Thank you for being that stand up man !!! Lost art found at Dystel

Love you
Jackie. Barrett.

As co-chair of the conference, I just want to mention that several members came up to me at the conference and volunteered that you were wonderful and we should invite you again. I can see why they were so impressed after reading your post (I had to miss the panel to man the registration desk).

My hope is that the issues raised at the roundtable (and here) don’t get buried in the furor. I see such a strong opportunity for new partnerships between authors and agents to develop. Agencies like Dystel & Goderich and others obviously see those opportunities, too.

It seems like the conversation could get much more interesting if agents clearly understand why so many authors are embracing the self-publishing possibilities:

1 – the $$. Yes, I don’t make enough on my self published books to impress certain agents. However, it is enough to allow me to concentrate on writing and forgo a day job (and pay for my daughter’s recent wedding). That is a huge incentive to me (and makes signing a deal with a publisher that includes restrictions on my self publishing unattractive).

2. the long tail. I love Chris Anderson (we had him speak at NINC several years ago, and his take on the long tail changed my perspective as an author). Right now I can put my self published books on as many platforms as I choose, promote them when I choose, and give them years of discoverability (as well as an appealing price for readers who haven’t yet tried one of my novels). I can break into foreign markets and audio if I think that will be a successful move for my books.

3. Abundance thinking vs scarcity thinking. For so long, publishing has been dominated by scarcity thinking (only so clients to an agent, only so many books published by a publisher, only so many shelves in a bookstore, etc). As a self published author, I can think of the abundance of possibilities for my work, with no need to spend time trying to convince an agent, then an editor, then an editorial team, then a bookseller. I write the book I want to write, I use a team to make it the best book it can be, I put it out there and let readers decide (knowing full well this can be as painful as letting agents/editors decide

4. Bestsellerdom. Most of the authors I know are terrified of being stuck in the midlist, because that means less advance money, less publisher support, less bookseller enthusiasm, less sell-through. In my self-publishing, I’m happy to be midlist. I am awed by Bella Andre, Barbara Freethy, and M. J. Rose. But I do not need to have their readership numbers to be satisfied. If my readership is smaller, that’s okay. Not every book can be a mega bestseller, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a solid readership who will love it. Publishers have a harder time with that right now, because they’re all about growing the bottom line profit. After a dozen years and a dozen traditionally published books, I’m happy to just have a regular income that lets me head to the computer to create without the worry about how to pay the bills.

This is a complete sea change in authorial perspective. But the opportunities for agents to partner with writers in new and exciting ways can actually be better because of this new perspective. Or so I believe.

As I’ve said before, Amazon is a warehouse and Smashwords is a distributor to other warehouses. The review and ranking system on both Amazon and Goodreads are more abused by spite reviews and cyberbullies than authors reviewing other authors, or family, who are of the honest opinion the book is wonderful, because it was written.

Thankfully, the changing industry allows books that are not written for the mass market to be published. Literary art is being revived and renewed, but who will say, “This book is more?” Where are the boutiques and galleries for works that are? Is there a book the equivalent of Ursula Leguin’s great work languishing under a batch of one and two-star reviews, because it’s not mass-market oriented? Where are the boutiques and galleries, for those looking for more depth and complexity, for fine art?