Danger! Agent Alert!

It took me a while to cool down before I wrote this post. Like a couple of days. And yet, I'm still irritated despite some well-meaning friends.

There's been a rash of events scheduled this year for aspiring authors to meet and pitch to agents. Again, the well-meaning friends are sending me the links to these events.

I've published over eighty novels and short stories. I've sold five short stories to anthologies. I wrote a magazine column for four years. But apparently, I'm still a wannabe to my friends.

What's worse? When I was trying to get a trad publisher interested way back in the day, trying to get an appointment with an agent or an editor at a writer event was difficult, if not impossible. But now?

The event I saw for Ohio later this summer (no, I will not link to it) had nearly thirty agents. The organizers are begging for people to attend. Why the hell are all these agents making the trip to the Midwest?

Because they're desperate. Since several retailers have opened their doors to indie publishers, these agents aren't getting the slush pile they used to, much less the income from having a full stable of writers. Now days, most agencies are damn lucky to have a couple of ponies in the back yard.

Again, I know my friends mean well, but what is an agent going to do for me that I'm not already doing for myself? I have three excellent and lovely cover artists when I don't want to make the covers. I have a wonderful formatter. And the last thing I want or need is a corporate editor young enough to be my granddaughter dumbing down my stories.

Seriously, a lot of books I see on the market are repetitious and boring. And the trad houses don't get that's why they're losing so many sales. Even worse, I'm seeing a huge amount of indie writers making the same mistakes as the trad publishers.

Granted, there's no perfect method to becoming a career writer, but each writer needs to find the path that works for them. And what I'm doing right now works for me.

Regardless of what my friends think.