Agents--Who Needs Them?

Tallulah Bankhead, the great stage and screen actor, never used one.

On the other end of the star spectrum, Gordon Osmond, produced playwright and published author never used one. But, unlike Ms. Bankhead's experience, it wasn't for lack of trying.

I have found that it is easier to get a play produced and a book published than it is to land an agent.

Some agent rejections are polite and even sympathetic, some are computer-generated, some are perfunctory though personal. Recently, I discovered one that was downright abusive.

I ask myself if this reaction is perhaps the result of agents having the feeling that like many middlemen, they perform a relatively insignificant role in the process that brings a creative work to public exposure. At most they operate as a kind of filter that assures a producer or publisher that someone other than the author has read the work. They can also assist in negotiating the details of a deal once both parties are interested in concluding one.

I had the same experience with casting directors in the production of stageplays. A play that I reviewed for CurtainUp.com credited a casting director for the genius in coming up with Ellen Burstyn to star in a one-woman show that Burstyn herself had chosen!

This is why, after having had two books published by PublishAmerica, which has the reputation of publishing virtually anything, including the unread, I vowed that I would not go either the PA route or the self-publishing one for my debut novel, Slipping on Stardust, but would rather pursue a publisher with a real staff of readers and editors. I was very fortunate to interest Secret Cravings Publishing, and my experience with that publisher has been incredibly positive.

And I did it without an agent.

Any other experiences or views?