got herself the Godzilla of agents (a woman in La Jolla, awful creature, I asked her a question once and the answer was such a caricature I laughed in her face) and she got a publisher. I wrote her a letter to congratulate her, never got an answer. (Serves me right for mixing with her lot) Anyway, the other day I looked up her novel and honestly thinking this would be a good read I started to read a few samples (Kindle does that.) I am sorry to say, the prose was ATROCIOUS (like my spelling, I think...) and the story was some kind of rambling, meandering thing. I can't tell exactly what it was, but she lost me after a couple of pages.
No, I would not pay for that novel. What I've read of yours, it's a lot better, believe me. But, hey... you don't teach the feminist movement among salamanders... Sorry. It's such a downer to read these things that have been published. I stick to science fiction.
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