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Originally Posted by Havlen 
Third, if you go through all the available publishers and then try to find an agent you are going to have a tougher time of it. An agent might not want to take on a manuscript that has already been submitted to half the publishers. |
Havlen makes a great point. Agents usually earn 10% as their commission from your profits (That's the way it should be, no out of pocket fees!!). They have to exclude this, of course, if you manage to find yourself a contract without their aid. And if you've already solicited to anyone who will take you, especially the big ones, then you're narrowing the agents field to work in with less chance for pay.
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Originally Posted by Havlen First, a publisher has two standard ways of getting new material: Through agented submissions and through the 'slush' pile. The chances of finding something in the slush pile is roughly 1 in 1,000. Thinking in terms of an editor, this means going through the slush pile is checking through a haystack for a needle when you have another stack (agented submissions) with a *lot* less hay in it. (More than likely it will be a junior agent or intern going through that stack anyways.) |
Oh, the slush pile! I think it's a wonderful thing actually. Though, I could see why publishing houses find it so daunting. Back on track now. Also, with agented submissions, the work tends to be cleaner, closer to the publishing stage. My thought on that is because agents wont stick their reputations on the line with a grammatical-error ridden, wrongly formatted manuscript. A few of the agents I querried wouldn't even consider seeing my manuscript unless it was proffessionally line edited (Which would have run between 700-1,500+ american dollars).