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Title: How To Be Your Own Literary Agent by Richard Curtis ISBN: 0-395-71819-8 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 15 February, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (9 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Ignore the doofuses below who didn't like it.
Comment:
Take it from me, a multiply-published author (three major books) with two of the best houses in New York: Curtis knows what he is talking about. The title of this book is ironic; he clearly believes that writers benefit greatly from agents. This book will teach you what you need to know before you hire one. Excellent work, and timeless advice.
Rating: 2
Summary: Needs updating urgently!
Comment: I found the book informative, but it lacks the current information--like the fact that publishers of fiction now want at least 70,000 word manuscripts before they will even look at it. Curtis's book is discouraging, I agree, but the fact is that it really seems to be like he depicts. If it were more up-to-date, I would've added two additional stars to my rating.
Rating: 2
Summary: AVOID this book until you actually have a deal on the table
Comment: This book has a lot of interesting info and "real world" statistics. Also useful information on what you can negotiate for in a book deal and what's standard and what isn't, etc. But all in all, it is totally discouraging. His first chapters are so depressing that you might never overcome having read them if you haven't finished your book yet. For example, he says that stats on unsolicited manuscripts sans agents are at least 5,000 a year per publishing house and he says it is simply not economical for them to hire readers, because less than one in a thousand amounts to something the house might want to publish. They all get sent back without being looked at. That is, if you send a self-addressed stamped envelope.
And he says agents don't want anyone who is not already published. Next to no chance of getting one unless your cover says something like "I invented the submarine and have written a book . . . " So--you can get a loan if you have money in the bank. And you can get a literary agent if you've been published. The same old story. It sounds very certainly impossible.
From what Curtis, an agent of 20 or 30 years says, there're tons of manuscripts that can't even get read and it has no relation whatever to what is good and what isn't. I'm ready to quit the entire idea and I'm only 1/3 of the way thru the book.
According to Curtis, it takes an agent. Period. And if you have no way of finding one of those without the same blind mailings you'd send to publishing houses, you may as well put the "grand novel" away and hope in 4 or 5 or 10 years, by some luck, you run into someone who is connected.
So I'm left wondering, why does anyone bother to write at all, much less buy Mr. Curtis' depressing book? There must be SOME way to get through, right? He offers precious little hope, I'm afraid.
I don't know if this writer-editor-agent meant to be so discouraging, but wow! Completely! Avoid this book if you want to keep writing.
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Title: Negotiating a Book Contract: A Guide for Authors, Agents and Lawyers by Mark L. Levine ISBN: 0918825695 Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd Pub. Date: October, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: How to Be a Literary Agent: An Introductory Guide to Literary Representation by Richard Mariotti, Bruce Fife ISBN: 0941599264 Publisher: Piccadilly Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Writer's Legal Companion: The Complete Handbook for the Working Writer by Brad Bunnin, Peter Beren ISBN: 073820031X Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: October, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Business and Legal Forms for Authors and Self-Publishers by Tad Crawford ISBN: 1581150393 Publisher: Allworth Press Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Kirsch's Guide to the Book Contract: For Authors, Publishers, Editors and Agents by Jonathan Kirsch ISBN: 091822635X Publisher: Acrobat Books Pub. Date: December, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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