Why would an Indie author hire an agent?
A literary agent can help develop new markets, especially in English speaking areas where self-publishing is not producing good results or in translation. These agents can also help you with your career development and planning. They can assist with developing hybrid models through a combination of traditional and indie publishing. Oma Ross, a director of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) stated that to be a successful Indie author, you’ll need to do everything good for your book, and within what is possible at that given time. It can be self-publishing or sometimes trade publishing or a combination of both.
A literary agent is that aggressive person on the ground representing an author’s work to potential publishers, journalists, filmmakers and other publishing houses. It can very challenging and cumbersome for an author to do translation and other rights licensing alone. Not that it cannot be done, and indeed many Indie authors are doing it, but you’ll need support for an efficient job.
Working with the alliance independent Authors
These author-publishers are driving a lot of growth in the publishing industry currently and most of them will be stars in the future. The ALLi members are very hardworking and creative and most of them have achieved great works in English. They work tirelessly to ensure that writers are licenses with their subsidiary rights.
The difference with indie authors
There is a big difference between indie author-publishers and the traditional author space. However, indie authors still require the same support, motivation and direction. The biggest difference with indie authors is the great value they put to non-exclusivity. Any agent that needs to work with indie authors must respect that.
Working with self-published authors
Indie authors are some of the most exciting and interesting writers in the publishing business. Indie author publishing space can be said to be the future of publishing. Since non-returnable income is not a guarantee and getting advances is becoming harder and harder, especially for non-brand writers, more authors are opting for self-publishing. They do this on their own or in small cooperative movements. This means that there is a lot of room for innovation and experimentation.
But new trends are taking shape, especially among the younger and new literary agents. Here are some upcoming agents and how they represent self-published writers.
Nathan Bransford – A famous blogger publisher and agent of Curtis Brown of San Francisco. He has been quoted saying that he looks out for self-published works. He has sold a
self-published book on
Terra Chalberg - works at the Susan Golomb Agency firm. Handles several self-publishers on a project by project basis. The shark, a self-published book sold a million copies and was featured in NY best seller list.
Rachelle Gardner - an agent working with WordServe Literary and also the author of Ramblings and Rants, a great blog about writing and the business of books.
The future of self-publishing
The onset of cooperative societies in the industry will provide better prices and great services. Indie authors will publish and sell more books with the emergence of digital printing. This will call for a different marketing and distribution strategies. More and smaller publishers will emerge in the market and will behave like mainstream self-publishers.
It’s no doubt that a self-publisher can only become a commercial publisher through the help of an agent, a literary agent that believes in your work and able to promote your books efficiently.
The ALLi and TMA rights guide to indie authors
The partnership between ALLi and TMA is a good example of the current trends in publishing. They have showcased 13 of their successful works with indie authors. The rights guide is to help
publishers trade either in English or other languages. It also helps filmmakers and TV producers to acquire rights in their indie publication. After announcing the partnership, the agents sold two books for $50,000 to Hachette.
What is the ideal self-publisher in relation to literary agents?
The bottom line is that every author wants to work with honest, productive, focused and enterprising agents. They need to be ambitious and able to generate sales.
A good agent will communicate with you about any rejections and feedback from editors and publishers. Should be able to improve your proposal and query. Should know about the book contract industry and should have hands-on how to ask for more money or rights.
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