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Originally Posted by Paramour  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. |
Actually, the standard commission is 15% Domestic/20% Foreign. (I believe foreign really means anything requiring a subagent.) And excluding the commission if you manage to find a contract without their aid is not always correct. There are many people who get a contract and *then* find an agent.
If you have an agent, get a contract on your own, and don't want their help in negotiating it, then (depending on what you signed with your agent) the commission might be excluded -- though the only reason I can think of for someone still submitting the manuscript when they have an agent is if the agent had gone through all the standard publishers already.
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Originally Posted by Paramour 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). |
Many agents will work with the writer to make the manuscript better (both in story and in writing). Odd that you would have some that suggested getting it professionally line-edited though. Except for the scam of sending you to a specific editor, I don't think that is very common. But it could be -- I'm not a big expert on these things -- but it seems to me if an agent thought something was poorly written they'd simply pass.