Why Would a Self-publishing Author Want an Agent?
According to the New York Times (4/17/13), well-known author David Mamet will self-publish his works this year, instead of going through his traditional publisher. But for some reason he is using his literary agency ICM Partners to represent him as a self-publisher.
It’s an auspicious sign for the world of self-publishing that an author with Mamet’s reputation is becoming a self-publisher, which validates the self-publishing industry and distinguishes it from the stigmatized ghetto of vanity publishing. But Mamet still seems enthralled to the outdated ways of doing business in publishing. Why does he need an agent to self-publish?
A literary agent acts as a broker between a writer and a publishing house. He tries to get the best deal for his author and keeps 15% for himself. In self-publishing, there is no publishing house, so there’s no need for an agent.
Robert Gottlieb, the chairman of the Trident Media Group literary agency, believes otherwise. He believes an agent brings experience in marketing and jacket design. An agent also has relationships with digital publishers that give his clients pride of place on sites unavailable to unrepresented self-published authors.
The fact of the matter is, a self-published author can design his own book covers or hire someone to design them. He can also market his own book. He’s probably going to end up paying for marketing anyway, even if he has an agent. The only thing a self-published author doesn’t have is this special relationship that agents supposedly have with digital publishers that gives them prize placements on sites that self-published authors can’t obtain on their own.
I’m not really sure what these placements on certain sites are. Do these placements cost money? If so, why couldn’t the author pay for them himself? Gottlieb doesn’t explain what these “sites” are in the Times article. Maybe these mysterious sites are just a way of justifying the existence of an agent in the world of self-publishing, which is in actuality phasing the literary agent out as part of the ossified, and increasingly archaic, mode of publishing known as the giant New York publishing houses.
